Articulations

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In Memoriam

Austin's dance community suffered another loss this week, even as it tried to cope with the sudden, tragic death of Tamara Barrington Yaryan. Lathan Sanford, longtime instructor in the UT Department of Theatre & Dance, succumbed to cancer on Monday, January 31. Sanford served as the department's senior jazz dance teacher for more than 20 years, but he was also more than a drill instructor in a studio. He was a hoofer, a dancer of the musical stage who strutted his stuff on Broadway and in Las Vegas, who worked with such old-school musical masters as George Abbott, Bob Fosse, Juliet Prowse, Chita Rivera, and Ginger Rogers. In his heyday in the Sixties, Sanford made a name for himself with his work in the Fosse-directed tour of Sweet Charity, and as a result was asked to direct other productions of it all across the country. Actually, through the years, he directed and choreographed all kinds of musicals in all kinds of places, in the U.S. and abroad, but Austin was the place that Sanford came to call home. It was where he went to college, where he returned after his successes as a dancer, where he taught for two decades, and where the impact of his life and career will be most deeply felt. Sanford's contributions cannot be accurately enumerated; who knows how many lives he changed through a class that he taught or a show he directed? But he was instrumental in shaping UT's drama department into a department of theatre and dance, establishing classes in jazz technique and helping develop the school's first bachelor's degree in dance, and those accomplishments, as well as his ongoing advocacy for training in musical theatre, have had a profound effect on the College of Fine Arts and the kind of education students in the theatre and dance department are able to pursue here. Sanford retired from the university in 1998, 30 years after he first joined the faculty, just over 40 years after he graduated with a degree in drama. He died at the age of 63. He will be missed.

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Curbed

Well, here's one more reason to hate the flu: It's laid low local playwright-performer Steven Tomlinson just as he was about to premiere his latest piece, Curb Appeal, as part of the FronteraFest Long Fringe. Tomlinson was set to perform the piece twice at the festival as an appetizer to the full run of the show at Hyde Park Theatre in March. The bad news is that both performances -- Wednesday, February 2, 8pm, and Thursday, February 3, 6:45pm -- had to be canceled. The good news is that a Sunday performance has been added. If Tomlinson has recovered sufficiently, the show will go on at 5pm at The Hideout, 617 Congress. To spare yourself any additional heartache, though, call 479-PLAY to confirm.

In a related note, Emily Ball Cicchini, who had to cancel the first week's performances of her new solo work Hole in the Bucket, has now had to cancel the remainder of shows, too. We wish Emily well and hope to see Hole in the Bucket at the earliest opportunity.

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Arts Personnel Watch

The turnover at arts organizations continues. Add to the list of resignations and changes noted earlier this month these moves in the last two weeks: Randy Storm has resigned his post as Executive Director of Zilker Theatre Productions and Melissa Eddy has bowed out as Executive Director of Chorus Austin.