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Riverside Arts Center, Summer, 2007, Newsletter

A totally new concept we should have thought of long ago:
Let’s all try to get with the program
Final proofs are at the printer now of program covers for the season’s theatrical performances at the Riverside Arts Center. Full-color, glossy, hard paper stock covers will feature both color and black & white ads from up to ten annual sponsors at amazingly low rates. Production companies will attach their current show’s information inside that format and the whole package will be handed out free to the first 2500 attendees of the coming season.

Supporters will be able to place one ad that will run for the whole year––rather than be pestered for their support for every show that comes up––at a surprising low cost. Producers will now be able to put their energies into rehearsals and set design and leave this portion of their promotions up to the Arts Center.

RACtives like the concept too, since the new format helps to get the Arts Center’s message of community events out to a broader readership.

For more information on how you might support the new RAC program format, please contact the editor: thomasdodd@comcast.net.

First Nighter program resurrected for opening night performances
A good idea whose time has come (again): Art Angels qualify for one free ticket to any opening night performances of participating production companies at the Riverside. Send your annual check to support the arts in your community and watch for the asterisked first nights on RAC’s regularly published calendars.

Ypsilanti in song again/still
There may be more songs about Ypsilanti than about New York and San Francisco put together. Now Ypsilanti is a subject of Sufjan Stevens’ song “For The Widows In Paradise, For The Fatherless In Ypsilanti” on the first of his state-project CDs, Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State.

Sufjan (SOOF-yon) Stevens (born July 1, 1975) is an American musician, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Detroit, Michigan, with a fondness for the banjo. His lyrically-focused songs deal with subjects such as faith and family. Stevens has announced plans to make an album for each of the 50 U.S. states, Michigan and Illinois have been the first two.

Sufjan says his name is of Armenian origin and means “comes with a sword”. He grew up in Michigan and attended Hope College on the west coast of Michigan.

Stevens has created the first of his 50 states albums, a collection of folk songs and instrumentals inspired by his home state of Michigan . The result, the expansive Michigan , included odes to cities including Detroit and Flint, the Upper Peninsula, and vacation areas such as Tahquamenon Falls. Melded into the scenic descriptions and characters are his own declarations of faith in God, sorrow, love and the regeneration of Michigan.