On tap this week we’re kicking off a new series of the ART TAP podcast called “Pre-Show.” Pre-Show will offer early looks at upcoming MainStage productions at Civic Theatre of Greater Lafayette. We’ll talk with directors, performers, planners, and designers and get a preview of what’s about to take the stage at the historic Monon Depot Theatre. The Play That Goes Wrong is a 2012 play by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields. It opens at Civic Theatre of Greater Lafayette on Thursday, September 8th and runs through Saturday, September 17th. Go to lafayettecivic.org for information and tickets. I spoke with some of the cast of this wonderful, ridiculous show – Annalyse Ewing (plays Annie the stage manager), Richie Stephan (plays Robert/Thomas Colleymoore), Helen Sorensen (plays Sandra/Florence Colleymoore), and Amelia Goins, who is our real-life stage manager for this play about a play-within-a-play.

ART TAP episode 111

On tap this week are the artists known collectively as Frank Muffin Band. Joining me are Brittany and Hans Rees, and Jerome Hemersbach. The Muffin group have gotten active again, in light of eased restrictions on gatherings, and recently enjoyed a DC-area trip to visit other musicians they met online during the pandemic. Their schedule is picking up this fall, and there are a number of things to look forward to. They play several tunes and share upcoming events.

ART TAP episode 110

On tap this week is a local artist who is a steady presence on the gallery and art festival scene. Rena Brouwer is a watercolorist, instructor, gallery director, and arts collaborator who is about as "Hoosier" an artist as one can get.

ART TAP episode 109

On tap this week are a pair of local singers/songwriters who are enlivening the area music scene. Justice Fuller, is a singer/songwriter who has performed throughout the Lafayette region and the Washington DC area, and who is previous Mike Lane Horizon songwriting award winner – and Lauren Grace is an 17-year-old Lafayette-area songwriter who won the Shirley Martin Scholarship in 2018 and has since gone on to become a well-recognized talent in the region. Both perform for the podcast.

ART TAP episode 108

On tap this week is director, set designer, painter, performer, and also Assistant Director of Economic Development for the City of Lafayette, Indiana, John David Collier. We talk about the thrills and challenges of participating in community theatre. John’s experience with Civic Theatre has run for 35 years and 93 productions now.

ART TAP episode 107

On tap this week… is one of my most fun friends, singer and performer Caitlin Cotten Benner. Caitlin is perhaps the closest living embodiment of an actual Disney princess I know, keeping that spirit of discovery and joy alive in the air around her. We talk about the challenges of social distancing when working with students as a representative of Purdue Bands, and as a creative individual and performer. But some “low effort creativity” Instagram posts and a new venture as a writer has enlivened her.

ART TAP episode 106

On tap this week… is one of my most valued creative friends, playwright Kelly McBurnette-Andronicos. She was, oddly enough, on the last episode of ART TAP in April of 2020 – the one that convinced me it was too hard to conduct a podcast that way. It wasn’t her fault – it was the logistics that proved too interruptive to me. We talk about the challenges of trying to be creative in a pandemic, and reading and formulating thoughts in an era of social distancing. She suspects her writing will be different in the aftermath, but she doesn’t know exactly how yet…

ART TAP episode 105

On tap this week are two of my most valued arts friends, ceramist and sculptor Siggy Zahner and playwright Kelly McBurnette-Andronicos. Both are deeply insightful and inventive artists, both bring unique and confrontational imagery to their work, and both are outspoken feminists. We talk about the experiences and challenges of women in the arts, the role of the artist in social quarantine, and working through, or choosing to observe instead, the era of social distancing.

ART TAP episode 104

On tap this week is an assessment of what we’re going to be missing, in light of Coronavirus concerns that are forcing cancellations of arts and culture events, as well as all other public gatherings and activities, throughout our region and across the country. Notifications from Lafayette-West Lafayette cultural groups are shared.

ART TAP episode 103

On tap this week are my friends, artists and retired teachers Stephanie Funcheon and LuAnn Lamie. These longtime friends and colleagues reminisce on teaching in the arts, former notable students, the state of education then and now, and the decisions in our young lives that led us to become artists.

ART TAP episode 102

On tap this week is my friend, Richard Stockton Rand, actor, director, choreographer, writer, and Professor and Coordinator of Undergraduate Theatre Studies in the Department of Theatre at Purdue University, where he specializes in acting and movement. We discuss the upcoming production of “Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches” by Tony Kushner he’s directing for Purdue Theatre. And we address the challenges faced during the AIDS crisis, as well as the continuing challenge of awareness we face today for the crisis and its societal effects.

ART TAP episode 101

On tap this week are director Laurie Russell, choreographer Brian Kocher, and actor Kate Walker, all working to bring to the Civic Theatre stage a magnificent production of Mamma Mia! We have some laughs while recounting the experience of rehearsing and planning the show, which is nearly completely sold out at this point and will be quite the spectacle.

ART TAP episode 100

On tap this week, local journalists and artists Cindy Gerlach, Amy Long, and Jeff Smith. We share some cocktails, some discussion of recent and coming arts events and movies, “old things in a new way,” favorite artists and visual experiences, “who understands art better than a six-year-old?,” a coming 30-Day Arts Challenge, jumping the shark, etc.

ART TAP episode 099

On tap this week is the author of more than a dozen novels and numerous short stories, who happens to make his home right here in Lafayette-West Lafayette – Jonathan Janz. We talk about the appeal of scary stories, outlets of fear, allowing yourself to suck, being a “psychic vampire” in a historic place, and a life of creative writing.

ART TAP episode 098

On tap this week is local musician, singer-songwriter Scott Greeson. We talk about his overcoming dyslexia through the inspiration of music, the Songwriters Association of Mid-North Indiana (SAMI), a new nonprofit recording studio at the Tippecanoe Arts Federation achieved with a North Central Health Services grant, and a unique presentation coming up with Dr. Will Miller. 

ART TAP episode 097

On tap this week are some thoughts on the Art Biz, from the perspective of an artist new to the commerce of social media art sales.

ART TAP episode 096

On tap this week are members of the cast and crew of Dead Man’s Cell Phone, by Sarah Ruhl, presented from November 1st through 16th at Civic Theatre of Greater Lafayette.  I sat down with my castmates (I played the titular dead man) on closing night of the production to get their thoughts on community theatre and reactions to the show.  We talk about wrestling with “odd” and very avant-garde scripts and sharing our fun with audiences.

ART TAP episode 095

On tap this week are members of local band Frank Muffin.  With me are Brittany Rees, Hans Rees, and Jerome Hemersbach.  The Muffin group will be presenting the next of their annual album tribute concerts, this time celebrating Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, to be staged on Saturday, November 9th at 7:30 pm at Lafayette Theatre.  The band plays a number from Rumours, as well as an original number, and talks about a project coming in 2020.

ART TAP episode 094

On tap this week is Tippecanus Rex, with guest author and reader, local arts supporter, and yarn-spinner extraordinaire Shelley Lowenberg-DeBoer.  Shelley and I read a couple of stories from Lafayette’s earlier and wilder days, highlighting more of the background of Ginger Wigglemann and a new discovery, the enigmatic Percy Hare.  

ART TAP episode 093

On tap this week is local teacher, actor, and improv performer Stephanie Bosma.  Stephanie works with young people in the classroom and now in the theatre, as well as being a terrific comedic performer herself.  And she’s directing a Civic Youth Theatre show, The Phantom Tollbooth by Susan Nanus, based on the book by Norton Juster, opening this Friday, October 4th.

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