Everything Nac

“The Importance of Being Earnest” cast members, from left, Jason Trevino, Greg Albright, Shelby Gilliam, Sloan Frierson and Mary Collie participate in a formal tea to prepare for their roles in Oscar Wilde’s comedy of manners to be presented by the SFA School of Theatre at 7:30 nightly March 3 through 7 in W.M. Turner Auditorium on the SFA campus.

Because tea is served three times during the play, director Jack Heifner, SFA’s playwright-in-residence, wanted to make sure the student actors served it properly. Heifner and his assistant director, Nacogdoches senior Sarah Chavez, searched for a local restaurant or tearoom that served afternoon tea.

“When we couldn’t find a place close by, we decide to have one ourselves,” he said.

Students attended the tea in character – men dressed in suits and hard-soled shoes, women dressed in skirts, heels and corsets – and were judged on their posture, manners and etiquette.

“We dimmed the lights and laid out the tablecloth, fine china and flowers to capture some of the ambiance of the Victorian period,” Chavez said. “After they had been seated, the production crew and myself acted as the servants. We followed the proper order to serve tea and attended to the actors as needed. The actors spoke in their accents and made conversation as their characters. It was amazing how seriously everyone took on their roles, from the actors to the production crew, and it really was a lovely and educational event.”

Long before rehearsals began, Chavez compiled a packet of information that detailed the etiquette and manners of the period, and a significant portion focused on the history and procedure of taking tea.

“From there, we researched the kind of food that would be served as well as the proper order in which it was consumed,” she said. “Our stage manager, Connor Clark (Garland senior), as well as assistant stage managers, Bud Odom (Brownsboro sophomore) and Taylor Dobbs (Baytown sophomore), played crucial parts in helping me organize and carry out the tea.”

With its high farce and witty dialogue, “The Importance of Being Earnest” is considered Wilde’s most popular play. This comedy of manners highlights Victorian etiquette that may seem foreign to today’s college student, but Heifner says his students have “welcomed the knowledge.”

“Nothing is difficult for students to grasp when they know it is for the benefit of the play and for their characters,” he said.

It’s one thing for actors to be lectured about proper etiquette and another for them to actually experience it, according to Chavez.

“By having the tea, the actors were able to put what they had learned to practice, and their characters really came to life,” she said. “We live in an age where society is growing excessively casual, and people are forgetting the decency of manners. Part of the fascination in this show lies in the etiquette of the time. What seems so proper and formal to us was instinctive, everyday behavior for these characters. I think the actors walked away with a greater appreciation for the play as well as an understanding of etiquette and its importance even in today’s society.”

“It has been fun for them, and they have enjoyed it,” Heifner said of what the students are learning from the play. “Certainly we aren’t accustomed today to standing up when women enter the room, but there is nothing wrong with the practice. Being courteous never goes out of style.”

Show times are 7:30 nightly Tuesday through Saturday, March 3 through 7, in W.M. Turner Auditorium on the SFA campus. A special school-day matinee will be at 10 a.m. Thursday, March 5. Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and $7.50 for students/youth. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit theatre.sfasu.edu.

The SFA A Cappella Choir will present “Trailers and Previews: A Collage of Tour Music” at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 6, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

The program, titled “Trailers and Previews: A Collage of Tour Music,” will “trailer” music from the ensemble’s regional tour of East Texas and “preview” some of the new music the choir will learn for an upcoming tour of Italy, according to Tim King, director of choral actities at SFA.

“The A Cappella Choir has a tremendously active semester,” King said. “We recently toured high schools within the East Texas region sharing the musical goodwill of SFA’s music program.

“On April 14, we will sing the Bruckner E minor Mass with our Wind Ensemble, and on May 8, we will combine with the other choirs and our SFA Orchestra of the Pines to perform one of the greatest masterworks, the Brahms ‘Requiem,’” he said. “And of course, there is our Giro d’Italia in May.”

The choir will travel to Italy in May for an 11-day performance tour that includes special invitations to sing at the Vatican and St. Mark’s Basilica.

“The tour has received a special invitation to sing for Sunday mass in the Vatican, and also at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, as well as at concert venues in Marostica, Santa Croce Basilica in Florence, which is the final resting place of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli and Rossini,” King said. “We will also perform at All Saints Church in Rome.”

Among the selections to be performed at the March 6 concert are “Chariots” by the South African composer Peter Louis van Dijk and “Agnus Dei” by American composer Samuel Barber.

“This is Barber’s personal choral arrangement of his ‘Adagio for Strings,’” King said.

The program will also include “O Lux Beata Trinitas” by Ko Matsushita, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” arranged by Thomas Dorsey, “Amazing Grace” arranged Eriks Esenvalds and “Raua Needmine” by Veljo Tormis.

“This highly dramatic song by Tormis is based on the Finnish legend about iron and how it was intended for good.” King explained. “However, modern man has used iron for evil warring purposes.”

Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu.

Seventeen piano, flute and strings majors from Hong Kong are on their way to Nacogdoches to participate in a 10-day residency through March 7 at the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Music. The students will stay in campus residence lodges, study with SFA music faculty, sit in on classes and perform alongside SFA students in choir, orchestra and band.

The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art and the Friends of the Visual Arts will present a free, one-night screening of “The Art of the Steal” at 7 p.m. Friday, March 6, in The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches.

“The Art of the Steal,” directed by Don Argott, follows the struggle for control of Dr.
Albert C. Barnes’ $25 billion collection of modern and post-impressionist art.

Founded in 1922, the Barnes Foundation became one of the finest collections of paintings by Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse, Van Gogh and other masters, according to a film description at Amazon.com. Housed in Lower Merion, Pa., the Barnes Foundation was envisioned by Barnes as an art school and not a public museum. But after Barnes’ death in 1951, the fight over the collection’s future ensued and continues today. Artists, historians and lawyers defend Barnes’ wish that the entire collection never be moved, loaned or sold, while politicians, large charitable trusts, tourism boards and wealthy socialites push to relocate it to downtown Philadelphia, according to the website.

The documentary is rated PG for adult language and content.

This screening is part of the School of Art’s monthly Friday Night Film Series and is sponsored in part by the Nacogdoches Junior Forum, The Liberty Bell, Main Street Nacogdoches, Bill Arscott, Jill Carrington, Karon Gillespie, John Heath, David Kulhavy and Brad Maule.

The Cole Art Center is located at 329 E. Main St. For more information, call (936) 468-1131.

Charles D. Jones, director of the LaNana Creek Press, holds a copy of “Honey Bucket Charlie: The Korean War POW’s Drawings of Benjamin L. Comeau,” which will be showcased at a reception from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, March 8, at The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches

A reception to honor Comeau’s family and showcase the newly released book will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, March 8, at The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches. The event will feature live music popular during the early 1950s, followed by a brief illustrated talk about the war and the POWs, the drawings and photographs used in the book.

Comeau’s drawings “provide us with rare insight into the daily life and conditions of the Korean War POW experience,” Jones said.

Invitations to this event have been sent to veterans’ groups in the area, according to Jones.

“It would be great if we could get every Korean War veteran there, because we would like to dedicate this to them,” he said. “Part of the purpose of the book, in using this one man’s drawings, was to create an awareness of this aspect of the war.”

The book is based on a series of almost 100 pen and ink drawings by Master Sgt. Comeau, who was a POW at Camp #1 in Korea from 1950-53.

“It is richly illustrated with the drawings, Comeau’s letters from the prison camp, family photographs and propaganda photographs by one of the Chinese prison camp administrators,” Jones said.

The book, published by the Stephen F. Austin State University Press, is augmented with a photo essay by acclaimed photographer Guy Gillette, the father of Pipp and the late Guy Gillette. Entertainer and storyteller Pipp and his brother, Guy, recorded cowboy music and were the recipients of the Western Heritage Wrangler Award for Best Traditional Album of 2010.

Their father had been sent to Korea by the American Red Cross to record the M.A.S.H. units.

“His poignant works provide an excellent context for the drawings of Comeau,” Jones said.

Pipp Gillette, owner of the famed Camp Street Café in Crockett, will perform at the reception.

“Honey Bucket Charlie” includes introductory chapters that provide information about the war, the treatment of the Allied prisoners by the North Koreans and then the Chinese forces. It also includes information about the political climate in the United States during this time, and the treatment of the American prisoners when they were repatriated.

The book has an introductory chapter by Lewis Carlson, Ph.D., author of “Remembered Prisoners of a Forgotten War: An Oral History of Korean War POWs.” Carlson, who is professor emeritus of history at Western Michigan University, also provided background information on the war and the treatment of the POWs.

The story of Johnny Johnson and his list of American and allied troops who died on the “death marches” and in the POW camps is included in the book, and also provides context for Comeau’s images.

“Benjamin Comeau was an extraordinary man,” Jones said.

Comeau had enlisted in the Marine Corps during WWII and was wounded at Iwo Jima, earning his first Purple Heart. After his recuperation, he left the Marine Corps and joined the U.S. Army in 1946. He was assigned as a squad leader in an infantry unit when the Korean War (officially designated as a Police Action) began. In November 1951, his unit was in combat near the 38th parallel in the area known as “The Punch Bowl.”

“During this battle, overwhelming Chinese forces overran Comeau’s squad,” Jones said. “When an enemy grenade landed in the bomb crater where the squad had taken cover, Corporal Comeau threw himself onto it to save his squad. For this action, he was later awarded a Bronze Star and second Purple Heart.”

He was taken as a POW by the Chinese and remained a captive until June of 1953. Comeau remained in the army and later served in Vietnam, where he won a second Bronze Star. He retired with the rank of master sergeant.

Comeau’s grandson was one of Jones’ printmaking students who had made a smaller version of this book as a book arts class project.

“When I found out there were almost 100 drawings, I decided to make the full published trade edition that would have all the drawings and include background of the war and the POW situation,” Jones said. “Then, when Pipp Gillette told me his father had been sent to Korea by the Red Cross to photograph the war, and he had this whole cache of photographs, he allowed me to draw from those, so the book also has a photo essay by his father.”

Jones is professor emeritus in the SFA School of Art and a Regents Professor.