Everything Nac

The student jazz bands at Stephen F. Austin State University will present their fall fundraiser from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 1, at Fredonia Brewery in downtown Nacogdoches.

“Swingin’ at the Brewery” will feature the Swingin’ Axes, directed by Dr. Deb Scott, and the Swingin’ Aces, directed by Dr. J.D. Salas. New this fall is a third student jazz ensemble, Swingin’ Jacks, directed by Dr. Jacob Walburn, which will also perform.

“This is the first time in the history of SFA that there have been three full jazz bands,” Scott said, “and this will be the Swingin’ Jacks’ premiere performance.”

“Swingin’ at the Brewery” will feature works by Gordon Goodwin, Chick Corea and other jazz greats.

Food options will be available from Casa Del Bayou food truck and the brewery’s Rebellion Pizza.

Donations for the School of Music’s jazz program will be accepted at the event.

Fredonia Brewery is located at 138 N. Mound St. For additional information, contact the School of Music at (936) 468-4602 or the brewery at (936) 305-5125.

Stephen F. Austin State University’s School of Human Sciences and the East Texas Food Bank in Tyler are partnering in an effort to help curb high levels of food insecurity in East Texas through a six-week Cooking Matters program.

Since 1993, the Cooking Matters campaign has taught families and caregivers with limited food budgets to shop for and cook healthy meals. This is the sixth year the university has partnered with the food bank to provide the informative and interactive program to the community.

The East Texas Food Bank is a nonprofit organization that distributes food to more than 200 partner agencies in an effort to feed children, the working poor and seniors throughout 26 counties in East Texas.

Justin Pelham, food, nutrition and dietetics clinical instructor at SFA, uses the national program as an opportunity for his SFA students to practice their newfound skills in a real-world environment.

“The Cooking Matters program serves dual purposes for SFA students and the Nacogdoches community,” Pelham said. “Students get to practice real-world applications within a national program to help build their hard and soft skills. People in the community benefit, too, as these services are completely free, and each person walks away with added nutrition knowledge, hands-on cooking instruction and a free bag of groceries or incentives each week.”

According to Pelham, data indicates one-in-three people in Nacogdoches live in poverty. The Cooking Matters program is student led, with students rotating through different job roles during the six-week classes. Series participants will be Nacogdoches residents or those receiving services from the Helping Other People Eat Pantry in Nacogdoches.

The class will provide a 30 to 45-minute component of hands-on nutrition education with a designated topic. Then, this information is translated into the kitchen to make a meal that is budget mindful and incorporates whole foods, herbs and spices.

Kinsey Jeffers, nutrition education manager with the East Texas Food Bank, along with her colleague, Alexis Hernandez, spoke to Pelham’s class via Zoom on Monday.

“Cooking Matters has a number of recipes that are healthy and budget friendly, so each week of the first four weeks participants will prepare a meal together, and essentially assign each person a task or two to help contribute to that recipe,” Jeffers said. “Then, participants eat the meal together, and whatever is made in class, every participant will be sent home with the ingredients to make that meal.”

In the final two weeks of the program, participants will take part in a grocery store tour and challenge where they are given a $10 gift card and asked to find ingredients for a meal to feed four people with all five food groups represented. The sixth week will be a celebration potluck.

The program will take place from 4 to 5:30 p.m. for six consecutive Mondays from Oct. 4 through Nov. 8 at the Human Sciences North Building, Room 201, on the SFA campus.

For more information, contact Pelham at (936) 468-5892 or pelhamjd@sfasu.edu.

By Nathan Wicker, senior marketing communications specialist at Stephen F. Austin State University

Donald Whaley Jr., Texarkana sophomore, is among the cast members in the SFA School of Theatre’s presentation of Robert O’Hara’s hilarious and daring play “Bootycandy” showing at 7:30 nightly Oct. 12 through 16 in Kennedy Auditorium on the SFA campus.

School of Theatre Director Cleo House Jr. believes it’s important for theatre arts majors, and audiences alike, to see themselves represented on the stages of the SFA campus. That’s one of the reasons House selected Robert O’Hara’s play “Bootycandy” for this year’s Mainstage Series at SFA. The play highlights an underrepresented element of theatre: the gay black man. Among the lessons House hopes his students learn in presenting the play is to recognize ethnic inequalities within the arts and to work toward improving those disparities.

“Believe it or not, theatre tends to be very white and very straight – particularly what is shown on stage,” House said. “I’m gay and black, so I know the importance of seeing yourself represented on stage, on TV and in film.

“‘Bootycandy’ is a comedy, but it is also a play that presents issues from the point of view of a particular gay black man, in this particular story,” House said. “To my knowledge, in all of our years at SFA, we’ve never done a play from this perspective. I emphasize ‘particular’ because the issues or events are in no way all-encompassing.”

The play will be presented at 7:30 nightly Tuesday through Saturday, Oct. 12 through 16, in Kennedy Auditorium on the SFA campus.

Based on the author’s own experiences, “Bootycandy” is a satiric portrait of American life told through the lens of Sutter, a gay black man on an outrageous odyssey through his childhood home, his church, dive bars, motel rooms and even nursing homes. O’Hara weaves together scenes, sermons, sketches and daring meta-theatrics to create a kaleidoscopic portrayal of growing up gay and black.

“The play also looks at a black family and how each person deals with a family member who is so different from the rest of them,” House said. “Our approach to this play is really to relay all of the ‘funny’ that’s there in the script and to tell the story honestly. These are real people, and their circumstances for the most part are not that extraordinary. But for them, it’s everything.”

Containing strong language and mature content that involves discussions of sexuality, “Bootycandy” is a comedy that looks at attitudes towards gays in black culture.

“It’s definitely more on the ‘rated R’ side of things, but other than that, this play is for anyone who is curious about how other people live and their experiences,” House said. “The play is not a call to action. It is not trying to tell you how to behave. It’s not ‘preachy,’ but it has a lot to say. It has a lot to reveal about how these particular people live, and it doesn’t shy away from that which isn’t pretty or that which is dark.

“It may contain moments that some may find funny, but another person might find offensive,” he added. “There’s a line in the play that I’m going to paraphrase that says, ‘If it is hard for the author to write it, why should it be easy for the audience to digest it?’ For me, this really says it all, because the playwright has gone through great pains to discuss trauma and how that trauma may or may not cause a person to traumatize another. The old adage of ‘hurt people hurt people’ comes to mind.”

When asked if all directors have an agenda when they select a play to perform, House gave a definite “yes.”

“It may or may not be a political agenda, but there has to be something you want to say,” he said. “Any art we create should be personal to us. Noted feminist Carol Hanisch wrote, ‘The personal is political.’ We should see, hear and seek to understand. No one group is a monolith, no matter how much they may appear to be at first. Humans can be kind and cruel, victim and perpetrator.”

House expects audience members to leave a performance of “Bootycandy” with some questions and “a conversation on their lips.” But he also hopes “they can have some great laughs!”

“Bootycandy” contains mature themes and language that may be triggering for some viewers.

General ticket prices are: $15, adult; $10, senior (62+); $7.50, SFA faculty/staff; $7.50, youth; $5, student. Purchase tickets at boxoffice.sfasu.edu or call (936) 468-6407. For questions about the play, contact the School of Theatre at (936) 468-4003.