Primped, imps dance for a good cause under red-light alert.
Performers romp through Burlesque! at Arkansas Rep fundraiser
The Arkansas Repertory Theatre, the state’s largest nonprofit professional theater company, each year stages a production that’s about, well, about itself.
This year’s Saints and Sinners went off Jan. 31 in the Wally Allen Ballroom of the Statehouse Convention Center. Formally attired guests sipped cocktails — including signature pomegranate martinis — and made BidPal purchases for silent auction items in the lobby outside the ballroom, while the Heather Smith Band provided entertainment. They then proceeded to the opulently appointed ballroom to sit down to a dinner of grilled filet of beef with brandy demi-glace and snow crab claws.
In keeping with the evening’s crimson color theme, Rafael Colon Castanera, costume designer for the Rep, designed bright red costumes for performances that blended Broadway, Vegas and Cirque du Soleil. Dinner entertainment was provided by Rep performers Marisa Kirby, Samy Rash, Blane Beaty, Matthew Morley, Caleb Allen and Anthony Bryant, as well as acrobatic performances by Olivia Holt, Camille Rule, Samuel Pettit and Hannah Trice of ReCreation Circus Arts.
Bob Hupp, producing artistic director for the Rep, gave opening remarks for the evening’s agenda and introduced co-chairmen Marla Johnson and James Norris. They also made remarks prior to the evening’s main feature, whose title suggested more “sinner” than “saint”: Burlesque!, written, directed and introduced by Rep director Nicole Capri. The flashy song-and-dance production was a sophisticated, eclectic romp through numbers that included a take on Meghan Trainor’s hit “All About That Bass”; a four-man Justin Timberlake tribute performance; and other numbers sung by Lola McClendon, Sam Clark, Kayla Walker, Mark Binns and Cayla Christian as well as Beaty, Capri and Morley. The surprise performance of the evening? A tap dance by the event’s education chairman, Kirk Bradshaw.
Capri spoke about the Rep’s Summer Musical Theater Intensive (nicknamed SMTI, or “Smitty”) training program for aspiring young artists in Arkansas. The Smitty program was featured in one of two films broadcast on multiple screens that chronicled the work of the theater.
The live auction was conducted by wisecrack-trading Craig O’Neill and Thomas Blackmon. Among the items up for grabs were a New York trip with Hupp to observe Rep auditions, a trip to the 2015 Tony Awards and after-party and a six-day safari in Moshi, Tanzania.
The evening ended with guests cutting a rug to the music of DJ G-Force.