Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 17, 1995 TAG: 9510170024
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
We've got all kinds of museums, an opera society, ballet. The big Broadway road shows stop here.
Heck, we've got a cultural center right in downtown Roanoke with five floors of history, fine art, science stuff and a regional theater.
But that doesn't mean everyone who patronizes Center in the Square - Southwest Virginians or not - is necessarily cultured. Why else would they ask questions like these:
``What state is the Art Museum of Western Virginia in?''
Or:
```Hamlet.' Is that a musical?''
Or:
``Are the dinosaurs in the science museum alive?''
Or:
``What floor is the fourth floor science museum on?''
``My mouth fell open when I heard that,'' said Wilson Williams, head of security for the center. ``I didn't want to just blurt out, `Well, it's on the fourth floor!'''
The questions come from a list compiled by Center in the Square special-projects director Sandy Light.
But while we members of the cultural elite may chuckle over our cappuccino, the folks down at culture central have to actually deal with the crazy queries.
At the first floor information desk - that's on the first floor - they get all kinds of wacky inquiries:
``Which stall on the market sells the best beans?"
``How far north do alligators roam?"
``Have you seen my wife?"
That from a bewildered-looking man in a sea of kids dragging their parents about on a Saturday afternoon.
``If you're the information center," Williams says philosophically, ``you're supposed to have the information, I guess."
No resident organization in the center escapes the interrogatives.
``Does Mill Mountain Theatre hire live actors?"
``Well, whenever possible, yes,'' said theater director Jere Lee Hodgin. ``Although they can be real divas, they tend to work the best.''
``Where does Mill Mountain Theatre serve dinner?"
Dinner? You can't get so much as a bag of peanuts.
``Are y'all still next to the [Mill Mountain] Star?"
This one vexes Hodgin to no end. The original theater on Mill Mountain burned nearly 20 years ago.
``You spend all this money on all this advertising. It just makes you want to go grrrrrrrrr...''
There are cases of mistaken identity. The following phone conversation involving theater receptionist Katy Reed, who no longer works there, is a legend around Center in the Square:
Caller: I got two pygmy goats. You want 'em?
Reed: No, sir.
Caller: You don't? What am I supposed to do with them?
Turns out the wayward caller wanted Mill Mountain Zoo, which is listed just below the theater in both Roanoke phone books.
``We get all kinds of calls about animal care questions,'' Light said.
Some questions there's absolutely no accounting for:
``Where are the shrunken heads in the art museum?'', asked one patron. ``How much are they worth?''
``I don't have any idea about that one,'' said Light.
``We don't, either,'' said Cindy Hagerman, marketing director for the Art Museum of Western Virginia. No one connected with the museum remembers a display involving shrunken heads for the last 30 years.
By far the most goofy questions come to Mill Mountain Theatre's box office.
Ask box-office manager Luke Church about it, and he'll dig out a paper-clipped stack of scraps of paper and start reading.
``May I please have some seats facing the stage?''
``May I please have an aisle seat because my husband is hard of hearing?''
``May I please have an aisle seat because my husband is real long?''
Church handles the questions with all manner of grace. He just bites his tongue and gives them an aisle seat, for whatever reason. Then he writes the question down for posterity. It's kind of an ongoing study.
``They always bend over and put their heads up under the glass,'' he noted, referring to the narrow space between the counter and the window that separates Church and his tickets from society at large. He didn't say whether they were shrunken heads.
He keeps reading:
```The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,' is that a planetarium show?''
No, it's a one-woman Broadway show that originally starred Lily Tomlin.
``Are the Ice Capades coming here?''
``Can you reserve seats for the monster truck rally?''
``Are you all playing `Aladdin?'''
No, no, and no.
In that order.
As if the questions aren't enough, there are complaints, too.
One man's gripe was that Mill Mountain needs to do more musicals.
``I remember seeing a wonderful production of `Fiddler on a Hot Tin Roof' there,'' he said.
Church has spent some time musing on that one. He's got an idea for the soundtrack:
``Ow!, Ow-ow!, Ouch! Ow!''
Wonder if he has any thoughts on a theme song for ``Hamlet.''
by CNB