Tonight's One-Act Plays Program

The play’s the thing.
A night of 10-minute and one-act plays
Dec. 1, 2011
Rowan County Arts Center
7 p.m.

All plays directed by Gary Eldridge

10-minute theatre.

Initially, you might think of this as theatre for our attention-deficit-disordered society.
In this age of rush-rush-rush twitter-mad impatience, it’s easy to see the obvious attraction of some rapid fast-food drama.
And yet, these plays are not simply an empty-calorie drive-thru combo meal to be gobbled without thought or enjoyment.
That is not what we have here at all. Like all art, these plays explore topics of life, death, love and loss.
Consider this program a nutritious six-course feast especially prepared just for you.
So tonight, slow down a little, and savor these original plays by local playwrights.

Old Man Grouch is Dead
By Robert Grueninger
In the Margins
By Kitrina Kearfott
Rare Books and Other Things
By Carol Mauriello

Brief Intermission

The Last Breakfast
By Fannie Madden-Grider
The Pictures
By Gary Eldridge
A Mountaintop Tale
By Alvin Madden-Grider

The 10-Minute Players
Gary Eldridge, Robert Grueninger, Pam Hammonds, Carol Laferty, Rhonda Logan-Bailey, Leigh Ann McBrayer, Stephen McBrayer, Alvin Madden-Grider, Carol Mauriello, Joe Sartor, Nancy Sartor, Beverly Tadlock

The Fiddler
Kitrina Kearfott

A couple minutes of thanks…
These plays were written in the fall of 2011 by writers in a Playwright Workshop led by Gary Eldridge and Carol Mauriello.

We thank them and the 10-Minute Players who have volunteered to participate in this readers’ theatre.
We also thank the Rowan County Arts Center and especially Director Rhonda Logan-Bailey for providing us with a wonderful space and gracious support.
Finally, we thank the W. Paul and Lucille Caudill Little Foundation for its generous support of the arts and this project through its Fuse the Muse grants.  And we thank Rhonda Logan-Bailey for her tireless work at the Rowan County Arts Center.

Six new plays by local playwrights in readers' theatre this Thursday at Rowan County Arts Center

This Thursday, Dec. 1, at 7 pm, a group of local playwrights will present six one--act plays as a readers' theatre at the Rowan County Arts Center, also called the old courthouse, on Main Street in Morehead. The event is free and open to the public and refreshment will be served.

Playwrights include Fannie and Alvin Madden-Grider, Carol Mauriello, Gary Eldridge, Bob Grueninger, and Katrina Kearfott. The plays will be presented as a readers' theatre, featuring local talent including Bev Tadlock, Joe an Nancy Sartor, Carol Laferty, Stephen McBrayer, Leigh Ann McBrayer and Pam Hammonds.

The plays include dramas and comedy and one features fiddle music.

"The Last Breakfast," by Fannie Madden-Grider, is a sad story about a 14-year-old girl in Pike County Kentucky in 1932 during the Great Depression who is forced to choose between leaving her little brother and sister and staying with an abusive step-mother who has pushed her to the verge of killing her. Pensive fiddle music is played live during times when the little girl,  now a 92 year old lady, narrates the tale.

Alvin Madden-Grider's play, also set in Appalachia, is a reselling from Homer's "The Oddessy," and features a mountaintop coal mine operator and a woman, a healer, who helps him to return to his true nature. A comedy with a very serious story, "A Mountaintop Tale" will have you laughing yourself out of your seat.

Katrina Kearfott's "In the Margins" is a drama exploring the relationship between a grown brother and sister who both want an inspirational book left behind by their deceased mother. As they read entries she wrote in the margins, they learn things about her and their own past.

Bob Grueninger's "Old Man Grouch Is Dead," is a morality play set at a children's summer camp.

Carol Mauriello's "Rare Books and Other Things" is about two people at a book sale who want the same book.

Gary Eldridge's "The Pictures" is a drama about tow me in their 40's talking on a park bench.

Eldridge and Mauriello led the playwriting group as part of a Fuse the Muse grant workshop which was funded by the Lucille Caudill Little Foundation.

Arts & Eats Fest a success

"Heaven must be a Kentucky kind of place."

That old saying would certainly apply to the Arts and Eats Festival in Morehead last weekend. If the weather had been any better, we would have expected angels singing and streets of gold.

As it was, there was plenty of great music, everything from rock to bluegrass to jazz. And could there be a food more celestial than funnel cake or the pastries from Bakery on Main or goodies from the Fuzzy Duck?

With friends, family, loved ones and nice out-of-town visitors, could one be any closer to paradise? And for those who love the arts, there was plenty to see and do, including plenty of artist and other demonstrations. It was great to see so much for kids to do -- facepainting, sand art and inflatables to bounce on and slide down. And lots of MSU students were in attendance as well as performing in the musical groups.

Thanks to all the organizations and volunteers who worked on this year's festival. Next year's will be bigger and better than ever.

Preparing for the Arts and Eats Festival

Tomorrow is the Arts and Eats Festival on Main Street in Morehead and I am busy, busy, busy with last minute preparations.

I'm putting together some collage pendants with very early Native American art. These primitive drawings were chiseled into rock walls in caves near Red River Gorge in Kentucky so many, many years ago. Now, they are line drawings on white paper collaged onto origami, scrapbook, and art papers. These are modern art from ancient artifacts.

I feel so honored to be able to make their art available to everyone at a price anyone can afford. And carry around to share. These pendants are made with these collages on glass, sterling silver plate bails, and sterling silver ball chains. They are also available by order with silver or gold filled chain and bails.

I have also made some new gemstone and sterling silver plate wire-wrapped pendants for this show. Can't wait to share them with everyone tomorrow.

The thing I love most about this festival is that we are a community entertaining each other, rather than relying on some multi-national corporation to entertain us. This is an ancient model of entertainment, and if you know me at all, you know I value the ancient. There will be loads of things for kids to do, us old folk doing things, musicians playing tunes near E Campus book store in genres to please all ages, arts and crafts to browse, and food, food, food. This is community celebration at its best!

People entertaining their neighbors is an ancient model and something I miss most about the years I lived on our family farm in Greenup County, Kentucky, in the '80's. Alvin and I were teaching at Shawnee State University in nearby Portsmouth, Ohio, and running the student newspaper we started there. My parents, little sister, and three brothers and their wives and kids lived there, too. The farm Mom and Dad ran has been in the family since the 1840's and had been farmed continually.

One brother farmed, too; we all had big gardens; and everyone pitched in to help on the farm. Anytime anyone needed a hand, there were many nearby. We all shared a Sunday dinner made by Mom's hands at a 10-foot-long picnic table in the yard in pretty weather and inside on other days.

The kids ran around and played afterwards while the adults drank coffee with desert and argued politics. When that wasn't fun anymore, someone would get a guitar and play and sing. Other guitars and voices would join in. Mom or Dad would tell stories of their youth or the days when they were tending a young family and building a life. World War Two times are seared into my memory as though I lived through them. Now, those stories are my memories with smells and sights and sounds so vivid that it's hard to tell the difference between them and memories of my actual experiences.

Homemade entertainment and community celebrations were the norm before mass communications. Now, they are a dying art form. I am honored to be a small part of keeping this ancient tradition alive.

The hills are alive . . .

. . . With the sound -- and sight, smell, taste, feel and motion -- of art!

Being overwhelmed with all the art opportunities in Morehead is not all that unusual.

Last night, on two different floors of the Rowan County Arts Center, groups were working on art book designs and writing 10-minute plays for performance at the end of the month.

Tomorrow afternoon, two authors of poetry and children's books will discuss publishing with MSU students, professors and community writers. Later in the evening, they will read from their works publicly.

Then, Thursday evening, a one-woman play which has been performed in NYC and around the country will be staged at the art center.

Saturday will usher in a day of arts, crafts, music and culinary arts at the Arts and Eats festival.

And all this is occurring in the shadow of the Poppy Mountain bluegrass festival, also held this week.

If all that is not enough art for you, just wait for next week's Cave Run Storytelling Festival.