Heard on the Hill: KU University Theatre celebrates Kansas sesquicentennial; KU architecture professor named as finalist for national award; KU Libraries video features Oprah Winfrey

Your daily dose of news, notes and links from around Kansas University.

• KU’s University Theatre has announced it will present the Kansas Summer Theatre’s production of “Dirty Work at the Crossroads” or “Tempted Tried and True,” a comic melodrama by Bill Johnson.

Performances are at 7:30 p.m. July 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9 and 10 at Liberty Hall, 644 Mass.

The show is based on a melodrama first staged in 1890 and updated in 1965, and will commemorate the Kansas sesquicentennial anniversary.

Tickets are $12 for the public, $10 for KU students, faculty and staff and senior citizens, and $5 for K-12 students.

The show is directed by KU Theatre alumnus and Kansas City actor Kip Niven. It also features a character named Munro Murgatroyd, which I found to be quite amusing.

• KU architecture professor Dan Rockhill has been named a finalist in the National Design Awards, presented by the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

It is the second time Rockhill has been recognized as a finalist in the program’s 11-year history. Rockhill was a finalist for the Architecture Design Award, which recognizes “exceptional and exemplary work in public, commercial, or residential architectural design.”

The award recognized Rockhill’s work with Studio 804 and his design firm, Rockhill and Associates.

The New York-based Architecture Research Office won the prize in the category.

• The KU Libraries recently uploaded a video to their YouTube Channel featuring Oprah Winfrey in 1995 talking about her role in the film “The Color Purple” with KU film professor John C. Tibbets.

Perhaps the libraries were looking for folks hoping to get an extra Oprah jolt now that her show is off the air.

But it’s a good reminder that KU has a number of these old interviews with movie stars, if that’s your thing, available at its ScholarWorks page. You can watch the whole interview and others related to the film here.

And you can get lost in the whole collection of interviews here.

• I’m still stuck on that Munro Murgatroyd name … In the meantime, keep shooting tips my way at ahyland@ljworld.com.