Fine Arts Center Blog

How to Plant a Tree in the SaGāJi

2008-04-28T09:18:00.002-06:00

Hear the FAC's award-winning designer Chris Sheley tells the compelling story of how his entire team gets into the act of building a "ginormous tree" for the upcoming production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast.
Listen Here (21:23)

Caveman on Fox 21

2008-02-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

Last weekend's limited engagement of Defending the Caveman was a hit ... due to popular demand, the show will return for a second showing June 6-7. Watch the interview with Caveman Cody Lyman on Fox 21 News Feb. 22:

watch on Fox 21 website | watch on Windows Media Player

Caveman on Springs Culture Cast

2008-02-22T14:59:00.002-07:00

Springs Culture Cast interviewed Defending the Caveman star Cody Lyman, who will be performing at the FAC Friday and Saturday. More about the show...

A visit to Altered Space

2008-02-07T16:27:00.000-07:00

Watch Springs Culture Cast's visit to the latest exhibition at the FAC MODERN, Altered Space: 21st Century Installation Art...

Reviews: Sunday in the Park with George

2008-02-04T10:14:00.000-07:00

Cast, set paint artful play
By Mark Arnest, The Gazette (Feb. 1)

“The Fine Arts Center Theatre Company’s production of “Sunday in the Park with George” ranks with the center’s best productions.”
“It’s the most beautiful show I’ve seen on that stage…”
“The orchestra, conducted by Sandi Shroads, has never sounded mellower or more delicate, shimmering colors matching the visual splendor.”
“And the cast members — especially leads Brian Hutchinson and Carmen Mock — make Stephen Sondheim’s challenging music and lyrics sound as effortless as a walk in the park.”
“Hutchinson’s voice combines beauty and power, and he’s equally convincing as the obsessive Georges and the vaguely dissatisfied George. Mock delivers Sondheim’s intricate patter with a bright, buoyant voice.”
“You’ll be intrigued by this courageous and intelligent production of a courageous and thought-provoking piece — and the ticket prices ($26-$31) are cheap for a production of this quality.”

Sunday in the Park with George review
By John Moore, Denver Post (Feb. 1)

“Director Alan Osburn's elaborate staging is capably performed to standards few area companies can match. The eight-member orchestra is as always a strength, and, for a show built on the concept of this being a canvas come to life, set designer Christopher L. Sheley has outdone himself, particularly in how he, like Seurat, toys with perspective and dimension in creating living stage paintings like "Bathing at Asnieres."
“This all builds to a magical stage moment in which a fevered Seurat, employing all his artistic hallmarks of design, tension, balance and light, finally sees just how to place all of his pieces on canvas. Suddenly these real people (well, a few are pop-up boards) morph into clay models that Seurat manipulates into their final positions. It's a stirring, act-ending moment … “

Altered Space media previews from Gazette, Westword

2008-02-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

Bold art alters space
FAC curators take on unpredictable exhibit
By Mark Arnest, The Gazette (Feb. 1)

“Altered Space: 21st Century Installation Art” is the riskiest exhibition the Fine Arts Center has hosted in years, say curators Blake Milteer and Tariana Navas-Nieves. “We’re committed to balancing our traditional role as an anchor for the community and going out on a limb,” Milteer said. “Part of what a curator does is create a beautiful, cohesive exhibit,” he said. “This is different.”

Rooms with a View
FAC MODERN dedicates a show to installation art
By Susan Froyd, Westword (Jan. 31)

“(Matt Barton) says, ‘I want the overall sense of the work to be positive, fantastic and wonderful while being woven with what can, on the surface, be thought of as dark.’ That means his room might be haunted by stuffed animals and found animated video clips or, somehow, a tornado. Hi-tech and lo-tech, heaven and hell.”

Denver Post: Special art in our midst

2008-01-31T10:12:00.000-07:00

Special art in our midst
Springs show whets the appetite for big Impressionists exhibit
By Kyle MacMillan, Denver Post (Jan. 31)

“Lovers of impressionism should not overlook a notable group of such works that are part of a broader exhibition continuing through March 9 at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center.”
“it is a solid, engaging show with enough strong selections to make the drive worthwhile. Perhaps best of all, there are examples by artists rarely seen in Colorado”
“this exhibition shows off the wonderfully accommodating special-exhibition galleries”
“the old-master works are exquisitely showcased. One of the most successful aspects of the addition, this huge room — about 38 by 100 feet with a 19-foot ceiling — allows for sweeping vistas and ample dialogue among the selections.”
"Impressionist and Old Masters" is a perfect excuse for a road trip and a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.”

Interview with Altered Space artist Gwen Laine

2008-01-29T10:17:00.000-07:00

Gwen Laine has lived in Denver since 1975. She earned her BFA from the University of Colorado, where she studied photography, sculpture and art history. Her work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and has been published internationally ... more

Interview with Altered Space artist Matt Barton

2008-01-29T10:16:00.000-07:00

Matt Barton currently teaches 3D art making for the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs’ Visual and Performing Arts department. Following brief stints as a Chuck E. Cheese dancing rat and Victoria Secret shop stock boy, Barton spent a year in Italy as an artist apprentice. He earned his Masters in Fine Arts in 2006 from the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh ... more

Interview with Altered Space artist Christina Marsh

2008-01-29T10:11:00.000-07:00

Christina Marsh, from Lindenhurst, Ill., is currently in her second year as the Riley Scholar in Residency at Colorado College. She earned her Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana. Her works have been exhibited in many venues including the Schmucker Gallery at Gettsyburg (Pa.) College and Eastern Illinois University’s Tarble Art Center. She also participated in the Mobilivre traveling exhibition that was shown in 14 states. Her work has incorporated food, photography and prints ... more

Denver news features Impressionist show

2008-01-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

Watch the video featuring Impressionist and Modern Masters as a 'Colorado Getaway' by Denver's CBS 4 ... click here.

Over the River ... The Rocky covers Christo and Jean Claude visit to the Springs

2008-01-26T10:07:00.000-07:00

Christo’s river project is still flowing
By Mary Voetz Chandler, Rocky Mountain News (Jan. 26)

“An exhibition on Over the River, including drawings, anchors, fabric and other objects related to the project, will open in October at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. The show will travel, including a visit to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in 2011.”

Sunday in the Park preview

2008-01-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

FOX 21’s Meaghan Collier previews the Fine Arts Center Theatre Company’s production of the Pulitzer Prize winning musical, Sunday in the Park with George, featuring interviews with actors Brian R. Hutchinson, Carmen Mock and director Alan Osburn. Watch the video.

Impressionist and Modern Masters tour

2008-01-23T07:54:00.000-07:00

Learn more about the Impressionist and Modern Masters as Springs Culture Cast tours the exhibition with FAC Curator Blake Milteer...

John Updike on Georges Seurat

2008-01-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

Celebrated writer John Updike reviewed the Georges Seurat MOMA exhibition in The New York Review for Books (Jan. 17), writing, "Impressionism, our impression is, proceeded by instinct, its stabs of high color pursuing what the eyes of Monet and Renoir and Pissarro and Sisley found in the open air, as sunlight's spectrum flitted across the sight of haystacks, poppy-dotted fields, and rippled water. Analysis was left to Post-Impressionism, whose varied masters, with a greater or lesser degree of programmatic determination, put forward terms for their own art and the art of the future. Neither Cezanne nor Van Gogh was more resolutely theoretical than Georges Seurat."

Bon Vivant: "The mastery of light, color and line"

2008-01-03T14:54:00.000-07:00

In the January edition of Bon Vivant magazine, writer Noel Black reviews the Impressionist and Modern Masters exhibition, saying it "satisfies like a weekend trip to New York."

"Using colored walls to denote the three separate eras in the chronology, Blake Milteer and the FAC curatorial staff hone done an excellent job of creating visual moods around the periods they define: regal burgundy for the pre-impressionist era, a brooding green for the impressionists and a sunny yellow for the modernists. The works themselves are, without hyperbole, some of the finest examples of their times."

Sunday in the Park with George: FAC performs musical masterpiece about painter Seurat

2008-01-03T14:39:00.000-07:00

Read the complete press release.

COLORADO SPRINGS (Jan. 2, 2008) – In the past 50 years, there have only been three musicals to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama: A Chorus Line, Rent and Sunday in the Park with George. The Fine Arts Center Theatre Company will present Sunday in the Park with George, Jan. 25-Feb. 17, in the SaGāJi Theatre.

Written and scored by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, Sunday in the Park is a moving study of the enigmatic painter Georges Seurat that won a Pulitzer Prize for its insightful and personal examination of life through art and the artist. Act one follows Seurat as he fights a losing battle to maintain a relationship with his mistress, Dot, as he creates his painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, amid the scorn of the artistic community. The second act takes place 100 years later, introducing us to his American descendant, also an artist, burned out and uncertain of the path he must take.

The show was specifically chosen to correspond with the FAC’s special exhibition, Impressionist and Modern Masters, on exhibit through March 9. Much of the second act is set at an art exhibition opening in a museum.

“What better piece to do at an arts center that recently completed a $30 million renovation and who is currently exhibiting one of the country finest exhibitions of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art?” asks Alan Osburn, Producing Artistic Director of the FAC Theatre Company. Osburn, who directed last season’s Into the Woods – another Sondheim/Lapine collaboration – is directing Sunday in the Park.

The scenic designer will feature the artistry of Brian Jude Beacom, who will recreate Seurat’s paintings: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and Bathing at Asnieres, along with painting over a dozen life-size, two-dimensional cut outs of various people and animals found in the La Grande Jatte painting. Seurat painted La Grande Jatte in two years; Beacom will have four weeks.

The show stars Brian R. Hutchinson as George and Carmen Mock as Dot. Hutchinson earned the 2006 Denver Henry Award from the Denver Theatre Guild for “Best Actor in a Musical” for his work in Assassins (yet another Sondheim-penned work) as John Wilkes Booth at the Aurora Fox Theatre. Hutchinson was a finalist for the 2006 Denver Post Ovation Award for “Best Year by an Actor,” highlighted by his role in Cabaret.

More information concerning tickets sales for individuals or groups, and the Curtain Call Society can be found at csfineartscenter.org or by calling the FAC Box Office at 719.634.5583.

Read the complete press release.

Roberta Jacyshyn wins 2007 Denver Post Ovation Award

2008-01-02T14:43:00.000-07:00

On Dec. 30, the FAC Theatre Company’s Musical Director Roberta Jacyshyn earned a 2007 Denver Post Ovation Award for “Best Orchestra” for Into the Woods; the production garnered nine nominations, including “Best Musical,” “Best Ensemble,” and “Best Director.” In 2006, the Company earned the Ovation Award for “Best Musical” with Pirates of Penzance.

Jacyshyn, the Musical Director or musician or both for every single FAC musical since 1984’s Bye Bye Birdie – about 80 productions – is saying goodbye to Colorado Springs. Jacyshyn will be playing keyboards for Sunday in the Park; it will be her farewell performance as she and her husband, Mark Rose, will be moving to Florida. Rose has been the primary reeds player for the Theatre Company for a number of years.

“Roberta and Mark will be greatly missed,” said Alan Osburn, Producing Artistic Director of the FAC Theatre Company. “Both have played integral roles in the legacy of our musical success and we wish them well in their future endeavors.”

FAC website stats impressive for December, 2007

2008-01-02T14:36:00.000-07:00

December was the second-best month ever for traffic to csfineartscenter.org for visits and visitors, doubling the totals from December 2006.

December
Page Views
2007 ... 46,486
2006 ... 22,162
Increase ... 109 percent

Visits
2007 ... 13,485
2006 ... 6,567
Increase ... 105 percent

Unique Visitors
2007 ... 11,751
2006 ... 5,046
Increase ... 133 percent

Year-End

Page Views
2007 ... 492,953
2006 ... 287,350
Increase ... 71.5 percent

Visits
2007 ... 138,581
2006 ... 92,543
Increase ... 49.7 percent

Visitors
2007 ... 117,738
2006 ... 74,163
Increase ... 58.7 percent

Bemis: Nurturing Kids' Appetites for Art

2007-12-31T14:32:00.000-07:00

We got three-and-a-half pages of Bemis School of Art coverage in the January/February issue of Colorado Springs Style magazine, including five photos, telling the story of how the Bemis School of Art contributes to this community by writer Linda DuVal. Congratulations to Director of Education Tara Thomas, her teachers and staff for all the good work they do for the FAC and our community.

Ghost of Christmas Present signing off

2007-12-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday saw the final performance of A Christmas Carol, at least for this year. And of course on Tuesday it was Christmas Day, and, as you all know the Ghost of Christmas Present's life ends midnight on Christmas Day.

So, it is with a little sadness that I mark the passing of my rendition of the Ghost of Christmas Present. It was a fun role to do, all the way from the first day I put on the stilts and wobbled my way around to the final performance when Scrooge and I took an extra beat at the end of our scene to say a silent goodbye.

Talking of those stilts, you also wouldn't believe the muscles that hurt after wearing them. There were several performances where my legs would be trembling from the effort in standing still as some action happened on some other part of the stage. You don't realize the effort needed until you don this 50lb costume with three layers of padding and then just stand there as the Cratchit's sing their song. At least I never fell down wearing them (which would have been an adventure, let me tell you), although there were a couple of times it was a close shave.

I'd like to thank the wonderful audiences we had throughout the run. Everybody seemed to enjoy it, although I must say it was the kids in the audience that seemed to enjoy it the most. I talked to a few of them after performances and they were fascinated with the whole production, how the smoke worked, how Marley came up out of the floor (and, better, disappeared into it), how the set flew in, and so on. Whenever there's an opportunity for kids to look behind the magic of the theatre, there's always a line of them waiting.

And of course thanks to those fine people at the FAC (you know who you are!) who let us Ghosts write about what was going on with the show. I certainly had fun doing these blog entries.

And with that, see you next time!

Cheers, Julian

GXP: "'Twas the last week of 'Carol'"

2007-12-20T14:17:00.000-07:00

‘Twas the last week of “Carol” and every last soul
Was in full show mentality, ready to roll.
They’d survived fifteen shows, only five more were left
And they certainly planned for the last to be best.

They were gathered on stage: the fruit vendors and merchants,
Poultry sellers and cobblers, housemaids and street urchins,
Here a laundress, a charwoman, stagecoach conductor,
There the odd undertaker or school-house instructor.

There were ghosts of the Past, Present, Future, and Marley
(With his chains you’d have thought he’d come in on a Harley)
The Fezziwigs, young Scrooge, and Tiny Tim, too,
With his parents, the Cratchits, and their lovely brood.

And the prototype Grinch, our own finest of Scrooges,
In this role he could range from King Lear to Three Stooges
There were sixty-four characters, twenty-six players
They’d pulled through on caffeine, chocolate, hugs, and some prayers.

They’d survived the late nights, backstage accidents, too,
Snowy weather and ice and a Scrooge-like review,
But their faces were glowing, their hearts were replete
Knowing well-meaning strangers would fill every seat!

Peace to every heart,

GXP
(AKA Amy Brooks)

2007 Fine Arts Center highlight reel

2007-12-17T10:21:00.000-07:00

Check out our 2007 Year-in-Review video, featuring all the highlights of the past year ... the grand opening of our new building, award-winning theatre productions, groundbreaking exhibitions, special guests and more!

Denver Post: Center's treasures revealed

2007-12-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

The Fine Arts Center was featured on the front page of the Denver Post A&E section Sunday, complete with four articles and eight photos. About the FAC Permanent Collection, art critic Kyle MacMillan wrote, "The return of a little more than 200 permanent works to public view is among the most exciting aspects of the arts center's newly opened addition ... No comprehensive story of Colorado art, which for much of the 20th century was centered in Colorado Springs, can be told without including selections from the arts center's extensive collection."

"A major boost to those holdings came with the July announcement that 67 paintings from the extraordinary Colorado Springs collection of Katherine and the late Dusty Loo would be given to the institution. A selection of 27 pieces is on view.

"The Loos were highly discriminating in their purchases, managing to find a, if not the, definitive example of virtually every artist represented in their collection."

Center's treasures revealed: Rediscovering the Collection
Curating the Future: What's next for the Fine Arts Center
Miro and Monet: Impressionist and Modern Masters

Impressionist and Modern Masters wallpapers

2007-12-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the Impressionist and Modern Masters exhibition at the FAC? If you have, you know that it includes one masterpiece after another. Almost too many. You need to take your time and study each work of art. Until your next visit to the FAC, download a free wallpaper to load on your computer ... Degas, Monet and LeBrun ... for your viewing enjoyment.