Artists Talk with LVA: February 15, 2024

Paul Lenzi & Geraldine Ann Snyder will be honored with the Kathi E.B. Ellis Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2024 Arts-Louisville Theatre Awards and they were in the WXOX studios to talk about their work. Tune into Artists Talk with LVA every Thursday at 10 am on 97.1 WXOX-FM or stream on Artxfm.com

Paul Lenzi and Geraldine Ann Snyder returned to Louisville where they were hired by the Louisville Children’s Theater (now Stage One) to develop new musical programming for pre-schoolers while Paul ultimately became executive director. In 1976, the couple broke away to form the Blue Apple Players, continuing for a time a weekly children’s program on WAVE-TV. Blue Apple, for the first decade, operated on a “for profit” business model, performing locally and regionally for children sometimes in large halls or occasionally developing a didactic performance for a corporation. After becoming a non-profit, the theater company focused exclusively on creating musicals on cutting-edge social topics for Kentucky school groups. Blue Apple merged in 2015 with the Walden Theatre to form the Commonwealth Theatre Center.

Artebella On The Radio: August 27

From top left; Keith McGill, Keith Waits, Clara Harris, Kate Folkins from Stage One observing, Dr. Janna Segal, & Jada Dixon

StageOne Family Theatre has commissioned a team of highly experienced artist-educators to create a series of touring shows for students. Dramaturg Dr. Janna Segal (bottom right) joins us to talk about the project with the three writers, Keith McGill, Clara Harris, and Jada Dixon. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com, this Thursday @ 10am, to hear Keith Waits talk with Louisville area artists on LVA's Artebella On The Radio.

Dr. Janna Segal (Dramaturg) is an Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts at UofL, where she teaches classes in theatre history, dramatic literature, dramaturgy, and Shakespeare.

Jada Dixon (Writer) is an actor, director, playwright, teaching artist, and facilitator based in Colorado. She is a two-time True West Award Winner and was also accepted into the 2019 Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab.

Clara Harris (Writer) has worked and collaborated on projects for stage, film, and audio as an actor, writer, and producer. She is also the founder of Swamp Witch Studio, which produces Night Owl Theatre, an audio drama podcast.

Keith McGill (Writer) is an actor and director, most recently having directed GHOST for StageOne Children’s Theatre, as well as a playwright. He is also a freelance teaching artist for Commonwealth Theatre Center (CTC), Actors Theatre, and ArtsReach.

Artebella On The Radio: January 16, 2020

Brennen Cabrera's exhibit "Colors of Humanity" opens at Tim Faulkner Gallery on January 19 and Diana Grisanti's play "Lawbreakers: A Fast & Furious History of Women's Suffrage" opens at Stage One February 1. Both came in the Artxfm studios with Keith this week. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10am to hear Keith Waits talk with artists.

Artist Brennan Cabrera, will have work on exhibit for this weekend ONLY. Colors of Humanity is a one-person show at Tim Faulkner Gallery. 991 Logan Street. This is a limited opportunity exhibit and will hang from January 19th through January 22nd.

As Brennen describes, his intentions as an artist are to create "Depictions of the human condition... primarily in the fields of psychological health, emotionality and sexuality. I am deeply impacted by my own experiences and my compassion, desire, need, and understanding of the lives, stories, and acts of other people."

Playwright Diana Grisanti was a Playwright in Residence at Theatre [502] in Louisville, Kentucky but she is NOW, along with her husband, Steve Moulds, C-=Artistic Director of that group. She is an Affiliated Writer at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. Her plays include The Patron Saint of Losing Sleep (Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte), River City (NNPN Rolling World Premiere), Abilene, Semantics, and Mandatory (Weber State University). She was a contributing writer on the bluegrass-inspired anthology That High Lonesome Sound (Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville) and her new play, Lawbreakers: A Fast and Furious History of Women's Suffrage opens at Stage One Family Theatre February 1 and 8 at 2:00 pm. At the KY Center – Bomhard Theatre.  For more information: Stageone.org

Artebella On The Radio: December 19, 2019

Playwright, poet, and Artistic Director of Stage One Family Theatre Idris Goodwin and spoken word artist Morgan Allison were in the studio with Keith this week reading from, among others, idris' new collection, "Can I Kick It?" Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com each Thursday to hear Keith Waits talk with artists.

Idris Goodwin is an award-winning playwright, director, orator and educator. He is the Producing Artistic Director of Stage One Family Theater in Louisville, KY for which he penned the widely produced And In This Corner: Cassius Clay. Other widely produced plays include: How We Got On, This Is Modern Art co-written with Kevin Coval, Bars and Measures, The Raid, and Hype Man: a break beat play which was just produced by Actors Theatre of Louisville. His poetry collection, Can I Kick It?, has just been published.

Morgan-Allison is a Louisville native and a graduate of Lane College and Vanderbilt University. She has been a spoken word artist for 7 plus years and spoken word is just a portion of who she truly is. Her particular interest is to use her voice to ask the hard questions or join into conversations that most people want to avoid.

She leads by example as her goal with her poetry is to inspire others to be open and walk in their truths, which she does through her poetry.