Carrie Nation and the Speakeasy will be playing at 10:30 p.m. on this Friday at Beer:30.

“We always try to make the show as entertaining as possible,” said Jarrod Starling, lead singer and guitarist. “It isn’t music that is best played quietly, sit-down music. We try to bring something to the stage every time we play that is going to make you remember the music through your visual and aural memories of the night.”

The Wichita-based band has been around for about three years, but the latest incarnation has only been around for a year. The members are Zach Starling, washboard and snare; Tyler Grubb, mandolin and trombone; Matt Dreher, banjo; Brody Wellman, stand-up bass and Jarrod Starling.

“We all love what we’re doing and we’re obviously not getting rich off of it,” Starling said. “It’s just something that we love doing, we love bringing it to different people. It’s great to be able to bring a little bit of Wichita to the rest of Kansas and a little bit of Kansas to the rest of the country.”

Carrie Nation and the Speakeasy has been across the nation and, in October alone, they have tour dates set from Santa Cruz, Calif. to Osage, Ark., and several places inbetween. Although their instruments may make them seem like they are a bluegrass band, Starling referred to their music as “punk rock-circus-Americana.”

“We try to stay away from being too pigeonholed,” said Dreher, who is also an adjunct instructor of social anthropology at Wichita State. “Whether it’s the kind of music that we play or the themes or content of the music or individually, how we express ourselves, we try not to be boxed in to anything specific. We try to stay relevant to anyone, a little bit of something for people to latch on to.”

This is not their first time playing in Emporia, or even at Beer:30. They were introduced to the venue by bands they were opening for like The Deedles and Granny Tweed, but this is their first time headlining a show there.

“They put on a really good show,” said Josh Olsen, owner of Beer:30. “They get the crowd moving, they’re really energetic and they have upbeat music. It’s just a good show in general… what really caught my eye was when they covered a Wu Tang song in bluegrass.”

Carrie Nation and the Speakeasy will also be bringing a friend of theirs to open for them named Ryan Windham. Windham is a solo artist who plays several different instruments, including guitars, spoons and slide whistles, and records them onto a loop machine, creating layers upon layers of music live and by him.

“One track will be seven minutes long, but you won’t even notice that it started out with a little guitar part. Then there’s this big sound coming out at you at the end of it with 12 different tracks he’s recorded on stage live,” Starling said.

The band is releasing their first album, which is self-titled. They also have a MySpace page that can be found at www.myspace.com/carrienationband. The band also said that they are looking forward to the show and are excited to play at Beer:30 again because of all of the energetic people in the audience.

“We try to keep the energy high so there are always people having a good time, knocking things over, breaking stuff and spilling stuff, every time is its own slightly creepy affair,”Dreher said.

Alex Pedersen

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Radio City. Photo Courtesy of Casey Austen.

Bands Bright Giant from Des Moines, Iowa, and Radio City from Emporia are coming together for a second time at 10:30 p.m. tomorrow night at Beer:30. Guitarist for Bright Giant Josh Davis said this summer the two bands tried to play a show together, but stomach sickness kept the band’s drummer Will Locker off the stage. Davis and guitarist Noah Mass did an acoustic show instead.

“My drummer got some sort of food poisoning or the flu or something and couldn’t even sit for sound check, he’d just puke and puke and puke, and so our trip got cut short that time,” Davis said.

Bright Giant is opening and Davis said the band is bringing some new songs. He said they are excited to play for a college town.

“I think younger folks and that college age, somewhere in that area like our music best and those are the kind of people we want to play in front of,” Davis said.

Radio City guitarist and Emporia State graduate student Eric Murphy said Bright Giant is like a “band girlfriend” in that the bands are willing to help each other out and play together.

“They help us and we try to help them when we can, but they’re further along than we are, so it’s huge. It’s awesome that they do what they do for us,” Murphy said.

Guitarist for Radio City Matt Kosinski said the two groups met at a Record Bar show in Kansas City about six months ago. Bright Giant went on before the Emporia-based band and Murphy and Kosinski were both impressed. He said the bands have played together various times since that first show.

“We had just a mutual enjoyment of each other’s sets and then finding out that they were awesome guys too, everybody in that band is just good people and they play great music and it’s just a blast hanging out with them,’” Kosinski said.

Davis said the appreciation is mutual and both bands are scheduled to play together more in the future, including all this weekend and Labor Day weekend.

“It’s good to have bands like Radio City to trade with because we always know we’ll have solid performers with us right away,” Davis said.

Kosinski said the crowd in Emporia is usually really receptive if a band gives their all, whereas in other places the band has played, the audience doesn’t get as into it. He said unknown bands show up at Beer:30 and if they “play their hearts out” they get a response.

“We’ve played places outside of Emporia where you play balls to the wall, hard as you can, put every ounce of energy into the song and you look out there and nobody’s even paying attention at all,” Kosinski said.

Murphy said other bands from out of town have come in and noticed how much fun the crowd has and passed the word along.

“There’s just really not a lot of crowds like there are at Beer:30. Every band we’ve brought has loved it and told other bands about it,” Murphy said.

Murphy said Radio City recently finished recording their first full-length CD in St. Louis that should be released sometime in November. He said the band plans to have a CD release parties in Emporia and other cities where they play.

Kosinksi said there’s a difference between seeing a local band and a touring band play. He said he hopes people come out and see that Radio City is serious about the music and is actually becoming a band.

“There’s supposed to be a difference – local bands are just rag tag kids that just put a bunch of stuff together, and that’s the beginning of the evolution of a band. You’ll see it once you get out and about and on the road,” Kosinski said.

Lauren Walbridge

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Berch

The Granada Theatre is encouraging students to “Rock into College” with bands Between the Lines and Berch on Saturday, August 21 at 8 p.m. Granada director Jessica Buchholz said the show is a back to school celebration, but anyone in the community is welcome. The show is all ages and the cover charge is $5.

“Last year we had a movie the night of the Block Party and we thought we’d try a little something different this year,” Buchholz said, “Live music always seems to be a pretty big hit with students and the general population.”

Between the Lines is from Emporia and percussionist Victor Rodriguez said playing at the Granada was a dream for him since it was renovated. The show will be the band’s fourth performance at the theater.

“We really enjoy playing there, it’s a good venue. We’re very glad Emporia’s got that,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said the band has been playing together for five years and covers a variety of music from classic rock and party songs to country and rhythm and blues. The drummer said he’s excited to showcase some of their original music on Saturday.

“We have a big repertoire of original songs considered alternative rock, but we are contemporary rock I guess,” Rodriguez said.
Berch’s lead singer Colin Elmore said his band is from Springfield, Missouri and has been playing together about a year and a half.

“It was kind of like a joking around thing at first, but we started taking it seriously,” Elmore said.

Elmore described his band’s music as “all over the place” with a sound that ties it all together. He said some of it has a country music structure, but some of it is more overdriven rock.
“I guess the best way to describe it is Coldplay with a saxophone,” Elmore said.

Elmore said Berch is touring for a few days, starting in Bentonville, Arkansas, going to Kansas City and ending in Emporia. The band is set to release their first c.d. September 17.

“I’ve heard really cool things about the area and that live music is kind of an active thing in Emporia,” Elmore said.

Unlike Between the Lines, Berch has never played in Emporia, and Elmore said they’re excited to meet new people here. He said the band cares about people and they love to make friends wherever they play.

“It’s kind of like we want to come and serve people by playing music, which sounds kind of overboard maybe, but really it’s a joy to get to go to places even if people really don’t come,” Elmore said. “We just want to meet whoever does come,”

Rodriguez said he listened to Berch on Myspace and is looking forward to opening for them.

“They sound very good,” Rodriguez said. “I know they travel quite a bit. They’re a very polished band,”

Buchholz said the Granada tries to get at least one local band to play once a month, as well as other bands from outside of the Emporia area.

“We did a lot of different shows last year for like local bands and I think it’s really important to support local music here in town,” Buccholz said.

Lauren Walbridge

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The Deedles

For the first time since May, Emporia’s The Deedles are playing at Beer30 on Friday at 10:30 p.m. Bassist Adam Smith said the band has some new material that they’re excited to play and that he never knows what to expect at the local bar.

“Usually the next morning you find random articles of clothing, flip flops, stuff like that all over the bar, which is definitely proof that people had a good time,” Smith said.

Bar owner Josh Olsen said he’s known most of the band’s members for about nine years and they frequently play at Beer30.

“They just bring a professional side of music to whatever bar they play, just from being on the road,” Olsen said.

Guitarist and vocalist Garret Briggeman said the band has gone through various changes over the years as far as members, style and name. Originally, it was called Locamachine, then the Dewayn Brothers and as of last August, they became the Deedles. Briggeman said it started out as an experimental rock band, and then moved into more bluegrass.

“It’s all just kind of been an evolution from one project into the next,” Briggeman said.

Smith said he had been involved with a band called Oakhurst in Colorado, and after touring together in 2007, he made friends with the members of the DeWayn Brothers. In April 2008, Briggeman called him to see if he could play bass for the Deedles.
“I played mandolin and electric guitar in Oakhurst, but Garret called me up and asked if I could play the bass and I said ‘No, not yet’, and he’s like, ‘Well you want to play bass in the rock band? I said sure,” Smith said.

Smith said the band’s sound hits everything from modern rock to classic rock. He said its blues, country, and the band’s bluegrass roots are still visible.

“It absolutely is different than anything we’ve ever done, I mean it’s basically just rock. It’s everything that the word rock which is also a pretty broad word, encompasses,” Smith said.

Jamie Briggeman, guitarist and vocalist, said a lot of the band’s songs are ones that she and Garret would perform acoustically because they didn’t quite fit in with the bluegrass feel of the DeWayn Brothers.

“We’ve had these songs for a long time, it was just kind of like they were on the shelf, you know, so once the bluegrass band dispersed we finally had a chance to really focus on it and make it our goal to do the songs full time,” Jamie said.

Smith said it’s difficult having the experience that the members of the Deedles do and having to start with a new band that nobody’s heard about. Despite having to start from the beginning, Smith said he thinks with all of the touring and experience they all know what to do this time.

“We have to take what we know about it and just start from the ground up, but we’ve learned so many lessons about what to do what not to do that we feel really good about this being the one,” Smith said.

Lauren Walbridge

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Sophomore theater major, Elise Blann, rehearses her dance Wednesday afternoon in Roosevelt Hall. Blann will perform with others May 7 at 7:30 p.m. for the Spring Theater Dance Show. Erica Cassella/The Bulletin.

“That ‘70s Dance Show” is the theme of the spring theatre dance show this year, which will be held at 7:30p.m. on May 7, in the Bruder Theatre in King Hall.

“To dance is to soar. So, who shouldn’t try flying?” said Lindy Bartruff, dance teacher and choreographer at Emporia State.“This semester I wanted to pursue the ‘70s in light of the fall homecoming musical, ‘The Rocky Horror Show’. So, I listened to many great ‘70s hits and imagined various scenarios for dance pieces. Then I began to create and see the dancers in my head. They came up with 20 pieces, which includes an encore with any ‘disco divas’ in the audience.”

This spring, Bartruff conceived, directed and choreographed “That ‘70s Dance Show” for the spring season dance show.

“It is set in the ‘70s and we get to be groovy,” said Joshua Taylor, sophomore theater major. “I really just get to dance my socks off.”

There are 15 dancers in total, which is composed of Dance I and III students, students from private classes and two students who were cast in an open audition in March.

“There are 70 different colors of lights, and it will be awesome to have the lights with the songs and dances.” said Frankie Rizo, senior theater major. “It is a pretty decent dance show.”

This is the first time that the production will be held in Bruder Theatre.

“It is exciting that the dancers will be in a real space on a real dance floor,”Bartruff said.

Six of the 15 dancers are international, from Korea and Japan. Bartruff said that they add depth and sensibility.

“I wanted to make dancing accessible to any ‘body,’ which is why I always incorporate the audience. And it is also to invite professional experiences for the cast,” he said.

From love to war to rock and roll, the show will have dancers, lovers, fighters, rockers boogying with high bars, rolling scaffolds, mini trampolines and smashing guitars. Rizo is looking forward to seeing the final product of the dance show, while Taylor is looking forwards to the reaction of audience.

“We have wild bell bottoms and tie-dye tees the cast made themselves. We have a very special tap solo to ‘Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone’ that will bring down the house,” Bartruff said. “I’m looking forward to the dancers surprising themselves with saying ‘I didn’t know I could do that’ moments.”

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“There aren’t a whole lot of bells and whistles and a whole lot of broad action, it’s a psychological play, and it demands maturity,” Jim Ryan, director of “Hedda” and professor of communications and theatre said.

Ryan said the play centers around one character, a woman by the name of HeddaGabler, played by Kelsey Fredericks, and the interactions other characters have with her. He said the play was a part of Ibsen’s realist phase in his writing and deals with the influence of heredity and environment on behavior.

“(She) was raised by a real strict, domineering, military man named General Gabbler and it’s sort of shaped the way she deals with other people. It’s her story and those individuals who come in contact with her. It’s her desire to have power over others and influence other people,” Ryan said.

Senior theatre major Scott Swezey plays Hedda’s husband, George Tessman. He said his character gets manipulated by his wife, but continues to see the good in her and not the bad. He said to show how his character was influenced by heredity, he worked with costar Brianne Simon, who plays his aunt, to mirror each other’s mannerisms and show congruity between the two characters.

“I guess a lot of what I did was I looked at his background and the thing that the director really wanted to stress with us is that these characters were products of their upbringing,” Swezey said.

Ryan said Ibsen is a truly important playwright in history and that Hedda is one of his most important plays. He said it is a challenge for actors and because it is in the Frederickson theatre, which is a smaller space, it demands subtle acting.

“It’s one of the truly important plays in the canon of dramatic literature, it’s a play that had a great affect on the development of dramatic literature and the techniques of writing realistic plays,” Ryan said.

Senior theatre major Lindsay Roland, who plays TheaElvstead, said the play is not very plot driven, so it’s easy for the audience to get caught up in the characters and their problems.

“I would encourage people to come because this isn’t a show that they’re going to get to see very often,” Roland said.

Swezey said Ibsen is regarded nationally as the second best playwright to William Shakespeare because during the 1800s when he was writing, no one knew what he was doing because he was ahead of his time.

“It would be like today, an Eskimo revolutionizing theater and no one would know what it is because no one at the time read Norwegian drama,” Swezey said.

Ryan said a few new things have been brought to the text and that the overall quality of the play will be interesting. He said anyone who comes will be intrigued by the story. Swezey said the acting is going to be phenomenal.

“It’s sexy, it’s dark, it’s violent – it’s basically everything that modern drama is in film,” Swezey said.

Tickets for the play are $5 for students, $8 for seniors and $10 for adults and are available from the university box office at 620-341-6378 or toll free at 877-341-6378.

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Courtesy Photo

Costume designer Andy Byers creates animal mating scenes for the Sundance Channel’s short film series “Green Porno.”Byers is speaking at 3 p.m. on April 21 in Science Hall Room 72.

The series is written, starring, directed and produced by Isabella Rossellini.

“It’s (Rossellini) dressing up, usually in a unitard with some sort of crazy eyeballs on or wearing wings and she’s humping some sort of paper sculpture that I’ve made,” Byers said.

In the series, Rossellini wears costumes created mostly out of paper. The set design is also predominantly made of paper. Byers said that Rossellini wants to keep the design simple.

“Usually if it’s silly and simple, she goes for it, and a lot of times if I try to make things more complicated, she shies away from it unless she finds it really attractive, so I usually try to go somewhere in between making things really attractive and making them really crappy,” Byers said.

Byers said that he will show some of the films and photographs of his work. Professor of Photography LarrySchwarm said Wichita State University’s art department was interested in a speaker ESU had last semester, so they did a sort of trade. This week, Byers is speaking at WSU for the TallgrassFilm Festival at the Ulrich museum.

“Last semester we had a speaker that they were very interested in and so they piggybacked onto us and since we were bringing him in anyway, they got him to come up to Wichita, and in doing that, it sort of opened up some doors,” Schwarm said.

According to the Sundance Channel Web site, Byers received his bachelor of fine arts in ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute and his master’s degree at Ohio State University. Byers said by the time he was in graduate school, he wasn’t really using clay all that much.

“I was just using clay as a material like anything else, so at that point in time I was building these sort of theatrical pieces and I was building animals and things, but the only thing that was ceramics anymore was usually the eyeballs of the animals,” Byers said.

Byers said he never really understood costume design and that’s why he became interested in it. He said after he started listening to The Beatles in college and saw the “Magical Mystery Tour” album cover he figured out that costumes design and fashion design are not the same.

“It doesn’t have to be the elegant pieces that some really super famous designer made, you know, they can be a trash bag with a light bulb hanging over your head and you call yourself an idea, or whatever. That’s kind of how I’ve been looking at them,” Byers said.

Schwarm said the art department has art forum as a requirement for all students enrolled in the art department because it’s difficult for the students to see other contemporary work.Art forum is funded mainly by the Visual Arts Board. Every other Wednesday, a different artist comes to speak.

“The art department feels like a very big part of education for an art student is to see what other artists are doing and Emporia being somewhat isolated, it’s difficult for our students to get in to see galleries and museums,” Schwarm said.

Schwarm said any students or members of the community are welcome to attend any of the art forums.

“We try to cover as many different disciplines as we can, glass, ceramics, painting, this is the first costume designer we’ve had to my knowledge,” Schwarm said.

Byers said he’ll talk a little bit about what to do after graduating with an art degree and how to get out there and become an artist.

“I would like for (students) to get out of it that they can make stuff that looks shitty as long as it’s cool,” Byers said.

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“It’s a comedy, and the jokes deal a lot with the relationship between the rich and poor,” said Levi Howe, senior theater design major and lighting designer for “Cosi Fan Tutte.” “There are also a lot of jokes about the easiest way to find love.”

The basic premise of the opera involves two young men who believe that their fiancées will be faithful to them when they go off to war and a wager between the two drives them to dress up as other men and try to seduce the others fiancée. The wager is initiated by Don Alfonso, played in the ESU production by Russell Swanson, freshman music education major.

“Don Alfonso is a sly old man that likes playing pranks on people,” Swanson said. “He’s trying to put the young bucks in their place by showing them just how much more he knows about the world then they do.”

The opera was written in the 18th century by Mozart, and the work that goes into such a production is quite different from a regular musical, said Christine Tompkins, freshman music education major and chorus member.

“It’s a long and arduous process to get this production ready,” Tompkins said. “We have been having 4-5 hour rehearsals and the leads have been working since the beginning of the semester. Just the singing is hard to get coordinated.”

Howe expressed his excitement to see the elaborate costumes and lighting finally staged after so much preparation.

“I am really excited to see the look of the lighting and costumes together,” Howe said. “It’s going to be extremely beautiful, and it’ll look great on the stage.”

Those new to opera may be unfamiliar with the role of the chorus, and Tompkins clarifies that the chorus is less pronounced than in modern musicals.

“We help emphasize emotional points in the story,” Tompkins said. “We’re more behind the scenes than anything and our job is to help the leads.”

This is also the first large scale opera in ESU history, Tompkins said.

“We’re using Bruder this year and a full orchestra for the first time,” Tompkins said. “The ESU opera is becoming a much bigger deal than it used to be.”

The cast’s long practices have brought them closer together and provided a sense of togetherness, Swanson said.

“The most rewarding thing for me is the fellowship shared with students that have a common interest,” Swanson said. “They’re all good people, and hanging out with them over the course of the production has been so much fun.”

Those involved have expressed interest in doing another large opera production.

“I’d love to do something like ‘Don Giovanni,’” Swanson said. “The big problem with that is that we lack a lot of the resources for a production that size. Modern American operas would be cool to do also.”

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“While we’re working, we’re explaining to the students some basic fundamentals of manipulating the material and how some of those fundamentals might apply to their own work that they’ve been doing,” Pohlman said.

The blowout begins at 9 a.m. with glass blowing demonstrations, then a potluck barbecue at 5 p.m. and ends with a glass auction at 7 p.m. Pieces from students, faculty, guest artists Jenny Pohlman and Sabrina Knowles and guest artists from previous years will be available at the auction and bluegrass band The Skirts are playing at the barbecue. Proceeds from the auction go to the Glass Guild’s supplies, scholarships, visiting artists and for the guild to attend the glass art society conference in June. The event is free to anyone who wishes to attend.

“(The auction) allows us to bring in artists like Jenny and Sabrina and it also allows us to upgrade our equipment and just fix things up around the shop that we normally wouldn’t be funded for through the school,” said Kristin Elliot, senior glass blowing major and president of the Glass Guild.

Associate professor of glass Patrick Martin said the blowout is the guild’s open house. He said current and previous students and their families as well as artists from around the state and artists who were once students at ESU attend every year. Martin said it was called the “Blowathon” before he started working at ESU 10 years ago.

“It’s been going on before I got here. We changed it a little bit to more of a visiting artist demonstration thing, but it’s still our open house,” Martin said.

Pohlman and Knowles said they have been working with one another for 18 years. Martin said the guild tries to bring in a working professional artist every year and this year the students get to see how a team works together. He said a lot of their work is mixed media.

“You’ll see how a team makes their work or and also how one will do one certain aspect of the process while the other will do other aspects and that’s how they work together,” Martin said.

Knowles said that though she and Pohlman have opposing aesthetics when it comes to their work, the message of it is unified. She said they both do glass blowing, both design and both do some metal working but Pohlman does the majority of the metal work.

“We found that the core of our philosophies about life and humanity and people just run totally parallel, so our work sort of brings our different aesthetics, but the vibration, kind of the soul of the work is unified,” Knowles said.

Elliot said Knowles and Pohlmanare also there to critique student work and show them techniques they might have never seen before. She said it allows them to see what life might be like when they graduate and possibly become professional artists themselves.

“They live in Seattle, which is like the glass place to be, and so they’re around all the professionals up there, so tips that they see that we will never see in Kansas they bring to us which is a big opportunity of the blowout,” Elliot said.

Knowles said she and Pohlman are enjoying working with the guild and feel like they’re all old friends. She said she wants to help students develop work ethics and stay true to what they want to do.

“We want to help them develop a nice work ethic and to respect one another in the hot shop and to recognize and appreciate that it is a team game so to speak and also that the limits are limitless,” Knowles said.

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Ken Davis

Ken Davis, a popular Christian comedian, will perform at 7 p.m. tonight at the Granada Theatre, 807 Commericial St. Sponsored by KJIL 99.1FM, Davis’s one-man comedy show will center around what influences people.

“This will be a great act for the community,” said Jessica Buchholz, Executive Director of the Emporia Granada Theatre. “The Granada Theatre is excited to have Ken Davis perform here again. It is our mission to help bring a variety of different acts to the community and support all different kinds of culture and performances.”

Davis has made appearances around the world.

When asked why invite Davis to come to Emporia, Buchholz said “I think that the community should come and check out the show-it will be fun for all ages. It gives community members a chance to see something unique in the Granada.”

Davis lives in Tennessee with his wife, Diane and two daughters, Traci and Taryn. His entire family is involved in Davis’ ministry.

Davis has written nine books and published 15 CDs and 16 DVDs.

“I would say that I’m more of a storyteller than a stand-up comedian,” Davis said in a previous interview. “(The audience members) respond well to the stories, there’s a lot of humor involved. I think that I talk about things that people see every day, but never stop to notice.”

Davis is also a motivational speaker and offers seminars on speaking. All of his stories come from real life experiences.

“(I get inspiration from) real life,” Davis said in a previous interview. “I get it from the guy at the airport hassling the guy with the eye stuff. I get it from the guy asking me if I’m reading the newspaper. I get it from my grandchildren telling my wife that she has many wrinkles and then saying, ‘there’s cream for that.’ I get it from real life.”

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