- Welcome to our place, our time.

On this edition, we'll meet people who bring the arts to young audiences.

We'll look behind the scenes at the business of Art.

We'll savor the promise of Spring and Warm to the music of DRAM Trio.

And here's your host, Vianne Webb.

- For 34 years, young audiences of Virginia has been taking professional musicians, dancers, and actors into schools across Virginia.

This year alone, young audiences will present more than a thousand performances.

How do they work?

How do they bridge the gap between young minds and professional adults?

Do the performances instill in children a lasting appreciation of music and dance or theater?

What do the children learn about the creative process?

We'll explore these and other questions.

When I talk with Bob Nelson, a professional actor with a young audiences company, and with Mannette Cooper, a founder of the Young Audiences chapter in Virginia, and its program director.

We'll visit first a young audiences program.

Kim Simon went to Greenbrier Elementary School where students and professional actors and musicians are taking part in a seven week creative adventure.

It began with the children writing poetry and making their own music.

- Okay, good.

Again, hand behind you.

Oh, - Body stretches, vocal exercises, facial expressions.

These students from Mrs. Bolton's class are warming up just as the professionals do.

It's all a part of their creative adventures.

Training, an educational ensemble approach to the performing arts where students become playwrights, composers, actors, and set designers as they learn under the guidance of key artists to put on a theatrical production of their own.

But it's more than just putting on another school play.

- It's about where theater comes from.

What happens?

Somebody has an idea, they write it down, somebody else goes, well, that's a great idea.

Let's act it out.

Somebody else says, well, we should have some music with that.

So they write something down.

I mean, that's the way theater happens.

And kids don't realize that to them it's like some mysterious process.

So this is a project about that process, about how to start with nothing and how to end up with a production.

So by the end of this, they've done everything necessary to start from scratch, write the script, write the music, do the costumes, props, paint a backdrop, send out invitations.

They've printed a program, mailed it out to their parents and stuff.

All of that stuff makes the process sort of demystified, you know?

Now.

Now art is something that anybody can do.

They can just like wake up in the morning and write a play.

If they feel like it.

They feel like they can by the time they finish this process.

- When I see myself doing something, I, I feel, wow, I, I did really good 'cause and it makes me feel good inside.

- Goodbye to all the firsts.

Goodbye.

Tochi won't see us.

We can do - 9-year-old Chad Page authored this particular short order production titled Goodbye to the Yellow Bus.

It began as a simple poem about a graduating class's last day of school.

But with the creative input from fellow classmates, it evolved into a musical performance complete with an original score.

The composers, the kids, of course, with a little direction from some seasoned professionals.

- This is run through, we've never played this before.

Let's call it the world premier and let's hope we don't find any mistakes.

This is where the Tidewater Wind Quinte comes in.

I come into the classroom in week three of Creative Adventure.

Talk a little bit about music, about melody, harmony, rhythm.

And by the end of that class period, we come out of there with an actual melody.

A week later we come back and the melody has been transformed into a full fledged production number.

And this is the great part to really see how they get the smiles on their faces and they're tapping their toes and swinging their legs, their legs.

They really have some pride and accomplishment in what they have done.

- Producing a musical from start to finish is something to be proud of, but it's not the only lesson to be learned through this creative process.

- Well, part of it's cooperation.

I mean, the cooperation springs from confidence that they have, that people are gonna take their ideas seriously.

We try to relate straight to 'em.

If they have an idea, we try to either use it or explain to 'em very well why that won't be effective for the audience or what, you know, if some kid thinks of, well, let's lay tinfoil on the floor to ice skate on, fine.

We'll try to think of a way to do it.

Or we'll say, well, people trumping across that are gonna tear that all up.

Let's think of something else.

You know, but we don't say, what a stupid idea, or we don't say That's wrong.

You know, they're all right.

Anything's great.

- After five sessions of workshops creating, composing and collaborating, the production takes shape and moves out of the classroom and onto the stage where it is almost ready for opening night.

- What with this is it in the beginning, you know, there some, sometimes they're a little reluctant to, to throw out ideas.

But by the end, when they've had all their ideas, like either seriously addressed at least, or, or actually put into the play, then they see that process working.

It makes them somehow more aware of what goes into performing arts and makes them better audiences.

I mean, part of young audiences thing is just to give people an appreciation of the arts, and they have an appreciation of the arts after that from just their immersion in it in this process.

- Thank you, Kim.

I'm delighted that we have a chance to learn more about young audiences on our program today.

We have a special guest, Mrs. Mannette Cooper, who many of you know Mannette is program director for young audiences, and with us also is Bob Nelson, whom we saw in Kim Simon's report from Virginia Beach.

Bob is a professional actor.

I've always thought that young audiences had more impact on the arts than any other performing organization.

And having said that, I hope that Mannette and Bob are going to agree with me.

Oh, and not leave me hanging here.

Because young audiences plays to thousands of, let's call them people.

They are people to young audiences, to special audiences.

A lot of us don't get to see them, but their philosophy and impact is a little bit different.

Say from a symphony performance or a full opera performance or something of that sort.

We think it's an important organization.

We'd like for you to know more about it.

And it's your term, Annette.

- Thank you.

Vian Young Audiences is a national nonprofit organization that presents live performing arts to students all over the United States.

We have 38 or 39 chapters at the moment, and last year we did about 27,000 programs bringing the live performing arts to oh, about four and a half million students.

Most adults don't see us unless they teach, or unless they're PTA and and very active in the PTA.

So they come and visit with us, but we basically take the programs into the schools and with no more than 300 students in the audience, we try to involve them.

Young audiences specifically is Invo is interested in seeing that students absorb the information as we go along.

So we ask them questions and we do a variety of things that actually get them involved in the program, - Which is how I think it differs.

It.

It differs in that there is the concert situation that's right, where you come into an auditorium and you said, and that is, that's 1 million for it, and you applaud and it's not quite as active and involvement as young audiences.

For which reason, Bob, maybe you could speak to the auditioning process for who is performing based on the involvement you're trying to achieve, and whether or not you think it's for all musicians or actors or dancers for that matter.

- Well, the musicians have a, a different sort of, they have different sort of problems to work with than we do.

They get audience involvement too, mainly through demonstrations, questions, answers, letting kids sometimes put their hands on their instruments and stuff.

We actually get volunteers up to help us with our show.

So we'll have, we will ride into the shows.

Okay, we need a family here.

We'll have Luanne be the mom, Steve, be the dad.

We need two volunteers for the kids.

Come on up.

Good.

And we, and we'll run through a little piece of the play with those volunteers.

So, I mean, besides it being a magic experience for the kids, who are the volunteers, the kids in the audience love to see their friends up there acting stuff out.

So, - Well, one of the things that's different about young audiences is the very thing that we saw in Kim Simon's piece, this creative experience.

Where is it not where you go in and stay resident in a school for a certain period of time?

- Right?

Well, that's a program that Minette made up.

If I'm, if I'm not mistaken, she sort of came up with the idea, got the grant money, the funding to do it, and, and our theater group, the Morning Lark Theater Company does that project.

That's not the usual kind of project that young audiences does.

They're, they're mainly have those shows.

But this project is done once a year in January and February and has been going for 10 years or something.

Now, this is my fourth year I believe, doing it.

And we get the kids and he's - Wonderful too.

- Thanks all.

Shucks.

And we, it's a seven week Well, - It takes a special rapport.

Yes.

I don't think everybody is suited.

You can be a very fine actor or very fine musician, and if we bring the children in and we put them here and bring you up here and you play, and that's fine to have to stand up, communicate, talk in some instances, let them play, requires a special kind of rapport and personality.

- Fine.

I'll go back to your, so imagine you are, to your comment about auditioning.

All of our ensembles deal with professional performers, professional dancers, professional musicians and professional actors.

They have to audition for us before a live audience.

And they have to prove to us that they not only perform well, but that they can involve the students and that they're comfortable doing.

So there's nothing that students see through more than someone who really doesn't like them.

So we simply can't use performers who don't like students and like working with them.

It's, it's a lot of fun to watch ensemble members actually learn how to do it.

I want to mention that Young Audiences of Virginia, which is our chapter, performs all over the state.

I mean, we, we are in Wise County and we are in Harrisonburg and in Roanoke, places like that.

So we are all over the state, though the larger percent of our programs is in Hampton.

- I think one of the special things it does, and and you were talking about it before we began the interview, that personal involvement, which a performer can have in young audiences, has touched very personally, many a student and, and a young child who then was so involved that they themselves sort of caught fire.

- It's true.

We - Had, and it uncovers talent in that child, - Right?

We've had numerous letters, hundreds of letters besides the Creative Adventure Project.

We have several other groups, theater groups that are all combinations of the same five people.

And we do a Shakespeare group for secondary schools called Fools for Shakespeare.

We do a storytelling group for elementary schools called Marmalade that does two shows.

One is called Tales from Virginia, which sort of fits in with the fourth grade curriculum around the state and tells folk tales.

And one called Tales from the Ettl, which does Eastern European Jewish folklore Tales.

And - For which we got a special grant - For which we got a special grant, right?

And had some friends of ours write it.

But from all of those groups, we've had numerous letters from kids about, gosh, you know, I never thought about theater before, but gosh, it happens right in front of you and it's great.

And look at that.

And, and we've had people, you know, students come up particularly and tell Dave Wicks, who, who is the, the in the woodwind quintet, who's part of this creative adventure project that, gosh, he was so much fun in their workshop that they, that this guy wants to be a French horn player.

And you know, I'm, I'm sure that in no other fashion would that child have ever thought of being a French horn player.

I mean, - Well, a couple things to point out, I think too, that we are talking, certainly you're giving that perspective in theater.

We're talking about all kinds of music, all kinds of music, - All - Kinds perform, all kinds of dance, performing arts, all kinds of performing arts.

And I think what young audiences addresses is the basic philosophy of it all.

That if, if the performing arts are brought to a child's life when he's quite young and before the prejudice is set in, then performing arts will live - Well, we - Not only, - Well, we try to, we try to offer them options that they would not otherwise have.

The performing arts are for everyone, right?

- Plus, plus adult role models who, who do performing arts and are, you know, pleasant and childlike themself.

And, and - So that's part of lifes right?

It's, - It is.

Exactly.

And just demonstrating that, that you can grow up and be - An actor foolish if you want to fool - Right?

Roll around on the floor with kids if you feel like it.

You know, they, they love to see that.

A lot of times teachers spend a lot of time being proper, you know, in front of their class.

And to have adults come in who will actually roll around on the floor with 'em or, or do plays with 'em or, or be silly with 'em, I feel that's a great function of ours to go in and be silly.

- If you have children in the schools and they come home and talk about young audiences, we hope that you'll know more about the electricity that that child is experiencing, something that has seemed very vital to him.

We'd like to thank Monnette Cooper and Bob Nelson for talking to us today.

We'll take a look now at some important events taking place in Hampton Roads over the next few days.

So mark your calendar.

These are our choices.

Over the past few months, we've taken a look at several artists and the ways they create.

But what happens after an artist finishes his work?

How do artists sell their work?

Joe Pitts talked to a gallery owner and to one of our areas, better known craftsman in an effort to learn about the art of merchandising art.

- They're very classic in their style.

The nice thing about their work is it just goes with anything in everything and it's not trendy, which is nice.

And you can use it with any other piece of art to set on your table.

- They are Jim and Karen c Choley of Chocolate Porcelain and stoneware of Virginia Beach, and have been working artists here in Hampton Road since 1978.

- The type of work that I do is a functional and decorative porcelain object.

- The Chos are professional artists, not only by the caliber of their work, but also in the sense that their art is also their business.

- This is an art form that you just can't forget about.

'cause it's constantly changing, you know, it's constantly drying and you're firing and there's just so many aspects.

It's so multifaceted that you have to really pay attention what you're doing.

We have to be here a lot.

It is our livelihood.

- They also show their work extensively, sometimes as many as 12 shows a year.

Over the years with the shows, commissions and wholesale work, the Chos have managed to stay quite busy.

- Well, we've slowed down quite a bit.

We used to work seven days a week all day long and after dinner.

And we've just, somehow, we've gotten to a point now where we don't have to go back after dinner.

We sell to galleries and museum shops all over the country.

We have wholesale accounts with these businesses, and it's generally one or two orders a month that we, you know, ship from Boston to Key West, to San Francisco, to LA just all over the country.

- One of the galleries which carry the Cho's work is Palmer Ray in Virginia Beach.

- We represent about 70 artists.

15 of them right now are local artists.

And we have eight NEA award winners in here that have just become award winners in the last year.

So we're real proud of the fact that we picked them up before this happened.

The local people that we carry, they're only showing with us, which is real nice.

They're not getting a exposure in every gallery or every little show.

And that kind of makes him special with us - As an art gallery.

Palmer Ray is unique in that most of what is carried is either pottery or sculpture.

- I was 17 before I went to my first museum, and I was 20 before I ever went to my first art gallery.

And I was so overwhelmed by what I saw that I loved everything.

And that's why this gallery reflects so many different styles, is because I'm not one sided in any particular style.

If I like it, I buy it.

And I found there's enough people in the area that support my taste.

- Art has always been created, bought, and sold, and the art gallery has been an important link in connecting artists and patron.

But as art and artists have changed, so have the galleries, - The art gallery business is a tough business because we're considered a luxury, not a necessity.

And when you walk in here, what you see is not necessarily all we have.

People don't realize that they can come in here and have an, an artist make 'em a railing for their stairway.

Or they can have stained glass made any size.

I mean, we can do stained glass to go a four story building.

When you come into an art gallery, you can buy anything from a, a small coffee mug to a large sculpture to go in your garden.

You're, you're not limited in art galleries, just buy paintings or just to buy real large pieces.

And when you come in here, you have to take each shelf and look because you miss an awful lot.

If you don't just doing the perimeter of the gallery on a quick turn, you miss an awful lot.

And we've had a lot of people that have come in here.

It's like, I had no idea.

And I think, you know, they need to take more time, not only in my gallery, but any gallery or any art center or art show, and really stop and look at the work.

You'd be surprised what you see.

- Last year, the Folk Music Group, Dr. Trio, released its second album called Waterside that refers to the songs about the sea, that the group is known for singing as well as to its regular place of residence at waterside in downtown Norfolk.

You can hear Dr. Trio there on weekends at Reggie's Pub.

But now the group is at our place and it's our time to enjoy Dr. Trio.

- And its that your hearts never fell.

When the body ship, the diamond go fishing for the whale.

Oh, the dining dealership milad for the day is straight.

She's bound and the Kia head is all garnishing with Bonnie Las round.

Captain Thompson gives the otters to sell the ocean wine when the sun never sets milad or dark through the skies.

And its chair of the, that your, the, the fishing for whale stand around with the Wal Shaws bowl of around them and the salt tears running down.

Will we build more?

My we last wv behind for the rose, the wandering than ze Before we change our mind.

And this year, rock the let your, the whale is a help to the resolution.

Like a wise Eliza Wan.

He's a help to the Bachelor of Montrose.

And the diamond chip fame will wear the of the white, the jacket.

So the blue, when we return to Peter, he will have sweet parts and, and the will be bright from day and night when the green will last, come home with a ship that's filled with oil and money to our we'll make the cradle rock the blanket and every last petering, never for the body ship, the diamond, the lift.

- In recent weeks, there may have arrived in your mailbox, A garden catalog filled with promise of a colorful future.

Catherine Morton has some thoughts for us about garden catalogs.

- Here we are in the o bleakest part of the year.

The lawn is stubble, the shrubs are thread.

Bear the trees stand naked in public.

Even the skies blanked out as though it thought blue were too expensive a color to wear.

When the rest of the world is in drab, where has all the color gone?

You get the feeling that if there were a rainbow to happen this time of year, it would show up in stripes of gray.

In this color starved situation, optically deprived, we are sitting ducks.

When the gardening catalogs arrive in through the mail slot, they come like travel brochures from the land of Oz.

Except here, almost nothing is munchkin sized.

Things come in, only varying degrees of enormous, huge, gigantic stupendous, monstrous and very large.

And every horse is a horse of a different color.

As the mad assault continues for the perfect blue rose, black tulip, blue tulip, white eggplant, the yellow watermelon, the yellow tomato, the green daffodil, where that color starred, we don't care.

As we pour over the pages, soaking up the reds red like nothing on earth ever was.

And greens.

Greens that we lost since Eden, honey rich yellows, agos of purple and orange, and pinks like the dreams of a passionate flamingo, but especially the reds.

Where do the printers get that ink?

And whether the promises come true or not, or whether the plants and the seeds we buy in the fever of February have become tiny insect zoos by July, or are dead by then, or are still in the seed packet.

Unplanted, with last year's, the catalogs never failed to bring the joy of gardening into our lackluster lives.

In fact, out of a whole year involved with the joy of gardening, this is the only dependable part.

- When the garden catalogs come, you can be sure that spring isn't far behind.

Thank you, Catherine Morton.

Next week on our place, our time, we'll welcome historian Alf mapp, whose biography of Thomas Jefferson was picked as one of the best books of 1987.

We'll hear Renaissance music from the Lo consort, and we'll hear the great Caruso Sing and Louis Armstrong play.

Join us then.