Arts Commission names Phoenix Award winners

The Lawrence Arts Commission has chosen the recipients of the 2004 Phoenix Awards, which honor achievement in the arts. The following winners will be honored during a reception 2 p.m. Nov. 7 at the Lawrence Arts Center:

l Stephen Johnson, Exceptional Artistic Achievement

l Karl Gridley, Arts Volunteer

l Elizabeth Schultz, Literary Arts

l Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Literary Arts

l Henry Fortunato, Visual Arts

l Linda Reimond, Arts Education

l Steve Mason, Music Arts

Look for stories about the recipients in the Nov. 7 Journal-World.

KU theater to stage anti-war comedy

In a time of war and with the national election only two weeks away, Kansas University Theatre is staging Aristophanes’ hilarious anti-war comedy “Lysistrata.”

Performances will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Oct. 26-29; 5 p.m. Saturday and Oct. 30; and 2:30 p.m. Oct. 24 in the Inge Theatre.

The play’s plot is simple. Athenian women, fed up with the Peloponnesian War, barricade themselves in the Acropolis and go on a sex strike to force their husbands to vote for peace with Sparta.

Shawnee graduate student Laura Leffler-McCabe is directing the KU production and adapted the script from a translation by Benjamin Bickley Rogers. The show will include a number of contemporary political references.

The KU production, which deals with adult subject matter and includes strong sexual content and language, will be performed without an intermission.

Tickets — $12 for the public, $11 for seniors and $10 for students and KU faculty and staff — are available by calling 864-3982 or visiting www.kutheatre.com.

Performance artist to visit KU art students

Performance artist Jana Haimsohn will be in residence Wednesday through Friday in Kansas University’s art department.

She will give a free public lecture, performance, reading and demonstration at 2 p.m. Wednesday in Room 421 of the Art and Design Building. Haimsohn also will have one-on-one critiques with art graduate students and will conduct a workshop with the performance art class at 1:30 p.m. Friday. The workshop, in Room 421, is open to all students interested in participating or observing.

Haimsohn has performed throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. She has collaborated with jazz artists such as Don Cherry, Don Pullen and Mal Waldron. Her works include music, dance, singing, vocalization, vocal rhythms, drumming, poetry, text, theater and performance.

For more information, call 864-4401.

KU students to perform in Tuba-Euphonium Fest

The 23rd annual Tuba-Euphonium FEST — an annual celebration showcasing tubas and euphoniums — will be at 4:30 p.m. Oct. 24 in Swarthout Recital Hall.

The event is free and features the students of Scott Watson, Kansas University professor of tuba and euphonium.

Students will perform a wide variety of original works and transcriptions for the tuba and euphonium.

Watson has commissioned many new works for tuba and is former editor of the Tuba Press. He served two terms as secretary of the Tubists Universal Brotherhood Assn. and is now a member of its board of directors, and president elect. A prominent soloist and clinician, he is also co-artistic director and member of Symphonia, America’s first professional tuba-euphonium ensemble.

For more information, call 864-3436.

Art Guild to tour snake exhibit

The Lawrence Art Guild’s October meeting will be a guided tour through the Natural History Museum panorama “North America from the Arctic to the Tropics.”

The meeting will be from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday at the museum, in KU’s Dyche Hall. A special presentation on the guild’s history will be made by exhibits assistant and Lawrence artist Kim Taylor.

The meeting is open to the public. Membership applications can be found at www.lawrenceartguild.org.