House of Blues Art Exhibit, Capitol Steps, lectures and concerts highlight Fanfare's second week

Capitol Steps
Contact: Tonya Lowentritt
Date: September 28, 2012

THE CAPITOL STEPS RETURNS TO FANFARE – The wildly popular comedy troupe The Capitol Steps, a Fanfare favorite, returns to Southeastern Louisiana University's Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts for one performance only on Oct. 10 at 7:30 p.m. as part of the second week of Fanfare, the university's month long celebration of the arts, humanities and social sciences.

 

     HAMMOND – The 12th annual International House of Blues Foundation Art Exhibit, the return of Fanfare favorite The Capitol Steps, plus musical concerts and lectures, are just some of the events on tap for the second week of Southeastern Louisiana University's Fanfare, a month long celebration of the arts.

     The House of Blues Foundation Art Exhibit officially opens on Wednesday, Oct. 10, at 11 a.m. in the Grand Lobby of the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts. Each year area students create artwork using "found" or recycled materials. The artists are encouraged to depict significant events that have shaped their lives and world.

     The free exhibit will remain on display each Monday through Friday in October from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. through Nov. 9.

     The 2010 Southeastern Alumnus of the Year, Donald George, associate professor of voice at State University of New York – Potsdam, will return to campus for a concert on Monday, Oct.8, at 7:30 p.m. in Pottle Auditorium. The free concert will feature the vocal music of such women composers as Margaret Ruthven Lang, Mathilde von Kralik, and Mary McAuliffe, among others, as well as informative verbal commentary, said Kenneth Boulton, Fine and Performing Arts interim department head.

     Always a Fanfare favorite, The Capitol Steps makes a return to the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts on Oct. 10 at 7:30 p.m. The comedy troupe began as a group of Senate staffers who set out to satirize the very people and places that once employed them.

     Since they began, The Capitol Steps has recorded over 30 albums, including their latest, "Take the Money and Run – for President." They have been featured on NBC, CBS, ABC and PBS and can be heard four times a year on National Public Radio stations nationwide during their "Politics Takes a Holiday" radio specials.

     Tickets are available through the Columbia Theatre box office at 220 E. Thomas Street in downtown Hammond, 985-543-4371, or on line at www.columbiatheatre.org.

     Also at the Columbia Theatre, world famous Dutch composer and conductor Johan de Meij will join Southeastern's acclaimed Wind Symphony in presenting two concerts entitled "Planet Earth" on Sunday, Oct. 14, at the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts at 2 and 6 p.m.

     de Meij will share conducting duties with Professor of Music Glen Hemberger, conductor and artistic director of the Southeastern Wind Symphony. The two concerts will serve as fundraisers for the Wind Symphony's trip to Chicago next March, where the ensemble will be one of four international wind bands performing at the Percy Aldridge Grainger Wind Band Festival.

     Reserved tickets are available through the Columbia Theatre Box Office, (985) 543-4371, or online at columbiatheatre.org.

     Fanfare's second week also includes:

▪ Alumnae guest artist Elizabeth Ann Chase will give the visiting artist lecture on Oct. 8 at noon in the Southeastern Contemporary Art Gallery. The gallery will present a selection of self-portrait paintings by Chase, whose oil paintings are intimate and expressive, focused on the physical and psychological composition of the human body.

▪ Southeastern faculty members David Armand and Jack Bedell will present the first lecture in the series Louisiana Connections: Fiction and Poetry Readings by English Department Faculty on Oct. 9 at 12:30 p.m. in D Vickers, room 383.

▪ The Spanish film with English subtitles "Talk to Her," will be shown Oct. 9, 5 p.m., in the Student Union Theatre. The lives of two men are irrevocably entwined by fate. As the men wage vigil over the women they love, the story unfolds in flashback and flash forward as the lives of the four are further entwined and their relationship moves toward a surprising conclusion. Co-sponsored by the Department of Languages and Communication, the free film is rated R with a running time of 114 minutes.

▪ A "Then and Now" lecture on "The American Presidency: A Truly Peculiar Institution" will be presented by Stanford University History Professor David Kennedy, Oct. 10, 11 a.m., in Pottle Music Building Auditorium. Just four weeks before the 2012 election, the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University will discuss the American presidency.

▪ Visiting artist Bryce Brisco will present a lecture in the Southeastern Contemporary Art Gallery on Oct. 11 at 2 p.m. Brisco is the Clay Artist-in-Residence at the Appalachian Center for Craft.

▪ Forum on Milestones – Forty Miles of Courage 120 Years Later presents "Is Jim Crow Dead or Just Sleeping? Plessy vs. Ferguson, Brown vs. Topeka, and 21st Century America" on Oct. 11 at 11 a.m. in the Teacher Education Center Lecture Hall, room 1022. A panel of historians and political scientists will discuss the significance of the United States Constitution, American politics, and civil rights of two landmark Supreme Court decisions: Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) and Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education (1954).

     Fanfare tickets are on sale at the Columbia/Fanfare box office, 220 E. Thomas Street, 985-543-4371. The box office is open Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. and one hour prior to Columbia performances. For a complete schedule, contact the Columbia/Fanfare office at 985-543-4366 or visit columbiatheatre.org.



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