Feb 09
Becca MartinUncategorized
Truth be told, I’ve never had any real desire to see “Mamma Mia.”
Sure, I grew up with the music of Abba. But I just couldn’t imagine it wrapped around a sappy romance.
Then I “met” Kaye Tuckerman.
Tuckerman is playing Donna Sheridan in the touring production that is stopping this week at the Walton Arts Center. We “spoke” via Facebook, and even in her messages, she was charming, eloquent, fascinating and powerful.
She’s the reason I left the house tonight.
Wow! Was it ever worth it!
Tuckerman was all that I expected, with a beautiful and powerful voice and a stage presence that kept all eyes on her. What I didn’t expect — and should have — was the intensity she brought to the character. If you’ve ever been in love, been dumped, been lonely or felt the bittersweet joy of watching your child grow up, you can feel every emotion with her.
Even more surprising was how mucn I enjoyed the story, which weaves in Abba’s lyrics seamlessly.
There is so much more to say — about the singing, about the dancing, about the wonderfully versatile set, about the orchestra, and perhaps I’ll elaborate tomorrow. But I wanted to be the first to tell you that, whether you’re 5 or 95, you’ll laugh, you’ll sing along, you’ll wipe away a tear or two — and you’ll leave the theater with a spring in your step!
Cynic turned fan. Enough said.
Australian-born actress Kaye Tuckerman, center, parlayed a passion for performing into playing the iconic role of Donna Sheridan in “Mamma Mia.”
Feb 08
Becca MartinUncategorized
“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” opens Friday at Rogers Little Theater.
“It’s colorful. It’s lively. And it holds your attention,” director Ed McClure says of the production, part of the silver anniversary season of revivals at RLT. “It’s just one of those shows people like.”
Here’s what Josh Jones has to say about reprising his role as Joseph:
Q. What is the biggest challenge of your role? Has it changed since the last time?
A. Because I am reprising this terrific role, I think the biggest challenge is trying to make the character of “Joseph” bigger and better than I did before. The role hasn’t necessarily changed from the first time I portrayed “Joseph,”, but now that I am older, I seem to better appreciate the minor comedic bits in the musical dialogue and find the deeper meaning in the great tragedies and dilemmas that “Joseph” faced; it’s easy for the story to get lost in the fast-paced excitement of the vivid production…this time, I’m making sure that “Joseph” is more of a bright character than an onlooker. I also have to say that the terrific cast is pumping up the volume to ensure that the reprise of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” is bigger, brighter and more colorful than ever before!
Q. What do you think makes this show so popular?
Courtesy Old Hat Studios Joshua Derek Jones, center, is Joseph and, clockwise from bottom center, Michael Gann, Adam Powell, Spencer Thompson, Christopher Junkerman, Travis Mitchell, Ty Wagner, Christopher Roderick, Tyler Volz and Randall Lothes are his brothers in Rogers Little Theater’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
A. This show is called” Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” and it follows suit. The less than 2-hour show is an absolute technicolor production from bright costumes, high-energy dancing, and nonstop colorful music that ranges from disco fever, Elvis-esque bebops, Western and Reggae, and heartfelt power ballads. Not only does it have a universal and family-friendly theme that EVERYONE can enjoy, I believe the audience can feel the enthusiasm the cast has for being on stage and simply having a wonderful time!
Read more about the show Friday in this week’s What’s Up!
FAQ
‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’
WHEN — 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Sunday & again Feb. 17-20 & Feb. 24-27
WHERE — Rogers Little Theater’s Victory Theater in downtown Rogers
COST — $9.50-$42
INFO — 631-8988
Jan 27
Becca MartinUncategorized
Kindred spirits don’t need to share demographics. Ryan and I — many years apart in age, religion, music, everything — started out sharing a passion for the vaudeville art of professional wrestling. We ended up being the best of friends — for the rest of his life.
Ryan was born eight weeks prematurely on Aug. 24, 1984. He weighed only 3 pounds, 10 ounces, was in the neonatal intensive care unit for 35 days and went home on a heart monitor. At 7 months, he was diagnosed with quadriplegic spastic cerebral palsy.
In simple terms, that means Ryan has never been able to do a lot of things for himself. Although the cause is different, his disability looks a lot like the challenges made famous by the late actor Christopher “Superman” Reeve. He can communicate with one-word questions and answers and uses a DynaVox device that supplies prerecorded phrases. But without assistance, he can’t read a book, drink a Dr Pepper or go to the restroom.
What he has always been able to do is enjoy life.
Ryan is ornery. It’s that simple. He has a grin that lights up the room, but there’s also a twinkle in his eye when he’s planning a joke. In one word — the best he can do without the DynaVox — he can say a paragraph. Done something stupid? “Odd.” Ready for you to leave? “Home” — as in “You should go there.” Cute girl? “Hot.”
But Ryan is also a compassionate and caring friend. When he was first hospitalized, his “caregiver” — my sweetie — was taken ill at Ryan’s bedside. It was a diabetes thing, and it soon passed. But while he was waiting for the meds to kick in, Ryan asked, “You?” every few minutes. Translation: “You okay?”
The big word in the hospital, however, was “Meet.” He wanted every nurse who came in to meet his family, meet his caregiver, meet his friends. He was proud when I introduced myself as his friend — not because I’m anything special but because he was teaching the hospital staff the same lesson he’s taught people his whole life: “Even though I am trapped in this wheelchair, in a body that doesn’t work worth a darn, I am still a complete human being. Just. Like. You.”
Ryan should have been a football star and the handsome high school homecoming king every girl swooned over. It’s easy to think he got cheated in the deal he got. But Ryan has taught a lot of people a lot of things. His brother John told me that he knew all he needed to know about parenthood from helping raise his beloved little brother. The folks at Arkansas Support Network have learned about determination and bravery and how the desire for an ordinary life transcends disabilities. Even the professional wrestlers Ryan admires have heard his story, and they have returned that admiration many times over.
Right now, with Ryan in hospice care, the rest of us are learning from his mom and dad. Parents should never have to face the loss of a child. It is simply not the natural order of things. I am in awe of their strength and their resolve to take care of not just their son but everyone else around them.
I am old enough to be Ryan’s mom, and I too feel keenly the injustice of him going while I stay. There is so much of life he should get to experience — more wrestling shows and road trips, more laughter, more friends, more fun. (Larry wanted to teach Ryan to fish. Honestly, I can’t see it going well, but Ryan might have humored his buddy and gone anyway!) Instead, we have to say goodbye.
There is no way my words can do justice to this man — funny, smart, caring, compassionate, stubborn, loving, ornery, handsome. So these will have to do. As Ryan told one of his friends: You. Me love.
Ryan has a grin that lights up the room.
Oct 25
Becca MartinUncategorized
This story appeared Oct. 22 in the What’s Up section. It’s “reprinted” here for folks interested in the Broadway-hit musical.
STAFF PHOTO ANDY SHUPE Sara Jane Robinson and Liam Selvey are the narrators and Greek chorus in “Urinetown,” on stage this week at University Theatre.
By Becca Bacon Martin
bmartin@nwaonline.com
Take a squirt of “Sweeney Todd,” add a drizzle of “Singin’ in the Rain,” mix in a whiz-bang of slapstick melodrama, put a timely and serious message at the heart of the play and wrap it in a candy coating of comedy.
That’s “Urinetown” — the musical, not the place, a difference immediately pointed out in the University Theatre production.
Within the play, being exiled to Urinetown is literally the end of the world. Even though it doesn’t have a happy ending, the musical promises to make audiences laugh at its premise — that people in this dystopian society must pay to use public restrooms — and at the same time, think about its message — that if mankind doesn’t take better care of the planet, the future could be this bleak.
“I think audiences will receive it on their own terms, and many people will enjoy it just based on its entertainment value,” says director Kate Frank. “But by end of the show, many people will be asking themselves what we should be doing now to prevent this dark scenario.”
“Urinetown,” which opens at University Theatre tonight, won three Tonys when it premiered on Broadway in 2001. Frank says it was selected for the UA season because “it’s so funny and so clever, the music is so wonderful, and students were so enthusiastic about doing it.”
“There’s a lot of different musical styles, and it all has to be very strong and very tight, because it’s a parody of musical theater,” she adds.
On a set that could have been designed for “Rent” or “Avenue Q,” the show opens with an immediate shattering of the fourth wall. That interactive style is perfect for Liam Selvey, who plays Officer Lockstock, the play’s narrator.
Selvey explains that he started juggling and doing comedy with his father, Harmless T. Jester, when he was 9 and was a street performer until he enrolled in the UA drama department at 23.
In “Urinetown,” “there’s a more direct relationship with the audience, and that’s always been fun for me.”
He introduces Officer Lockstock with “authority and gravity to his words, like a 1950s-public-service-announcement kind of police officer,” but the comic character soon turns sinister.
“‘Urinetown’ plays with the idea that nobody is good or bad,” Selvey says. “You see the stereotypes right away, but those lines get blurred as the play goes along — and that arc is really exciting to follow.”
Penelope Pennywise, proprietor of Urine Good Company’s Public Amenity No. 9, is clearly a villain, says Echo Sibley, a second-year MFA actor from Eureka Springs.
Already armed with a master’s degree in vocal performance and working on a second master’s in acting, Sibley “was excited about playing an older woman who has some bitterness to her,” and besides, she says, she knew she wanted to sing her favorite song in the show, “It’s a Privilege to Pee.”
Like many of the characters, Miss Pennywise ultimately has a change of heart. Hero Bobby Strong does not.
“It’s very easy for me to relate to Bobby,” says Jim Goza, a Fayetteville native and UA senior. “The show carries a lot of strong economic and corporate and political undertones, and I myself am rather active in those areas.”
Goza draws corollaries between the water crisis in “Urinetown” and “big oil” in real life, and like Bobby Strong, he intends to take a stand, traveling, acting and delivering the message when he gets out of school.
“I’m willing to make sacrifices and be patient.”
The denizens of “Urinetown” are not, and that brings the play to its dramatic conclusion.
“The playwright really says that we don’t have the capacity to change to save ourselves,” director Kate Frank says. “But I think saying that so darkly provokes the audience to disagree.”
Oct 22
Becca MartinUncategorized
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A brown pelican waits for a snack at the St. Petersburg pier.
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The St. Pete skyline as seen from the pier.
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St. Petersburg, Fla., wasn’t as beachy as I expected. And it didn’t seem as historic, as venerable, as New Orleans. That surprised me, too. (But only because I hadn’t done my homework. It wasn’t incorporated until 1892.)
Nestled on a peninsula between Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, St. Pete — as everyone calls it — was sunny and mild in early October, a welcome get-away from that sudden cold snap in Northwest Arkansas. I saw only a tiny part of what I wanted to see: I was there on business. With my boss. And a raft of observant journalists at the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors. Made it hard to sneak away!
Here’s what I did see:
— There’s a trolley route around downtown that lets you sample the history and architecture of St. Pete without walking. And it’s only 25 cents every time you get on! It will also take you from your hotel to the pier, some of the museums and lots of restaurants.
— The water is beautiful — and cold! At least it was on Spa Beach near the pier. If you’re expecting the vast beaches of the Florida coastline, you’ll be disappointed; they’re 45 minutes away on the Gulf of Mexico. Spa Beach is about the size of a big living room.
— The sand is white and soft and perfect for walking and toe wiggling.
— The pier is an odd inverted pyramid filled with an aquarium, shops and restaurants. The burger joint on the top floor offered an amazing view of the pink-and-orange sunset over Tampa Bay. And a lot of the cuisine has a Cuban influence, a very different taste sensation from my beloved Creole and Cajun.
— Also at the pier, you can feed the brown pelicans for $5 — that’s $1 per dead fish. And probably one fish per bird, because they know who their friends are.
— St. Pete is home to one of the largest collections of art by Salvador Dali in the world. AASFE conference-goers got a 30-minute tour given by a docent with a large black suede shoe on her head. After all, Dali was a (really THE) Surrealist.
— There’s also a “Collection” of Dale Chihuly’s amazing blown glass. It’s $15 and worth every penny.
— One of my favorite stops was the verandah of the Renaissance Vinoy Hotel. The salmon-colored Mediterranean Revival building, which opened in 1925, feels a lot like the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs and the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs had a baby on the bay. It was a lovely spot for a glass of iced tea.
Like any travel story, this one is best told with pictures. Hope you enjoy as much as did!
Oct 04
Becca MartinUncategorized
I know obituaries don’t generally make it to someone’s blog. But this one is the final chapter in the saga of my dad.
Wayne Martin
Harold Wayne Martin, 75, died Sept. 29, 2010, at his home in Pettigrew.
Wayne was born Jan. 10, 1935, in Pettigrew, the only child of H.O. and Elva Martin. On Oct. 27, 1956, he married Velma June Baker, a high school classmate from Flemings Creek. They had two sons, Howard James in 1958 and Daniel Patrick in 1962.
Except for a short time working in the sheetrock business in Wichita, Kan., before he married and three years with June in La Habra, Calif., where he worked for the post office, Wayne spent his life in the hills and meadows of Madison County. He cut and hauled timber and raised chickens and cattle as business ventures, hunted and trapped as hobbies and was a member of the Masonic Lodge. He also spent many hours giving back to his neighbors, serving as a First Responder and as a reserve deputy for the Madison County Sheriff’s Department. In 2007, he was honored as Reserve Deputy of the Year.
When the Mooney-Barker Drug Store, which belonged to his grandmother, Helen Mooney Barker, was sold at auction in 1986, Wayne began a friendship with the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale that would last the rest of his life. He always worked to preserve the history of Pettigrew, whether that meant raising funds for the school turned community building, visiting schools to speak, donating or loaning pieces of the past for exhibits at the museum or spearheading Pettigrew Day, the annual homecoming and celebration of the town’s boom days at the turn of the 20th century.
In the last months of his life, Wayne compiled a pictorial book, “Pettigrew, Arkansas: Hardwood Capital of the World,” his final collaboration with the Shiloh Museum. It was completed in time for Pioneer Day on Sept. 11, 2010, in St. Paul.
Wayne is survived by his wife, June, of the home; his sons, Dan of Fayetteville and Jim of Van Buren; three daughters-in-law, Carla Gray Martin of Fayetteville, Brenda Seaton Martin of Van Buren and Becca Bacon Martin of Fayetteville; three grandchildren, Amanda, Patrick and Hannah; and a host of family and friends.
Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 2, 2010, in the chapel of Brashears Funeral Home with Larry Joe Johnson, minister, officiating. Interment will be in the Brashears Cemetery under the direction of Brashears Funeral Home of Huntsville.
Pallbearers will be Chuck Stout, Darren Pavis, Jim Ferguson, Dan Engel, Simon Keck and Jody Keck. Honorary pallbearers will be the staff of the Madison County Sheriff’s Department.
The family will receive friends from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 1, 2010, at the funeral home.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History.
Sep 27
Becca MartinUncategorized
To everything
There is a season
And a time to every purpose, under heaven.
Thanks to “the boys in black,” whom some of you remember from my print column, I got a high school “do-over” — and it was everything I wanted the first time to be!
In this incarnation, I was one of the cool kids, hanging out with a rock band in a hip, trendy loft studio. (OK, it was the attic of a threadbare old barn in Avoca, but these are my memories, thank you.) We did theater, took road trips, listened to the roaring thump of metal music and dissected the deeper meaning of the lyrics — yes, there are lyrics; you just can’t understand them without the CliffsNotes — swam in the lake, cooked out, dressed in kilts and swarmed the Kansas City Renaissance Festival.
I can’t remember ever having more fun.
But all good things must end, and eventually my retarded psyche and I grew out of “high school.” The all-night parties and never-fulfilled dreams began to seem a little silly and kind of depressing, and I moved on to the “college” part of my journey and a tiny little brick and cement-block apartment, which I shared with about a million local representatives of the Cockroach Nation.
There I learned to take care of myself, something neither my mother nor my husband ever taught me. I paid the bills, fixed the car, argued with the landlady over broken heaters, air conditioners and toilets. In other words, I ceased to be a spoiled brat and learned to row my own boat (with help from my friends to stay afloat).
Then “college” was over, and I moved across town to my first real apartment and began to enjoy more grown-up pastimes, like gardening, sewing, cooking and peace.
Yes, it is weird that all this started after two decades of marriage, but better late than never, I guess. And now, finally feeling a little like an adult, I am about to start the quest to buy a house for my daughter, a man whom I love and can be loved in return — and me and my stuff! It won’t be the beautiful Queen Anne Victorian Dan and I had, but it will be beautiful to me, and I hope to fill it with peace and love — no cockroaches or metal music allowed.
This grown-up thing feels weird, like your first high heels. But I think I’ll keep practicing until I can walk.
Sep 24
Becca MartinUncategorized
Seen a ghost? The Shiloh Museum of Ozark History, KUAF and Northwest Arkansas Newspapers want to hear your story.
From 2 to 4 p.m. Oct. 17, the museum will host “Ozark Ghost Stories Retold,” a chance for folks from around Northwest Arkansas to share their experiences. The event will be taped for a museum podcast, a KUAF segment and a Halloween story in Northwest Arkansas Newspapers.
“We’re looking for personal experiences,” says Becca Bacon Martin, coordinator of the event and assistant features editor for Northwest Arkansas Newspapers. “We’re not interested in whether the story can somehow be ‘documented,’ just that the teller believes his tale is true.”
Among those who plan to participate are author Abby Burnett and members of Paranormal Ozarks Investigations. Listeners are also welcome.
Find out more by e-mailing bmartin@nwaonline.com.
(BTW: I have heard some of the stories that will be told, and they will raise the hair on the back of your neck!)
Sep 20
Becca MartinUncategorized
Some columns just bear repeating…
Author Robert Heinlein Credited for Life Lessons
Robert Heinlein, the father of science fiction, almost certainly didn’t consider excerpts from the notebooks of his most famous character, Lazarus Long, “resolutions.” He denied they were wisdom, for that matter. But his approach to life has colored so many of my attitudes about so many things, and what he wrote in “Time Enough for Love” (1973) is better advice than anything I could ever think up myself.
So, with hat tipped to the late Mr. Heinlein, who is, I hope, bellied up to a bar somewhere in Boondock, I give you these borrowed words to live by:
— Certainly the game is rigged. Don’t let that stop you; if you don’t bet, you can’t win.
— Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done, and why. Then do it.
— Delusions are often functional. A mother’s opinions about her children’s beauty, intelligence, goodness, etc., ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.
— If you don’t like yourself, you can’t like other people.
— Avoid making irrevocable decisions while tired or hungry. (Circumstances can force your hand. So think ahead!)
— A woman is not property, and husbands who think otherwise are living in a dreamworld.
— A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
— The more you love, the more you can love — and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love.
— You live and learn. Or you don’t live long.
— Do not handicap children by making their lives easy.
— Always tell her she is beautiful, especially if she is not.
— Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget, awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity.
— Another ingredient for a happy marriage: Budget the luxuries first!
— And still another: See to it that she has her own desk — then keep your hands off it!
— And another: In a family argument, if it turns out you are right — apologize at once!
— Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other ‘sins’ are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful — just stupid.)
Amen, brother!
Sep 15
Becca MartinUncategorized
(A column from my first days of apartment living)
Fictional ‘Barefoot in the Park’ Not Far From Fact
As ridiculous as it seems, I have never before lived in an apartment. But I am fascinated by the people who do.
Of course, my views on apartment living were colored by a couple of things: The only apartments in my hometown were A) the ones for senior citizens, in a three-story building we strangely enough called “the high-rise,” and B) odd little cubbyholes tucked away in rambling old houses.
The latter were usually occupied by college students or single women wild enough to move out on their own. Nice girls stayed home until they were married – and so did most of the nice (if apron-string bound) boys.
Oh, but I knew what big-city apartments were like, because one of my favorite movies was the Neil Simon classic, “Barefoot in the Park.” Paul and Corie Bratter (played by the very young Robert Redford and Jane Fonda) lived in a New York walk-up, surrounded by some of the most interesting neighbors:
“Well, like to start with, in apartment 1C are the Boscos — Mr. and Mrs. J. Bosco. Mr. and Mrs. J. Bosco are a lovely young couple who just happen to be of the same sex, and no one knows which one that is.
In apartment 3C live Mr. and Mrs. Gonzales, Mr. and Mrs. Armandariz and Mr. Calhoun — who must be the umpire.
No one knows who lives in apartment 4D. No one has come in or gone out in three years, except every morning there are nine empty cans of tuna fish outside the door… It sounds like a big cat with a can opener!
Oh yes, I forgot. Mr. Velasco. Victor Velasco. He lives in apartment 6A. It’s an attic. He also skis and climbs mountains. He’s 58 years old, and he’s known as ‘The Bluebeard of 48th Street.’ It either means he’s a practicing girl-attacker or else he’s an old man with a blue beard.
It’s not going to be a dull two years.”
Whenever guests came to visit the Bratters, the multi-story climb left them gasping for breath. It snowed through the skylight. The heaters only worked if the knobs were turned backwards. The bedroom was just large enough for a bed – no floor, just a bed. And Mr. Velasco went home via the ledge outside their window, at least when he was behind on his rent.
This, to me, was apartment living in a city. I was not, apparently, too far wrong.
Since most of my friends live in apartments, I’ve gotten the chance to experience the ambiance without the rent. Next to one friend, there’s the multigenerational Confederate family whose décor is all rebel flags. Another neighbor looks like the creepy, bleached-blonde villain in “House of a Thousand Corpses.” And of course there’s the apartment that never lets its occupants move out: We see new people move in, but we never see them leave. We’ve begun to suspect it’s a portal to somewhere … well … unpleasant. (But I have high hopes for the new tenant; he’s got a statue of a saint in the yard.)
Since my exposure has been somewhat limited, I still don’t understand the social rules of apartment living: No one ever raises their blinds – but they leave their doors hanging open. Even if people pass on a 3-foot-wide walkway every day, they don’t say hello. The good trash is deposited outside the Dumpster so other people can shop through it – but it’s considered bad form to take stuff out of the Dumpster. And the boys would never swim in the pool at their Arizona apartment complex because they’d heard people got naked in it – but they grew up swimming in Beaver Lake!
Most of all, I’m amazed by the fact that – at least at one friend’s place – you can hear the people next door sneeze … and you just ignore it. I just don’t want to know strangers that well – and I certainly don’t want to know them any better!
As an only child, I grew up with a weird mix of too much time alone and my mother’s constant presence, so apartment living ought to make perfect sense to me, I guess. It just seems like when the gods created apartments, they were thinking about how entertaining little human pets would be if they lived in Habitrails. More and more, I think they were right.
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