Singer-songwriter to perform at Gaslight

Singer-songwriter Sam Shaber will perform at 7 p.m. Monday at Gaslight Tavern & Coffeehouse, 317 N. Second St.

Admission is $10 for adults, $12 for those under 21.

Shaber, daughter of late screenwriter David Shaber (“The Warriors” and “Nighthawks”), released her first album, “eighty numbered streets,” in 2003.

She has won awards in the John Lennon, Billboard and USA Songwriting Competitions.

For tickets, call 865-4430.

City of Lawrence looking for artwork

The Lawrence Arts Commission is seeking an artist or team of artists to create a public artwork for downtown Lawrence as part of the city’s 150th anniversary celebration.

The site for the artwork will be the entrance to downtown Lawrence, facing a sidewalk and busy thoroughfare. The area is a rectangular, elevated, grassy verge, measuring approximately 160 feet by 30 feet, with five mature trees lining the back and another five trees clustered along one end.

Proposals are being accepted until July 21. A $50,000 project budget will be awarded.

For proposal submission instructions, contact Michael Tubbs at 832-7813 or mtubbs@ci.lawrence.ks.us.

Student toasts suburbia

Kansas University graduate student Meghan Bahn’s latest installation art project has her toiling over her toaster, burning Wonder bread at the rate of several loaves a day.

The final result will be a piece of art that comments on futility, domestic dysfunction and suburban burn-out. Hers is one of about a dozen works that will be showcased in this week’s Installation Art Show at the Art and Design Gallery at KU.

KU artist’s installation explores work, identity

“UNITED/DIVIDED,” a new installation by Kansas University design instructor May Tveit, will be on view Friday through May 16 at the United Metal Spinning Co., 1901 Indiana Ave., Kansas City, Mo.

The piece explores contemporary issues of work, identity and the vocabulary of globalization by appropriating the building, its contents and its workers as an art object for three days.

Tveit teaches in KU’s design department. Her work has been exhibited in one-person and group shows at the Gallery Village Shalom, H&R Block Artspace and the Kansas City Artists Coalition.

The project was funded in part by the Kansas University Center for Research and the Hall Center for the Humanities.

LHS alum carves path in woodworking

Former Lawrence resident Kyle MacMillan, a third-year wood technology student at Pittsburg State University, will soon begin an internship at Merritt Woodworking in Mentor, Ohio.

MacMillan won the internship last year by placing second in the creative casework category of the Association of Woodworking and Furnishings’ Student Design Contest. His winning entry was a cigar case called La Grande Humidor.

MacMillan’s project is featured in a new book called “Fresh Wood” by Sam Maloof. Photos of MacMillan’s handiwork can be found at www.cadxtrusions.com/kyle.htm.

MacMillan is the son of Denny MacMillan, Lawrence.

KU dance students receive awards

Two Kansas University dance students were honored at the University Dance Company’s spring concerts at the Lied Center.

Steven Hedden, dean of fine arts, presented the Elizabeth Sherbon Dance Award and the 2004 Phillips-Stone Dance Award. Each recognition includes a $500 cash prize.

Beau Hancock, Hugoton senior in dance and American studies, received the Elizabeth Sherbon Dance Award. He is an honor student with a 4.0 grade-point average. He plans to travel in May to Japan as a Kansas-Asia scholar.

Rachel Moses, Great Bend senior in dance, biology and pre-medicine, received the Phillips-Stone Dance Award. She is a scholarship and honors student with a 3.84 grade-point average.

Both have distinguished themselves as featured performers in ballet, modern, jazz and baroque dance with the University Dance Company. Hancock is president of the company this year.

Perry-Lecompton High School band accumulates awards

After a busy April, the Perry-Lecompton High School band will give its spring concert at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the high school, 404 Lecompton Road.

Admission is free.

The band, under the direction of Mike Maloun, took 11 soloists and 5 small ensembles to the Kansas State High School Activities Assn. regional solo and small ensemble contest on April 3.

Three soloists and a saxophone trio received “one” ratings and performed April 24 at the state music festival.

The band performed April 8 at the Winter Park Ski-Music festival in Winter Park, Colo. The band won the class 2A division.

The following week, the band received “one” ratings from all three judges at the KSHSAA state large group music festival.

Lewis and Clark quilt show to feature patriotic quilts

Atchison — Organizers of Atchison’s “Stars & Stripes in Stitches” quilt show are calling for entries.

The show, featuring contemporary and antique quilts with an all-American patriotic theme, will be July 2-4. It’s part of “A Journey Fourth,” one of 15 National Signature Events of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commemoration, 2003-2006.

No fee is required for the open competition. All entries must have a patriotic theme, be constructed of fabric and be hand- or machine-quilted.

Registration is due by May 20 with a limit of two quilts per entrant. A photograph of the quilt must be submitted with registration.

Registration materials are available by calling (800) 234-1854 or by sending e-mail to kpersinger@lockwoodcoinc.com.

Heartland Theatre opens auditions for next season

Kansas City, Mo. — American Heartland Theatre will have open auditions this week and next for its 2004-2005 season, which includes three plays and three musicals.

The plays are “Fully Committed,” “Affluenza!” and “Visiting Mr. Green.” The musicals are “Sanders Family Christmas,” “Swing!” and “From My Hometown.”

Auditions are by appointment. Acting auditions will be Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Singing auditions will be Saturday and May 18.

Acting auditions should include two brief contrasting monologues of up to 1 minute. Singing auditions should consist of two brief contrasting songs. Accompanist will be provided.

To schedule an audition, call the theater between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Monday-Friday at (816) 842-0202.

Heartland Theatre opens auditions

Kansas City, Mo. — American Heartland Theatre will have open auditions this week and next for its 2004-2005 season, which includes three plays and three musicals.

The plays are “Fully Committed,” “Affluenza!” and “Visiting Mr. Green.” The musicals are “Sanders Family Christmas,” “Swing!” and “From My Hometown.”

Auditions are by appointment. Acting auditions will be Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Singing auditions will be Saturday and May 18.

Acting auditions should include two brief contrasting monologues of up to 1 minute. Singing auditions should consist of two brief contrasting songs. Accompanist will be provided.

To schedule an audition, call the theater between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Monday-Friday at (816) 842-0202.

Art auction benefits New York museum

Christie’s launched New York’s auction season Tuesday with a $56.6-million sale of Impressionist and Modern art that fell short of the firm’s expectations but raised $12.1 million for the Museum of Modern Art’s acquisition fund.

“Il grande metafisico,” a 1917 painting by Giorgio de Chirico consigned by MOMA, commanded the sale’s top price, $7.1 million, and set an auction record for the Italian Surrealist’s work. Paintings by Marc Chagall and Rene Magritte, also from the museum’s collection, each brought $1.2 million.

Seven of the 39 artworks offered failed to find buyers, but many pieces fetched more than $1 million. A 1947 abstraction by Joan Miro brought the sale’s second-highest price, $5.8 million. A Parisian Jazz Age portrait by Tamara de Lempicka was knocked down for $4.5 million. A landscape by Claude Monet was sold for $4 million.

Lennon memorabilia auctioned in London

London — John Lennon memorabilia, including a leather collar he wore during the 1960s, was auctioned by Christie’s for a total of $400,500.

The auction house called it the “most significant collection of Beatles’ memorabilia to come on the market in over 10 years.”

The items included a colored felt-pen drawing by Lennon ($17,800), a letter with his signature ($9,800) and “Happy Fish,” a pen-and-ink drawing ($17,000).

But the two items that drew the highest bids Wednesday were a leather collar that Lennon wore in 1967 and 1968, which sold for $178,000, and a custom-made Vox Kensington guitar used by Lennon and fellow Beatle George Harrison in 1967, also for $178,000.

The Christie’s auction also sold three items associated with other international stars. An early Elvis Presley U.S. concert poster sold for $17,800, a Salvador Dali-inspired watercolor by Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols sold for $2,850, and a poster from Jimi Hendrix’s Experience concert sold for $2,700.

Latin Grammys return to L.A.

The Latin Grammy Awards will return to Los Angeles for the fifth annual show, to be broadcast Sept. 1 on CBS from the Shrine Auditorium.

The move back to L.A., where the music awards premiered in 2000, was primarily a logistical decision that will ease production of the telecast and a weeklong series of related activities, said Marya Meyer, spokeswoman for the Miami-based Latin Recording Academy. Los Angeles is headquarters for the show’s producers, Cossette Productions, and for the Recording Academy, which bestows the awards.

The move also will allow the Latin Grammys to spotlight what Meyer called “the very active bubbling talent pool in L.A.,” especially during pre-telecast activities.

Combat poet to give reading at museum

Baldwin poet John Musgrave, whose work deals mostly with his combat experience during the Vietnam War, will read his poetry at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Watkins Community Museum of History, 1047 Mass.

This is the last scheduled program in the museum’s lecture series on the Vietnam War.

Musgrave, a featured reader at the 2004 Lawrence Poetry Series at the Lawrence Arts Center, has written several poetry books. He says the work helps heal painful memories and shares with others the futility and never-ending pain of war.

Musgrave will answer questions and sign books after the reading. For more information, call 841-4109.