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Seem-to-Be Players create 'real' world of fantasy
Natural Actress
On stage at an early age is a possibility when one sees the performances of the Seem-to-Be Players. Every Saturday the group,
Staff photo by MARIANNE MAURIN
Rv.JANE PIPER
Staff Writer
directed by Rie Averill, performs both a young and old audience entertaining them with music, bits and a play.
A make-believe world comes alive for children and adults every Saturday afternoon in the Lawrence Arts Center, Ninth and Vermont streets, when the Seem-to-Be Players perform for an audience that sits nestled on the floor around the stage.
audience through songs and games have made the Players a popular children's theater group in Lawrence, and a group of悠久 fame troll up over the last four years.
Adults enjoy the Players' efforts as much as children do, according to Ric Averill.
"That one's reason they come back," he said. "It's not condescending for kids, so it doesn't make a lot of sense."
After four years, the basic format of the shows remains essentially the same. There are two short plays interlaced with music, pantomimes and bits. One of the plays is usually a history, folk or fairy tale; this is the second season of *The Adventures of Nymr the Sprite*. The other is an episode in the continuing series "The Adventures of Nymr the Sprite". Saturday was the 39th episode.
The Seem-to-Be players are just what their name imitures. Averill said,
"We like to think we can be anything we want to be," Averill said. "We play as children do; we seem to be, simply and directly, and the seeming becomes reality."
It's a theory that the children seem to be buying as they eagerly whistle and sing along. Time before the show is spent on the floor with the cast entertaining and educating the children through questions and answers.
Props, costumes, makeup and expenses are kept to a minimum. A 75-cent admission charge for the 1:30 p.m. performances on Saturdays manages to cover most of the
Grants from the commission now keep the group affair. They received $1,500 last year, which was used for salaries, props, costumes and rent to the Arts Center.
theatrical expenses, but only Averill and the costume designer are paid for their work.
"We're reorganizing this year and trying to become more professional," Averi said. "If we don't get to the point where we're paying the cast is going to lose interest."
Averill said the goal of the Players was to become self-supporting. He hopes to be making tours by next spring. Such a tour would provide an opportunity for Averill said, because three to five shows would be ready at all times and cast members would be able to handle several challenges.
In addition to the weekly performances at the Lawrence Arts Center, the Players occasionally perform for school groups around the Lawrence area or at parties.
Averill said the Players were moving towards the use of small casts. A cast of eight persons, including two apprentices, would be the ideal size, he said.
Most cast members have been with the group since the beginning. Jef Dearinger, who played a lead role in the frame are favorites with the children, has missed only one performance in four years.
Similarly, Jeff Tamblyn is another original Player. He is in Hannibal, Mo., this summer directing Averill's new play, "The Two Giants," for a summer youth theater. Other cast members this summer are: Robert Hammond as Jim Power, technical director; Sara Hendrieks and Charles Higginson, actors, and Donna Hall, sets manager.
The Seem-to-be Academy Awards, held each Christmas season, are awarded to cast and crew members.
The judges are the cast members, as well as anybody else who comes to the party at the event.
*Mainly we just have a good time remembering what happened during the year.*
A new beginning and new home came for the Seem-to-Be Players two years ago. Previously they were known as the Meade Hall Players and had a performance hall downtown. The name was changed when the Players moved to the Arts Center. Debts from the earlier period were paid off within the last year.
Their audience has grown over time, too, from an average of 20 a week when they first started to 100 a week last spring. The audience and averaged 69 persons at each performance.
Two years experience as a kindergarten teacher and two years at Hilltop Child Development Center as a music and drama instructor, have given him many ideas for
Averil, a 1972 KU graduate in music composition, is the impetus for the Players. He has written nearly all of the plays and he has played more than 50 of his scris performances.
"I use the kids as a testing ground," he said. "If a 'say blooms with them,' he did."
"I'm really conscious of the overall show," Averill said. "I try to tie the ties together. For example, this month the general theme is birds, the summer and
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
The Lawrence Arts Center will be closed during August, and the Players will start their season on Monday.
Vol.87,No.161
KANSAN
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
English department to cut ranks of asst. instructors
Monday, July 18. 1977
Celebrities play beepball today
By KELLY BAKER Staff Writer
The department of English will hire only half as many new assistant instructors (AI) for fall as they did for last fall, James Gowen, director of the freshman-sophomore English program, said yesterday.
Gowen said that leveling and dropping
enrolments had caused a shrinking job market for English graduate students.
See story page four
"We don't want to discourage people from entering the graduate studies in English," he said. "But I think that the job market is nearly dried up." Gowen said that the English department would award only 15 new assistant instructors to graduate students this fall, and that the college will soon be dry.
Anti-ERA women scorn action
From our wire services
The English department has hired as many as 60 new AIs in the past to teach while they completed their graduate degrees.
WICHTA—A group of 1,000 women, contending that a vote in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was "trained through," gathered at the family rally" after the close of a storm. Kansas Women's Weekend conference.
But, according to Gowen, the demand for English teachers is decreasing, so the department is hiring fewer graduate students to teach.
A general assembly session, voted 1,149 to 942 Saturday night in favor of a resolution that would recommend to the National Women's Conference in Houston that the ERA be made a part of the U.S. Constitution.
Although the Houston conference can
make no binding decisions on the issues, it will make recommendations to the President and Congress.
Gloria Steinem, publisher of Ms. magazine and one of the speakers at the meeting, expressed some surprise that the ERA was the major issue in a state that is one of 35 that have ratified the amendment.
Confrontations on the ERA first occurred during a workshop session in which a resolution in support of the measure was debated. It passed by a narrow 1,171 to 1,024 vote and was forwarded to the assembly.
Israeli policy jumps prices
TEL IAVI, Israel—Jamaica's month-old government took bold actions yesterday to cut spending and inflation by trimming its budget and reducing subsidies on food.
The policy, announced at a late-night news conference by Finance Minister Simha Ehrlich, meant an immediate 25 per cent jump in prices at supermarkets.
Black crowned Miss Universe
A gallon of premium fuel will cost $2.10 today up from $1.71. Lines of cars formed at some gas stations last night as soon as the announcement was made.
Ehrlich also announced a two per cent
devaluation in the Israeli pound. One
dollar is now worth 9.75 Israel pounds.
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic—Miss Universe 1977 Janelle Penny Commission said yesterday she hoped her choice as the first black queen in the history of the pageant "will open people's eyes—black and white."
and gasoline pumps. The government said transportation, electricity and water also would rise an average of 25 per cent.
Miss Commission, 24, who broke a 25-year-old color barrier when she was crowned Saturday night, said her victory "a 'stained in the right direction'
the new Miss Universe, a fashion designer from the twin Caribbean island nation of Trinidad-Tobago, said her name, pronounced Co-miss-yee-young, is Portuguese. She said she had a "gut" sense of humor; she didn't might she own the crowned title.
Kansas City, B; New York 1; Chicago 3;
Boston 2; Minnesota 6; Oakland 1; Seattle 8;
California 7; Milwaukee 3;
Baltimore 2; Philadelphia 4; Chicago 2;
San Diego 6; Pittsburgh 3; New York 19;
Nashville 1; Miami 1; Atlanta 11; San Francisco 10.
Baseball
toward changing peoples attitudes towards blacks. "But it would take more than a naive one," she added.
Weather
"We will be limiting the total number of new graduate students each year by the simple expedient of reducing the number of instructorships we offer to them," he said.
Gowen said the A17 cutback would not affect the work load of about 90 graduate student Als that will have their instructionists renewed for fall. Sixteen or seventeen nonstudent qualified instructors will be hired to teach classes.
A survey of other departments on campus that hire graduate students as assistant instructors indicated that most departmental number of instructorships or more for fall.
John Landgrebe, chairman of the department of chemistry, said Friday that there had been a fairly constant number of graduate teaching assistants employed by his department and that he foresees no in the number of new assistants hired.
Bobby Patton, chairman of the department of speech and drama, said the number of instructors would be the same for this year as last, because of But Lynn Bretz of the Graduate School Council (GSC), said that a list of the number of assistants offered by any one school was unknown.
Bretz said the thinking was that under the new plan a department could give more graduate students money, but students had to pay more because they couldn't live on quarter-time pay.
Assistant instructors are paid on a half-time basis, and the pay scale varies from one department to another. In a survey made by GSC this spring, the pay for associate professors was $1,732 in the American studies department to $1,67 in the economics department.
"Instead of offering one half-time appointment," she said, "some departments have divided the appointments into two quarter-time appointments."
Stuart Hubbard, assistant instructor of English, said Friday that the pay in the English Department was not good but that the department couldn't do anything about it because the money was appropriated by the Kansas Board of Receients.
Hubbard said that an assistant instructor usually taught six hours of classes a semester, and also took six hours of graduate courses.
The work load and low pay are other complaints of graduate students with the Master's degree.
"That doesn't leave much spare time," he said. "It takes considerably more time than 40 hours. Full-time professors usually teach only two classes."
Staff photo by RICK PADDEN
Sinales winner
Raul Montoya, Colombia, South America, relentlessly pressured Joe Hoffman, Topeka, to take the first two sets of the match (#4-4).
6-4) yesterday and capture the men's singles title of the Lawrence Open Tennis Tournament.
Former KU player nets victory
The homecourt advantage proved to be decisive for Cecilia Lopez of Narvark, Mexico, in yesterday's Lawrence Open tournament held on the Allen Field House court.
Lope, who played on the KU women's team in 1975, won the women's open singles and then teamed up with Jean-Pierre Topeka, to win the women's doubles.
In her singles match, top-seeded Lopez defeated unseeded Becky Lynch of Wichita, a former Kansas State University player, 7-5, 6-3.
Lopez started her match slowly, losing her serve and the first two games before she was able to recover. She backhand shots. As Lopez's backhand became more accurate, she started moving forward to the receiving end.
Lynch, who countered Lopez's strong snots with softer, but deeper ones was able to win.
Since each player was able to keep the other from the net, the first set became a game of "double dutch."
Finally, Lopez began interspersing her groundstrokes with soft drop shots, forcing Lynch to run in from the baseline and hurry her return shots.
Lopez finally won the first set by pulling
Lynch often dumped Lopez's drop shots into the net. When Lynch was able to return the drop shots, Lopez easily volleyed them past for winners.
Lynch in with a drop shot and then hitting a driving backhand down the sideline.
trouble defeating Mary Stuart and Laura Revbolds, of topping Kea- 6.1, 6.2.
In the second set, Looper continued to vary the depth and speed of her shots to keep Lynch off balance. Looper broke Lynch's serve twice in the set.
In her doubles match, Lopes continued her overpowering game of strong serves and volleys.
In the men's singles, unseeded Raul Montoya, Colombia, South America, defeated the top seed, Joe Hoffman of Toronja, 64-54.
Both Montoya and Hoffman played
See TENNIS page four
Bond election tomorrow
A total of $8.4 million in general obligation bonds to pay for the construction of the Clinton Water Treatment Plant, which would supply Lawrence and three rural water districts with an additional 10 million dollars; it will be at stake in tomorrow's bond election.
City officials have said that the treatment plant, using Clinton Reservoir as its source of water, would provide a more stable water supply than the existing plant at Third and Indiana streets, which treats water from the Kansas River.
A five-year schedule for water and sewer rate increases has been set up to pay for the plant. The first of which, at about an 11 per cent increase or the average income, took Fay. Mav
The proposed $8.8 million water treatment plant is to be paid for with the $4.4 billion in capital raised by the project.
rest coming from water revenue cash reserves.
Voter approval of the general obligation bonds would allow authorization of a bond sale as early as tomorrow night's city commission meeting.
The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
**Second-Ward:** 1st and 2nd预科教室. Community Health Clinic. 3rd and 4th pre科教室. Biodiversity Institute. 5th pre科教室. And Field House. 6th pre科教室. Welcome to North Park.
First Ward, 1st and 4th preschets, Pickney School,
2nd and 3rd preschets, Douglas County Bank, and
8th Preschets.
Pollting places for the water bond election are:
****
Third-Ward, 18t prefect, Central United Methodist Church, 13t prefect, Cordell School, 13t prefect, School Church, 16t prefect, Busty's 21d prefect, 5b prefect, Rusty's 21d and Louisiana streets; 6b and 9b prefect, Schwinger School, 7b and South Street.
- Fourth Ward, 1st and 2nd prefectures, Central Junior High School, 3rd prefecture, East Height School, and 4th
Fifth Ward. 1st and 2nd prefects. New York School.
Bath Ward. Woodland School.