Highlights- Sept. 6
The return of Paul Boatright
Fayetteville’s music scene was left with a big hole after Paul Boatright left the seminal rock band Punkinhead, but Boatright is back. The multi-instrumentalist’s skills are legendary. In the early years he was a version of an evocative Sly Stone-like musical instigator, flinging high-octane energy to his audiences. But that was then and this is now. Boatright is on a different musical path, which has led him to accept a residency at the Green Door every Wednesday night where he’ll perform with two guest artists each week. The opening show featured Kelly Mulhollan and the Tablerockers. Coming up are: Wade Ogle and Jovan Arellano this Wednesday night; Derek Van Lynn and Randy Crouch on Sept. 19; Pat Villines and Jeff Kearney on Sept. 26.
Boatright will perform most of his songs on an old barroom piano that was moved to the club especially for these shows, rendering an intimate and bare scene.
“I’ve never really played piano before, but I feel that it’s just a vehicle to project my emotions to the audience,” Boatright said. “Once I took hold of that concept I was cool with it.”
Boatright is fearless and a true performer. When he left The Faith Healers to form Punkinhead, he was a powerful drummer and vocalist who had never played guitar.
“The first Punkinhead rehearsal was the first time I ever played guitar in a band.”
Playing piano and taking audiences on an emotional journey is not all he’s trying to accomplish.
“I feel that our music scene began to fracture in about ’97, just no one could see it at the time,” Boatright said. “Without exciting new local artists who really have something to say, it doesn’t matter how many touring acts come thru town, the scene will eventually die. My sincere hope in doing these shows, and in having featured guest artists each week, is for a cross-pollination of local artists’ music and audiences. I think the local music scene needs rejuvenation and reunification. Hopefully we’ll find both at The Green Door.”
All Ozarks
The life of Arkansas musician Jimmy Driftwood will be discussed at 7 p.m. Friday at the Shiloh Museum in Springdale. The talk by Brooks Blevins is part of “Talking Ozarks,” a symposium at the museum this Friday and Saturday that will explore 100 years of Arkansas music, art, literature and culture. The life and work of several individual artists, craftspeople, writers and photographers will be part of the programming. Friday sessions will be 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday sessions will be 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. At 1:30 p.m., Saturday, the documentary film Fairy Godmothers of the Ozarks: The Committee of 100 for the Ozark Folk Center will be shown. Saturday sessions will be held in conjunction with the Shiloh Museum’s 31st annual Ozark Quilt Fair. The symposium is free.
The museum grounds will be filled with quilts blowing in the wind on Saturday for one of NWA’s most original and unique events. The 31st annual Ozark Quilt Fair will be 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and will feature new and antique quilts for show and sale. Local trio Shout Lulu (Paul and Skye McGowen and Pete Howard) will perform old-time string band music from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The event is free. Rain date is Sept. 15.
On Stage
Arkansas Playwrights Workshop
Get a glimpse of the fabulous talent that is perking in these Ozark hills by getting out for the Arkansas Playwrights Workshop’s presentation of Seven by Seven, part of weekend two of the Fayetteville Arts Festival. Original work by seven local playwrights will be presented as staged readings from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday at the Walton Art Center’s Nadine Baum Studios. The seven short plays are: The Promise Keepers by Patricia Wyatt, directed by Shane Bronson; Preacher’s Turn, by Joohn W. Tutwiler, directed by Kate Frank; Good Friday by Beth Brooks, directed by Warren Rosenauer; The Boy and the Seal, by Rebecca Newth, directed by Kate Frank; Cosmic Referee by Mark Beasley, directed by Michael Hogwood; Adolf Hitler, by Dan Borengasser, directed by Austin Barrow; and Mothers and Sons by J. Michael Harper, directed by Julie Gabel. Admission is $7. PG-13, for some adult subject matter.
TheatreSquared
Equity theater company TheatreSquared, will open the adult comedy, The Mystery of Irma Vep at 8 p.m. Friday at Baum Studios. Playing five male and two female characters will be Jason Grimm, who toured with Second City for eight years as both a performer and musical director, and Jason Engstrom, a recent graduate of the University of Arkansas MFA acting program. The play cashes in on clichés from Victorian melodramas to horror epics in what the show’s director Morgan Hicks calls “exuberantly theatrical fashion.” The show runs through Sept. 23, with performances at 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. Tickets $22 by calling 571-2728.
