Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Alley, Radio Show and More

Check out our latest Emerging Artist Studio radio features on the web! The most recent interviews spotlight Karen Bell talking with Colleen Leonardi (above) and Kal Poole. The spots air weekly on WOSU's Capital City Radio Station and are posted on the internet here.

Notable News

Are you an artist? The Arts Initiative space is issuing a call for artists' proposals for exhibitions in our Arts in the Alley gallery for 2011. Deadline is Sept 10. Check out the application here.

Stop by a gallery before the football game! The Arts in the Alley galleries will be open this Thursday, Sept 2, from 6 to 9 pm. The Arts Initiative space continues the exhibition, HumanScapes: A Sense of Place, featuring duo artists Spencer Mustine and Nick Stull. Next door, the Shoebox gallery opens a show spotlighting the Couchfire Collective. And across the alley, the Ohio Art League hosts the new show, What Would Joan Do?, with works by Cyndi Bellerose-McAfee.


Wednesday, August 11, 2010

August Art Fun in the Alley

Last Thursday evening, Arts in the Alley was hopping with visitors for our "First Thursday" gallery openings. In the Arts Initiative space, a happy crowd browsed around viewing new works by Spencer Mustine and Nick Stull (above). Their show, HumanScapes: A Sense of Place, continues through September. Both artists, says curator Kate Dowell, use abstraction to take the figure beyond simple representation, and both keep use of the figure engaging by reinterpreting a sense of place.


Throughout the evening, gallery-goers and passers-by enjoyed the artwork and live music in the alley. The Shoebox gallery hosted an opening reception for its new show, the ARTillery Invitational, with works by Ron Abram, Aby Algueseva, Waylon Bigsby, Allison Buenger, Molly Burke, Sarah Fairchild, Brittany Ference, Giovani, Joey Monsoon, Beth Nash, Tristan Seeger, Kristin Patton and Elaine Quave. And the Ohio Art League gallery (below) opened It's Complicated, with works by Clare Fox and Tara Polansky.

Surprise visitors to the alley were two British chaps straight out of the 1800s (below). Liam Cronin (left) and Dwayne Blackaller are stars of the comedy Shipwrecked, a play presented by Whistling in the Dark Theatre Company and now playing through Sunday at The Green Room in the alley. For discounted tickets, click here.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Royal Shakespeare Company Announces Five Plays for NYC in Summer 2011

Lincoln Center Festival and Royal Shakespeare Company announced yesterday that the RSC's 44-member acting ensemble will perform five Shakespeare plays at Park Avenue Armory as part of the Lincoln Center Festival, in association with The Ohio State University, next summer in New York City. The five plays are As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet , King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra and The Winter's Tale, and will be presented during a six-week engagement, July 6-Aug 14, 2011. The five plays will be performed on a specially built thrust-stage theatre -- named the Scarlet and Gray Stage for the event -- based on the RSC's newly transformed theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. (Above, Sam Troughton and Mariah Gale in Romeo and Juliet; photo: Ellie Kurttz)

The announcement appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

One New York performance will be exclusively assigned to Ohio State for "Scarlet and Gray Shakespeare" -- a national benefit gala -- on July 12, 2011 featuring the RSC's critically acclaimed Romeo and Juliet. For more details, see our website.

Notable News

This Thursday, Aug 5, Arts in the Alley comes alive from 6 to 9 pm with opening receptions for three new exhibitions, live music outdoors and free refreshments. In the Arts Initiative space, artists Nick Stull and Spencer Mustine present paintings in their show, HumanScapes: A Sense of Place (above). The Shoebox gallery hosts the ARTillery invitational, with works by Ron Abram, Aby Algueseva, Waylon Bigsby, Allison Buenger, Molly Burke, Sarah Fairchild, Brittany Ference, Giovani, Joey Monsoon, Beth Nash, Tristan Seeger, Kristin Patton and Elaine Quave. And the Ohio Art League gallery opens It's Complicated, with works by Clare Fox and Tara Polansky.

Shipwrecked, An Entertainment: The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont, by Donald Margulies, continues through Aug 15 at The Green Room, a new theatre venue at South Campus Gateway. The show, presented by Whistling in the Dark Theatre Company, is based on the true story of a shipwrecked British explorer in the late 1800s, whose adventures – along with his trusty dog Bruno – included high-seas tales of giant sea turtles, flying wombats, a man-eating octopus and Queen Victoria herself. With a focus on the power of storytelling, Shipwrecked runs Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 2 pm. Tickets are available at the door or – at a discount – online here.

The Green Room is sponsored by the Arts Initiative at Ohio State and Campus Partners. The new space, a former storefront in the Arts in the Alley area that also houses three galleries, is the summer home to Whistling in the Dark, which is breaking ground by bringing "sustainable theatre" to Columbus. The company strives to be eco-friendly and cost efficient wherever possible.