Crimson and Gold Connection; Joe Firman

Welcome to Crimson and Gold Connection, keeping you connected with the people and current events at Pittsburgh State University. This is the Crimson and Gold Connection on 89.9 KRPS, I'm Fred Fletcher-Fierro. This week, we chat with the director of the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts, Joe Ferman. Joe and I spoke on Friday, October 25th, at the KRPS studios. And you've got some big performances coming to the Bicknell, the best of Broadway series pretty soon to South East Kansas. Absolutely. One of the things I've noticed about the best of Broadway series is that some people don't know what that is. So I've been starting to tell people that the best of Broadway are the national tours. These are the same tours that you would see if you went to Kansas City or to Tulsa, Oklahoma City. These are the very best national tours with the best actors, who many of which perform on Broadway. And then they go out on the road and they bounce back and forth between on the road and on shows that are actually on Broadway. So best of Broadway, our first show is Band Stand. And that is going to be an amazing show. It's all about World War II vets coming home.

And a national competition is going on to find the next great band and they form a band. So Band Stand has got great big band music, love story, and a story of the troops coming home and re-adjusting to being home in society. So it covers a little bit of everything and it's the first Broadway show to ever be certified by the Got Your Sixth Organization, which is looking at how veterans are portrayed in dramatic roles. And so they have endorsed it as being a very good portrayal. Speaking of Broadway or performances that you would go to a large city for just last week at Robert Dean Smith and the Southeast Kansas Symphony Orchestra opening their season at the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts, that was on Thursday and then they traveled up to Kansas City and played the Coffin Center on a Saturday. What are some of the Pittsburgh, the smaller performances going on at the Bicknell, like Pittsburgh State related? Well we have a lot of really cool stuff and I always tell people that every performance at the Bicknell Center is equally important to all those who are in it. And so I don't really think of them as smaller.

They are all in the same room, so they're all the same size. But what I like to tell people is that when you go to a pit state event like the PSU Wind on Sombal Concert, which is coming up on November 24th, they are just as acoustically amazing as any other group you're going to hear on that stage. And that's the real magic to being in the Bicknell Center. I was visiting with the members of the Southeast Kansas Symphony who went up to the Coffin Center and I said, well what was it like going from our rehearsal room, which we opened last spring to the stage and then from our stage to the Coffin? And they all pretty much agree that it was okay, there was no real adjustment from one to the other to the other. And I'm sitting there with a big smile on my face because if you think about it, the Coffin is one of the greatest theaters ever built in the history of the world. And there is no problem with our students going from our stage to the Coffin Center. They're perfectly comfortable on either. And it just gives you an idea of the quality that we are blessed with that they put into the campus. And just every day when I drive up to the building, I have a smile on my face and to hear stories like that, it makes me incredibly proud of the effort everyone's putting into

raise their game because you've got the space. So the performers are now performing at a higher level as they rehearse in a better facility and as they perform in a better facility, they can easily make the jump to the finest facilities in the world. And we get to listen to these students and these facilities every day. Anyone who wants to come out to these performances, everybody is welcome. I always joke that some people don't realize that the campus and the Vicknell Center are here for everybody. It is here for everybody. We want to see you, we would love to have you come to these events. It is your building as much as ours and we love it the best when we get to share it. There are holiday extravaganza. I know this coming up. It is Ron and Raul Mungi as he's the director of the SEK Symphony Orchestra. That is one of the events that he loves to have on the schedule. He plans it once out in advance. Oh, he plans it years in advance. And he and I have been working on this one together because this year is not just going to be the holiday extravaganza. It is the holiday extravaganza and the fifth anniversary of the Vicknell Center.

So this is the closest concert to our ribbon cutting date. So we have asked the symphony if they wouldn't mind being the lead group for the anniversary. And they're going to be doing some really special things. Dr. Scott will get to say a few words. We're going to be doing some music, Christmas related, but also some of our Broadway musical shows. We're going to be playing some of those great hits as well so that we can really celebrate what the five years of the Vicknell Center has meant to the community. And we're going to have a reception afterwards. Everybody's invited. It is a free concert. We'll have cake. We'll do tours of the building. Really just to celebrate what it means to be reaching such a huge milestone. Five years already. It's just unimaginable. It is unimaginable because five years just goes along the blink of an eye in a life. And there have been so many. I've been here just over two years and it seems like there have been so many memorable performances and interviews like Condoleezza Rice with President Scott earlier this year. So many memorable things have happened at the Vicknell. It's hard to imagine what Pittsburgh State or Southeast Kansas or even the city of

Pittsburgh was before having the Vicknell Center. Absolutely. Another great event coming up. And this is an outside group that comes in to use our facility, but it really shows the quality of the Vicknell Center is the Moscow ballet is coming back again. Returning, yeah. Exactly. Here on year, there are repeating group that loves this part of the country so much that they'll be coming back again. And I was in at Arsmed West a couple of years ago and I was looking at all the advertisements in Milwaukee for the Moscow ballet. It is the exact same group that travels the country doing all of these large cities and they love coming to Pittsburgh. And that tells you a lot about the quality of the community as well as the facility. Just to be able to support all of this and probably one of the biggest notes I want people to understand who are listening to the radio, this only works if people come. It is amazing to me how many people still have never had a chance to come visit the Vicknell. And so I want to extend the invitation to anyone and everyone who has never been there. We love giving tours.

We absolutely adore showing off the facility to anybody who wants to see it. So if you have never seen it and you have a day when you can get off to Pittsburgh, stop in. We would love to show you around, show you the quality of the facility and we would love it if you would consider coming to some of our events. A lot of them are free. If you can't afford a Broadway musical, you can definitely come and enjoy all of the free offerings like the Holiday Extravaganza, the Wind Ensemble Concerts, the Jazz Band Concerts. These are really awesome events and I get so much joy out of the big Broadway shows, but it is matched by the joy I have when I see the symphony perform or the Wind Ensemble. These performers are working really hard and there's magic when you get a hundred people on stage creating music together. Just imagine getting a hundred people together to agree on anything. It's a common practice in music, everyone's moving in the exact same direction and it really is, I say it's very close to being at church because you have that opportunity to experience creation right in front of you and it just fills your heart with joy. Joe Furman, Director of the Bignol Family Center for the Arts, thank you for some of your

time this morning. Thank you so much for having me. Joe Furman is the Director of the Bignol Family Center for the Arts. You can learn more about the Bignol, their upcoming performance schedule and purchase tickets at their website, bignolcenter.com. I'm Fred Fletcher-Fierro and you've been listening to the Crimson Ant Gold Connection, a production of 89.9 KRPS. Join us for Crimson and Gold Connection Wednesdays at 8.50 and Fridays at 350.