THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 1, 1995 TAG: 9512010224
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Long : 108 lines
Henceforth, time to time, I'll inform newcomers of 25 rules on how to get along in the Land of Many Waters, as the Indians called it.
A lovely land, stretching from Williamsburg to the cities of Hampton Roads embracing the roadstead.
Plus Eastern Shore and over the river and through the woods to the Southside, thence through Eastern North Carolina to the Outer Banks.
Brimming with rivers, inlets, sounds and bays. The Indians held that you can't go four blocks, or 2,500 deerskins tied end to end, as they put it, without hitting water.
Okay, that's Rule 1. The water.
Another - and I'll fling these out, now and then, as they occur - is that nearly every notable you meet started out in Portsmouth. You're reading The New York Times obituaries, a surgeon, a blues singer - and you discover he or she began in little Portsmouth!
Once, without scratching around, the city drew a multitude of notables to a banquet.
It happened again the other day as I was talking with a young actor, Christian Nova from the cast of The Phantom of the Opera. Sure enough, he started in Portsmouth.
Nova is coordinating a concert, Phantom Voices, with two dozen members of the play's cast who will perform Dec. 11 at 7 p.m. in Norfolk's Wells Theatre. Ever I debut with the yo-yo, I'm insisting it be at the Wells.
You sit in its atmosphere of understated elegance and know you are in the high cotton of culture.
To see these actors creating what they choose costs $25 a ticket. Add $15 more, and you can troop two blocks after the show to La Galleria for a reception with the cast.
Good idea, letting actors do their turns - dance and sing - and then everybody, strolling to La Galleria, convivial as a Shakespeare comedy. I might get that extra ticket. Go as far as the door, then fade. I don't wear well in a crowd. Who's that spilling coffee on his shoes?
Proceeds will benefit (50-50) the Tidewater AIDS Crisis Task Force and the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids. Phantom Voices is presented in every city on the tour. For ticket information, call 583-1317.
Nova was born in Portsmouth Naval Hospital, where his father was a doctor, his mother a nurse. He intended to follow his parents and older brother into medicine.
``My father was good about exposing us to the arts,'' Nova said. ``Avid for Shakespeare, he took us every season to the Old Globe Theater in San Diego.''
After studying biology at Pomona College, Nova took music and drama at UCLA with his parents' blessing and went to New York.
He finds The Phantom's story is that people who seem different on the surface have just as much right to a fulfilled life. ``A person with a horrible disfigurement is looked upon as some kind of freak,'' he said, ``but inside he has a beautiful soul or spirit longing to get out.''
Henceforth, time to time, I'll inform newcomers of 25 rules on how to get along in the Land of Many Waters, as the Indians called it.
A lovely land, stretching from Williamsburg to the cities of Hampton Roads embracing the roadstead.
Plus Eastern Shore and over the river and through the woods to the Southside, thence through Eastern North Carolina to the Outer Banks.
Brimming with rivers, inlets, sounds and bays. The Indians held that you can't go four blocks, or 2,500 deerskins tied end to end, as they put it, without hitting water.
Okay, that's Rule 1. The water.
Another - and I'll fling these out, now and then, as they occur - is that nearly every notable you meet started out in Portsmouth. You're reading The New York Times obituaries, a surgeon, a blues singer - and you discover he or she began in little Portsmouth!
Once, without scratching around, the city drew a multitude of notables to a banquet.
It happened again the other day as I was talking with a young actor, Christian Nova from the cast of The Phantom of the Opera. Sure enough, he started in Portsmouth.
Nova is coordinating a concert, Phantom Voices, with two dozen members of the play's cast who will perform Dec. 11 at 7 p.m. in Norfolk's Wells Theatre. Ever I debut with the yo-yo, I'm insisting it be at the Wells.
You sit in its atmosphere of understated elegance and know you are in the high cotton of culture.
To see these actors creating what they choose costs $25 a ticket. Add $15 more, and you can troop two blocks after the show to La Galleria for a reception with the cast.
Good idea, letting actors do their turns - dance and sing - and then everybody, strolling to La Galleria, convivial as a Shakespeare comedy. I might get that extra ticket. Go as far as the door, then fade. I don't wear well in a crowd. Who's that spilling coffee on his shoes?
Proceeds will benefit (50-50) the Tidewater AIDS Crisis Task Force and the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids. Phantom Voices is presented in every city on the tour. For ticket information, call 583-1317.
Nova was born in Portsmouth Naval Hospital, where his father was a doctor, his mother a nurse. He intended to follow his parents and older brother into medicine.
``My father was good about exposing us to the arts,'' Nova said. ``Avid for Shakespeare, he took us every season to the Old Globe Theater in San Diego.''
After studying biology at Pomona College, Nova took music and drama at UCLA with his parents' blessing and went to New York.
He finds The Phantom's story is that people who seem different on the surface have just as much right to a fulfilled life. ``A person with a horrible disfigurement is looked upon as some kind of freak,'' he said, ``but inside he has a beautiful soul or spirit longing to get out.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Christian Nova is coordinating a concert, Phantom Voices, with two
dozen members of the Phantom of the Opera cast December 11 in
Norfolk's Wells Theatre.
by CNB