Catching Up with Katie Fox

By Katie Fox A year and a half ago, after a fifteen-year professional career in the arts, I was given the opportunity to open a new performing arts center for Midlands Technical College – a tremendous opportunity for me, personally, and for our community. Beginning in September, Harbison Theatre will present world premier productions by Columbia-based artists as well as touring productions by internationally-recognized companies. We will host performances... Read More

Aaron Pelzek – Lighting Designer

By Alex Smith One of the least visible, yet most integral positions in the theatre is that of the lighting designer. The theatre is an artistic medium that requires, in its fruition, the ability to both see and hear what is happening on the stage in order to fully comprehend what the playwright has written without looking at the page. Quite simply, without the work of the lighting designer, fully half of the theatrical experience would be missing. Not... Read More

Music Director Tom Beard

By Alex Smith The music director in regional repertory theatre wears many hats, and is directly involved in a theatrical production longer than just about anybody aside from the producers and the director. It is a rigorous position for even the most talented musician to hold. Tom Beard, one of Columbia’s great musicians and music directors, came to the job the hard way. “I started out as a theatre undergraduate at USC, but I switched to philosophy... Read More

Grande Dames of the Ballet Boards – 10 Questions with the Ladies Lumpkin and Harris

By Cynthia Boiter The adage that behind every great man is a great woman has never been truer than when peering over the shoulders of the artistic directors of Columbia’s two top ballet companies, William Starrett of Columbia City Ballet and Radenko Pavlovich of Columbia Classical Ballet. Respectively, Coralee Harris and Lee Lumpkin have served for years as the backbones of the ballet companies they love, support, sponsor, and fight for. Sometimes... Read More

Dale Lam

By Bonnie Boiter-Jolley Dale Lam packs a lot of punch in her four feet and ten inch stance. Spending her life fighting to make a career for herself in the entertainment industry has instilled in her a passion and drive she hopes to pass on to her students. Owner and Artistic Director of Columbia City Jazz Dance School and Company, Lam finds herself in a position to use her guidance and instruction to do just that. Born in Augusta, Georgia, Lam grew... Read More

Marina Lomazov

By Cynthia Boiter Tall and elegant, her poise and demeanor reflecting the discipline of the Soviet culture into which she was born, Marina Lomazov takes the stage with all the finesse of the piano diva she is widely recognized to be. Described by reviewers as “a mesmerizing risk-taker” and “one of the most passionate and charismatic performers on the international concert scene today,” there are many other places on the planet that an artist... Read More

Avery Delores Bateman

By Bonnie Boiter-Jolley From the moment Avery Delores Bateman stepped on stage during a high school production of Bye Bye Birdie, she was hooked. “I had to perform,” she quips.   No stranger to performance, Bateman was often given small roles as a child in church plays authored by her mother, Rosalind Russell. “I was the child who had the epiphany,” she reminisces.  Bateman, New York City bound this summer for the American Musical and Dramatic... Read More

Service is the New Muse

By Michaela Pilar Brown There is a singular kind of magic that occurs when you witness someone being transformed by an experience with your art. It is a singular moment when you understand that you as an artist have the power to invoke meaningful change in the life of another. For most artists, choosing art as a career is a different kind of singularity. It is often a choice to live inside one’s own head, to spend endless hours alone with your materials... Read More

NiA – Columbia’s Nomadic Theatre Troupe

By August Krickel Performance venues and physical space are big issues for theatres in Columbia. “Theatre” usually implies, first, the building itself, whether historic facilities like Town Theatre and USC’s Longstreet Theatre and Drayton Hall, or recent constructions like the current spaces used by Workshop, Trustus, and Chapin Community Theatres. Not so much for The NiA Company, happily independent and “truly nomadic,”... Read More

Journy Wilkes-Davis – Telling Stories through Dance

By Bonnie Boiter-Jolley Twenty-three year-old Journy Wilkes-Davis comes from a tight knit, supportive family of seven. The Columbia City Ballet dancer says that though his parents have always been “extremely supportive” of his dance career, they are also his biggest critics – something he is grateful for. It is no surprise that this combination of support and criticism have led Wilkes-Davis to constantly pursue the perfection of his craft. He... Read More

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