Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 22, 1991 TAG: 9103210081
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Donna Alvis
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The touring company, now in its 17th season, is bringing the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic to theaters across the United States and Europe.
Leading lady Zanne Powers plays the pretty Nellie Forbush, the Navy nurse from Kansas who falls in love with the middle-aged French painter, Emile de Becque. The wartime romance is based on James Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "Tales of the South Pacific."
A second romance involves a young Marine lieutenant and the native girl from the South Pacific who steals his heart. Mark Meredith plays the American youth who is torn between the prejudices of his homeland and his love for the island girl.
The play is both tender and touching with music that soars. "Bali Ha'I," "I'm in Love With a Wonderful Guy," "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair" and "There Is Nothing Like a Dame" are just a few of the hits that burned up Broadway when the musical was first produced in 1949.
Of course, "Some Enchanted Evening" is a "South Pacific" original, too.
Tickets for the production are on sale at the box office in University Bookstore.
Admission is $16 for the public, $13 for Virginia Tech faculty and staff and $5 for Tech students.
For ticket information, call the box office at 231-5615 between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. today.\ TUNING IN TO SPRING: The Blacksburg Master Chorale, directed by Craig Fields, will present its annual spring concert Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Blacksburg Baptist Church. When t hese singers lift their voices, you'll feel a lump in your throat.
This year's concert features Johann Sebastian Bach's Missa Brevis in F and Franz Joseph Haydn's "Mass for St. John of God," commonly called "The Little Organ Mass in B flat."
James Bryant, organist for the chorale, will play Bach's Concerto for Harpsichord in F minor. The lively piece is an instrumental treat.
Tickets, available at the door, are $6 for adults and $4 for students. Blacksburg Baptist Church is at 550 North Main St.
\ WANT THE LOWDOWN? It's a hoedown at the Woman's Club Annex in Pulaski.
The Fine Arts Center for the New River Valley is sponsoring "Fourth Friday Hoedowns" each month. The fun starts at 8 tonight when the Open Road Bluegrass Band gets to pickin' and grinnin'.
Members of the community are invited to join the dancing. There will be waltzing, clogging, flat-footing and Texas two-stepping all evening.
Admission is $3 for adults and $1.50 for children 12 or under.
\ BAT MAN: Jack Cranford is the "Bat Man" of Virginia Tech.
Cranford, a professor in the biology department and curator of mammals at the university, will give us the swoop - er, scoop - on bats in a lecture Saturday at the Museum of Natural History. The presentation, which includes a slide show and demonstration on building a bat box, will be from 10 a.m. to noon.
The talk is free, but you may want to buy your own bat box kit ($20). Cranford says the boxes are to bats what bird houses are to birds.
"Bats coming back this spring may be looking for a place to roost," Cranford noted. "The bat boxes attract the bats. They can and do work."
Cranford also will discuss how bats affect the ecology and the importance of their conservation.
In other words, he will bring us out of the dark where bats are concerned.
The Museum of Natural History is at 428 North Main Street in Blacksburg (the former Studio Twin Theatres building). Admission is free.
\ BANG A GONG, GET IT ON: Virginia Tech's University Percussion and Marimba Ensembles will perform Wednesday in Shultz Hall on campus. The performance starts at noon in the rehearsal room.
Director John Floyd says the musicians will demonstrate changes in percussion instruments and their technology by playing three pieces from three different time periods.
The Marimba Ensemble will perform the first two pieces - "La Mi La Sol" by Renaissance composer Heinrich Isaac and "Keep Movin'," a piece written by ragtime xylophonist George Hamilton Green.
The Percussion Ensemble will complete the program with a contemporary piece by Willem Kersters. According to Floyd, this is a "massive" composition for more than 50 percussion instruments. Worthy of note, then, is the fact that the ensemble will perform it with 10 percussionists doing all the parts.
The concert is free and open to the public as a part of the Bach's Lunch series at Tech.
You're also welcome to bring a bag lunch and eat while the beat goes on.
by CNB