Richard Winham

The Ensemble Theatre of Chattanooga’s upcoming production of Terence McNally’s play Things That Go Bump in the Night opens on Friday September 14th in Barking Legs Theater on Dodds Avenue. As with all of the plays produced by the Ensemble this year, McNally’s play centers on a fractious family. The Ensemble’s Executive Director Garry Posey told Richard Winham the main reason he chose the rarely performed play is because he’d long wanted to produce one of McNally’s plays in Chattanooga.

  Chattanooga 2.0 is a city and county-wide initiative. Their goal is to improve opportunities and outcomes for all Chattanooga and Hamilton County students from the moment of their birth until the day they begin their careers. For its first three years, Chattanooga 2.0’s focus has been on early childhood education—preparing children for kindergarten and beyond. As Executive Director Jared Bigham sees it, to truly improve the school system for all students will take a generation.

Educators have long known that 80% of our cognitive development occurs before we are 3 years old. But for most of us that is a startling wake-up call. For Chattanooga 2.0, it’s the foundation of one of their primary goals—to make every new parent aware of just how important it is to read to their children from a very early age, every day.

 This year’s Poetry vs Hip Hop face off between local poets and rappers is in The Camphouse on Martin Luther King Boulevard this Friday August 24th. The billing for the show suggests a head to head competition which it is, but for the organizers it’s more a showcase for young talent.

Richard Winham talked to some of the poets and rappers who will be engaging in a friendly tussle of words on Friday night.

Fifty percent of all the fish eaten around the world comes from a fish farm, according to James Miller. Mr. Miller has spent most of the past fifty years helping people in a number of countries in Africa and the Caribbean build sustainable fish farms. He talked to Richard Winham about the work and the profound impact it has had on the lives of very poor people living in often desperate situations.

Margaret Park is a watercolor artist based in Chattanooga. An exhibition of her work in Reflections Gallery on Lee Highway opened last Friday. Richard Winham stopped by to talk to her and look at her work.

Shrek, The Musical, the stage show based on the Oscar winning movie, opens in The Signal Mountain Playhouse on Friday, July 6th. Richard Winham talked to the with director Joel Scribner and the choreographer Dr. Jennifer Wilson.

Thirteen percent of the people living in Hamilton County – around 60,000 people – have no health insurance. If they have a chronic health condition --  and many do – until a few years ago they had few options. But in 2011 Volunteers in Medicine opened a clinic in Chattanooga.

This Saturday, June 23rd, The Chattanooga Readers and Writers Fair is celebrating writing and reading from 10 am until 4:30 pm in the Chattanooga City Library. Writers will be reading from their work in the auditorium on the main floor, while on the 2nd floor there will be entertainment for the children. There will also be readings on the 4th floor, and vendors will be setting up booths on the 4th floor as well. From 12 noon until 1pm there will be an open mic on the plaza in front of the library along with food vendors for lunch. Richard Winham talked to Sherry Poff from the Chattanooga Writers’ Guild as well as three of the writers –Finn Bille, Dana Shavin and Paul Luikart—who will be at the fair on Saturday.

Chattanooga’s first festival of Black Arts and Ideas starts Thursday and continues through Tuesday, June 19t h— the day known as Juneteenth, the anniversary of African American Emancipation. Over six days the festival will celebrate Black Americans’ contribution to theater, film, and music—concluding with a dramatic reading of the emancipation proclamation on the steps of City Hall. Richard Winham talked to the festival’s organizer, Ricardo Morris.

Since 2011, the Muse of Fire project has been giving kids between 10 and 12 years old to opportunity to write their own play. For 10 weeks they work with a group of teachers and actors who help them figure out what they want to say and how to say it. At the end of the 10 week session a group of adult actors perform the play in the McCallie School Theater. Everyone is invited.

 The Ensemble Theatre of Chattanooga’s production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time opens in Barking Legs Theatre on Dodds Avenue on Friday May 18th at 7:30. Richard Winham talked to the director, Garry Posey, and two members of the cast, Kashun Parks and Normand Caissie, all of whom agreed the play presents a unique set of challenges.

Nancy Woods Daniel and Robert DeCarlo are two of the painters whose work is represented in the current exhibition in Reflections Gallery on Lee Highway. The two painters are both very sensitive to color and they are both attracted to rural landscapes, but as Richard Winham discovered when he visited the gallery to talk to them last week their paintings are very much a reflection of their personalities.

E.M.Forster’s A Room with a View was first published in 1908. Almost 80 years later Merchant –Ivory made an Oscar-winning film based on the book. More recently it has been staged as a musical and as a play. The adaptation, written for the stage by Chicago-based actor and playwright Christina Calvit, opens in the Chattanooga Theatre Centre on Friday, April 27th. Richard winham talked to the play’s director, Scott Dunlap and Rodney Van Valkenberg who plays The Reverend Eager in the play.

We’ve all been through what Caleb Thomas calls ”The Experience.” Thomas, a poet and songwriter performs as Phenom, The Creative. Together with a group of poets and songwriters he will be celebrating love from infatuation to commitment in a show called The Experience. He talked to Richard Winham.