JAYPLAY
May 3,2001
entertainment news
Local artists struggle to make a living in Lawrence
By Amanda Begin
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
James Ray Weber sits in a booth at Wheat Fields Bakery, sipping Dr Pepper through a straw and smiling as he reflects on his greatest strengths.
James is a longtime Lawrence actor, well known for his comedic timing. He hopes his ad-lib talents will propel him into the Chicago theater scene — someday.
"I'm not tall, I'm not pretty, and I'm not a woman with big boobs," he said. "I'm a side-kick. Give me a script and three hours, and I'll make it funny."
For now, he continues his three-year tenure as manager of Wheat Fields Bakery. His audience is small — co-workers and customers who pay less attention to his snappy wit than to the turkey sandwich on wheat they are served — but paying rent and monthly bills is a larger issue.
Lawrence is bursting with hidden artistic talent like his. It's a city with a colony of underground painters, musicians, comedians, dancers, writers and actors. Although many aspire to see their work on stages, in books and in galleries, for now they have to work day jobs to make ends meet. The only certainty is that the landlord will have his due.
"She's really sad about it, but she's really grounded in her hometown." James said.
James, 31, whom friends and co-workers know as Jamie, said he thought his days spent working behind a glass display counter were numbered. He's doing what he can to break into the business, including paying $600 for publicity photos.
When he makes his move to Chicago, he said he would change his first name to Jackson, his father's name, and would leave his lonetime girlfriend behind.
He will intern in a Chicago theater if his application is accepted.
The road to Jackson
Jennifer Wilson dances with the Prairie Wind Dancers at the Lawrence Arts Center. Wilson gets paid each month for dancing, but also works several other jobs. Photo by Selena Jabara/KANSAN
James said his ideal job would be reprising the role on Late Night With Conan O'Brien that former sidekick Andy Richter recently abandoned.
James recently performed at Liberty Hall
with another O'Brien — friend Michael O'Brien, Winnetka, Ill., junior. The show was a send-off for the cast, who drove a van to Washington, D.C. to perform O'Brien's play. Battles, at the Kennedy Center.
A one-act farce about Hugh Hefner's life prior to founding *Playboy magazine*, *Bunnies stars James as, of course, Hefner's sidekick*.
The co-production of Card Table Theatre and English Alternative Theatre (local acting troupes to which James belongs), Bunnies won the invitation after performing the play in January at the Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festival.
When he's not performing or working, he enjoys performances of the Prairie Wind Dancers, featuring fellow underground artists like Jennifer Wilson.
Happy feet, devoted dancer
Jennifer and six other women saunter' onstage, dragging their bare feet with every step—their white vinyl dresses a stark contrast to the brown curtains and tile dance floor. Silently, the women set candles at corners of the dark stage and blow them out one by one in the routine that Jennifer choreographed.
A devotion to dancing brought Jennifer, 25, back to Lawrence from Scotland, where with only a backpack and a little bit of money, she spent a year "traveling, making friends and living day by day."
"We dance together about 10 hours a week," Jennifer said. "The group is like a family. But I love working with people and reaching out in the community. Dancing is my little contribution."
ine prospect of dancing professionally lured her home, though, and she returned to Lawrence to dance.
Last February, she took a job as a desk assistant at the Lawrence Arts Center and she joined the Prairie Wind Dancers.
She teaches junior high dance classes at the Arts Center, waitresses at Paradise Cafe and spends a few hours each week at a halfway house teaching women simple dance steps.
Jennifer said someday, she'll audition for a bigger company.
Unlike many dancers from other groups, Jennifer collects a paycheck from the Arts Center every month for dancing.
Many paintings by local artists hang on the walls of the Bourgeois Pig, where Creed Shepard, a writer, sits at a table, listening to a CD through headphones and reading a book about a French poet.
"I'd love to have some nice things and feel like an adult," Jennifer said. "I'd just like to support other Lawrence artists."
Eventually, with more money and free time, Jennifer would like to buy furniture and local art. *
A writer's Creed
Seated in his usual corner, Creed is surrounded by open notebooks and a cloud of smoke that dissipates only when he pauses to light another cigarette. A poet, playwright and essayist, Creed, 23, has been writing since he was 10.
His stories are crowded with tragedy, fantasy and imagination, and involve laboratories, mannequins and playhouses.
"I'm not tall, I'm not pretty and I'm not a woman with big boobs. I'm a sidekick. Give me a script and three hours, and I'll make it funny."
James Ray Weber Comedic actor and Lawrence resident
rns latest works in progress are an analytical piece about Aristotle's writing and a play about the netherworld.
Creed is intrigued by spaces between words. He believes silence says as much as words. He quotes great poets and says "writing is a process, a grand metaphor for everything."
but writing also requires that Creed eat, sleep and make a living. So he works as a bookkeeper at the Eldridge Hotel, where he earns $11 an hour. That buys food and cigarettes and pays bills.
Creed lives in a self-described "bungalow" on Florida Street. He travels by bicycle, sleeps on the couch and has a cabinet for his clothes. His room has a bare corner for his Fender Stratocaster guitar and a pile of clothes on the floor.
He said he was once close to accepting a conventional job, "but turned back."
"I might as well have joined a monastery," he said.
For now, his afternoons are spent in a corner of the Bourgeois Pig filling notebooks and chatting with the Tabletop poets, a society of Lawrence writers who meet weekly to read stories and poems.
While Creeed tells of life in words, his friend Joshua Upshaw portrays life with pen, paint brushes, watercolors and crayons.
Creative cartoonist
Joshua, 33, walks past the bar of the Paradise Cafe carrying a plastic bin of dirty dishes. Dressed in a Cafe T-shirt, worn Levi's and black Converse tennis shoes, he disappears around a wall where 16 of his cartoons hang.
The cartoons are single-scene pictures of
Lawrence artist Joshua Upshaw washes dishes at Paradise Cafe to help pay the bills, but considers himself an artist, poet and musician. "If you you're doing art, writing, playing music for money, you're doing it for the wrong reasons," said Upshaw. Photo by Selena Jabara/KANSAN
quirky characters such as exaggerated animals and people with fruit-shaped heads. Most are drawn with pen, and several were published in the Kaw Valley Independent. His cartoons are sold as postcards at Sugartown Traders and Creation Station.
"Some are silly and some are surreal," he said, pointing to a cartoon of a frazzled cook with hair stacked high on her misshapen head, a cigarette hanging from her mouth.
Lately, Joshua has concentrated on poetry and piano because he said he can't afford paint supplies.
Joshua, his ex-girlfriend and four cats share a house south of Baldwin City.
JAYPLAY inside
"it's falling apart," Joshua said. "It's a shack. We have a well and an outhouse."
Horoscopes ..2B
Music ..2B
Fine Arts ..2B
See ARTISTS on page 3B
Movies . . . . . 2B
Crossword . . . . 4B
Classifieds . . . . 7B
Vroom Vroom
Kansan reviewer says
Jeep MacNichol's first
album is worth the listen.
See page 28
Wild mix of sounds Kansan reviewer says new album combines many musical styles. See page 2B
Summer 2 Many of the summer's new movies are sequels to earlier box office hits. See page 58
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