Ready for Ambassadorship
After an early-morning Saturday warm-up in the studios at the Mississippi Art Commission building, a group of young Ballet Mississippi dancers breaks off into small factions, transforming into chattery teenage …
The Women of Ivy Gap
It all begins with the parting of dark purple velvet curtains, revealing the yellow-green walls of the fellowship hall of the First Baptist Church of Ivy Gap. Littered about the …
The Questioning Soul
What do you do when you're not sure? This question looms over New Stage Theater's production of John Patrick Shanley's 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning "Doubt," but don't expect any easy answers.
Winter Arts Preview: Event Listings
<b>Stage & Screen
The concrete, steel and glass building seems unfinished, with the rawness of unformed clay. The gravel drive and rust-colored patina on the sign lettering adds to the feeling that this …
Judge Not the Hairy Paw
The Fondren Theatre Workshop will take over the former Radio Shack space at Meadowbrook Mart this weekend for a production of Charles Ludlam's camp-Gothic penny dreadful "The Mystery of Irma …
Rocky Horror Picture Show Virgin's Guide
In Rocky Horror Picture Show parlance, a "virgin" is anyone who's never seen RHPS (that's "Rocky Horror Picture Show," the movie) in a theater. Seeing it on TV doesn't count …
Dreaming Through Adversity
"What happens to a dream deferred?" asks Langston Hughes in his poem "Harlem." "Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?/Or fester like a sore—/And then run?"
New Stage Anticipates Coming Season
New Stage Theater is quiet. Artistic director Francine Reynolds sits in the lobby at a hardtop table littered with yellow acting class flyers. She is thoughtful, mirroring the calm anticipation …
Ballet Magnificat!
In 1986 when Kathy Thibodeaux and her husband, Keith, decided to start a Christian ballet company, people thought they were crazy. At the time, Kathy, a silver medalist in the …
Men We Love
With Father's Day just around the corner, the Jackson Free Press has renewed its annual tradition of honoring the men we love. They are activists, news men, politicians, espresso Dadaists …
Summer Arts Preview
A sweltering Mississippi summer is the perfect time to find something creative to do to get your mind off the heat and humidity–preferably, something indoors, at least until the sun …
So Cynical I Could Cry
Like Vincent Van Gogh and Jackson Pollack, few recognized the artistic genius of Hiram "Hank" Williams while he was alive. He was only 29 when he died in 1953, on …
Bananas and Peanuts
Buff, good-looking Rus Blackwell lay on the floor like an overturned bug, feet flailing in the air. Wild-eyed, Turner Crumbley was on his knees staring intently at Blackwell's crotch. "Push, …
Spring Arts Preview
Thoughts of spring conjure up all sorts of images: girls frolicking, and making dandelion necklaces under rainbows ; afternoon mists that force teens to sit on the front porch with …
Yearning for Home
When I was a child, we spent summers in the Catskill Mountains, where my mother ran a beauty shop. My father would drive up from Manhattan to join us on …
