Crimson and Gold Connection; Joe Firman

Welcome to Crimson and Gold Connection, keeping you connected to the people and current events at Pittsburgh State University. This is Trent Johnson. Thanks for joining us for Crimson and Gold Connection. Today our guest is director of the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts, Joe Furman. Joe the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts had its ribbon cutting last December. Talk about how the last ten months have been. It has been amazing. We've done some incredible things from Laura Bush to great concerts. We just had the Dallas brass last week and it was just amazing to watch the building over the last ten months go from where we could just get the lights on to be able to do some really great events that have some real production wow included. We're getting into kind of a very busy season right now with it as well. Talk about some of the upcoming events that are going on here in the near future. We have a really exciting week coming up and we are going to have three great concerts over six days. So starting on Sunday the 18th we're going to have the Metropolitan Opera Rising Stars, which is going to be a really approachable group of young opera singers from New York who are starting their careers and they're going to be doing very approachable music.

So anyone who's afraid of opera should not be afraid of the Met Rising Stars. It's going to be things you probably know from popular culture. Then we were able to pick up a great concert on the 20th and this is just kind of sheer luck. The United States Marine Band from New Orleans is going to be here to do a clinic at one o'clock in the afternoon for the band students and they've agreed to stick around that evening to do a concert for the general public. So that'll be at seven o'clock on the 20th. And then we have an awesome jazz band coming in, which is called the Hot Sardines and they're going to be here on the 22nd. So we're going to be flipping the stage from one concert to the next concert, next concert and trying different acoustical settings and lighting and hitting a lot of different genres. So it's going to be a great week.

After that, there is the multi-generational chorus concert that features Pittsburgh High School students along with other members of the community from the older generation. How important is it do you think to have students from around the area partner with other generations as well and to have a facility like the Bignal Center that can host that? I think it's incredible. The more we can have multiple generations together, the better because the young have a chance to learn from those with more experience and those with more experience have a chance to enjoy the young and so often we see a stratification in our society where you don't see a lot of the mixed generations doing things together. But when I lived in Europe, I found that there wasn't that same divide. Everyone will go to functions and festivals together and I think it's a much better model than when you have everybody separated out. You also have the Broadway series coming up throughout the course of not necessarily the near future, but starts in the near future and runs through the next couple of months. Talk about the Broadway productions that are going to be held at the Bignal Family Center for the Arts and also talk about how those became about.

It came about because there's a promoter in Joplin who said I really want to work with the Bignal Center to create a Broadway series and we said that's great because we really want to start one. So we've created a public private partnership to actually be able to bring these events in and so as we look to these events, we are really impressed by the region and how they've responded and have great ticket sales and great response and great excitement. The Broadway productions will work very well in the building because the building was designed to hold them. So we have the loading dock that is designed to hold three semi-trucks. We have the backstage support areas so we can have a cast of 70 in front of a mirror. So with the six dressing rooms, they're all laid out to handle very large groups. We have the laundry facilities and the scene shop facilities and the costume shop facilities. And what people see in the grand hall like ours doesn't show them the full building. Everything that's behind the scenes backstage is also necessary to make a Broadway production work.

And we're very fortunate to have a great hall and great backstage facilities and we can take any touring group on the road today. And even our stage was laid out with a lot of wing space and a lot of storage space behind it, which allows you to bring these large groups in and make their load in and load out more readily doable. And without the sort of support facilities that we have, we just wouldn't be functional. The Broadway series features three separate shows. What are they and briefly describe them if you would. Well, we'll be starting the series with Mama Mia. If anyone's ever seen the show on Broadway and or the movie, it is a really fun love story that has quite a few twists through it and it's set to the music of Abba. The second one is Million Dollar Quartet and that is what if you were to take some of the finest musicians in history and put them into a quartet together. And then the last is Disney's Beauty and the Beast, which is just a family entertainment for everyone. All generations will enjoy Beauty and the Beast.

It's a classic story and it is done so well. So we are looking forward to having entertainment that would be great as a date night. It would be great just for pure entertainment. It would be great for the whole family. And something that we just haven't had the capability in Southeast Kansas to do before the building was built. What do you think it means for the students of Pittsburgh State University to have this facility on the campus? It means more than I think most people in general public would realize. One of the prouder things that we're doing is the students run the building. So we have 20 part time students who come from all different disciplines on campus and they are learning how to run these events in every aspect. We have a student that is at any given event running the light board. We have students of running the sound board. We have students running the spotlights. We have students who do the load in the load out in the setup. They're learning how to work together as part of teams. They're learning leadership. They are learning technology. And they're learning what it means to be responsible and to work within a deadline that cannot be moved.

At 7.30 when the curtain comes up, everything has to be ready. And to be able to watch the students develop has been really incredible. And I would use Laura Bush's really good example. When she was here, I was standing backstage and I was looking at Dr. Scott and Mrs. Bush who were sitting a few feet away from me. And I was on the headphones and my sole responsibility was to say, okay, everything's ready. Let's roll. And as I said to the students, let's go. They said, now I said, yep, we're all set. Go ahead. And they said, right now. And I was smiling ear to ear. And I was thinking to myself that we had a student at the sound board. We had a student at the light board. We had a student running the timer for Mrs. Bush. And that was an experience that they could never have had if it wasn't for the generosity of all those that helped to build this building and for the vision of PSU and building it. So finally, my student read the announcement and introduced Dr. Scott and was settled enough to make it perfect. And everyone did an absolutely incredible job that night. And four months before the building wasn't ready to go. Four months later, the students were running everything. And they had put in an incredible amount of time and effort in learning and working to equip the building. And it was just amazing.

They get to do that with every single performance that comes on campus. They get to be an integral part of making the university better of making the facility run properly and of learning things that will serve them well for their entire professional career. What is the most exciting part to you about being the director for the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts? I think what's most exciting to me is that as we look to the future, this is just the beginning. There are so many opportunities for this building to serve the campus in the region with events in the future that will be great entertainment, but also educational opportunities that will serve for the next hundred years. And so as we look at the future, we are going to be experimenting with new genres and new programming. We're going to be looking to bring exciting acts to town that just have never been here before. And we're going to be looking to see how we can use the building to improve all of the campus.

Again, our guest today has been director of the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts at Pittsburgh State University, Joe Furman. For KRPS and Crimson and Gold Connection, this is Trent Johnson. Join us for Crimson and Gold Connection Wednesdays at 850 and Fridays at 350.