One Book Winner Cassie Premo Steele Leads Community Discussion on Her Novel Beaver Girl

On Tuesday, August 27th, Cassie Premo Steele will offer insight into her 2023 novel Beaver Girl during her author’s talk at All Good Books (734 Harden St). 

The Jasper Project, in conjunction with One Columbia, and All Good Books, announced Steele’s novel as the selected community reading for the 2024 One Book project earlier this year.

One Book was first adopted by Columbia in 2011, modeled after the One Book, One Community project that started in the Seattle public library system in 1998. The goal is to highlight literary art by South Carolina authors and to emphasize a sense of community around storytelling. 

Beaver Girl is “set against the backdrop of a post-pandemic and climate-collapsed world” as it follows 19-year-old Livia through a journey with a beaver family in Congaree National Park. The story both reveals the unique role of beavers in the world’s ecosystem and the “redemption, resilience, and interconnectedness of all living beings.” 

Next week’s Community Book Discussion will give readers of the book a chance to pick Steele’s brain and interrogate the themes of the story. Even locals who have not had an opportunity to read the book can take advantage of the evening to get to know a local author and learn more about this community-oriented project. 

Jasper talked with Steele ahead of the event to find out just why this event is so vital—both as part of this project and beyond.

JASPER: Why does this discussion matter to you as an author?

STEELE: For the past five months, the 2024 One Book Project has hosted events giving people the opportunity to read and learn about the themes in Beaver Girl. I’ve led workshops on beaver ecology and ethics from Congaree National Park to Oregon and Washington State. I’ve engaged in panel discussions about the novel with beaver scholar Emily Fairfax online and a host of scholars and activists here in our community at the Nickelodeon Theater. And I’ve given classes on writing “the code of the water way” to writers and science educators from across the states of Oklahoma and South Carolina. 

Tuesday’s discussion, though, will be a homecoming, returning back to the local bookstore where the Jasper Project, One Columbia for Arts and Culture, and All Good Books chose Beaver Girl for this year’s community reading selection. And as the characters Livia and Chap learn in Beaver Girl, there’s no place like home. 

JASPER: Why might people want to get a behind the scenes look for this book specifically? 

STEELE: The community book discussion will be an opportunity for people to share stories about their fears about environmental disasters and the losses the pandemic and political upheavals have caused — themes addressed in the novel— but also their [positive] experiences with the natural world, their strategies for self-care and connection, and their hopes for a future where we enjoy the abundant richness of diversity in our human and more than human communities. 

JASPER: Why should people take the time to meet local artists? 

STEELE: We have a rich, diverse city filled with creative people, and we live in a unique biosphere region that is unlike anything else on earth. The book shows us how we can learn to live together in harmonious ways — and what can happen if we do not. 

JASPER: Why should the community be excited for this event, specifically?

STEELE: In the end, Beaver Girl is really a book about family and community. Who do we love? How can we learn to trust again after great trauma? What members of our community need care, and how can we be open to communicating with those who are different from us? The moderator of our discussion, Ruth Smyrle, took care of my stepdaughter when she was a baby, so there’s an element of family woven into the event itself. I hope people will feel that reading and discussing Beaver Girl gives them an opportunity to feel part of a beautiful and diverse community. 

The Community Book Discussion will be Tuesday, August 27, from 6:00pm—7:30pm at All Good Books.

If you can’t make it on the 27th you can also meet Steele at one of the following events:

• Monday, September 9 at 6:30-7:30 PM - Queer-Themed Book Discussion with Cassie Premo Steele, Author of Beaver Girl, Moderated by Maggie Olszewski, Queer Poet and Employee at All Good Books, to be held at The Hoot, 2910 Rosewood Drive, Suite 1, Columbia SC

• Saturday, September 7 at 10 AM-12 PM - Summer Forest Journaling with the Author of Beaver Girl and Earth Joy Writing at Congaree National Park : Free but space is limited. Register here.

• Tuesday, September 17 6:00-7:30 PM - All Booked Up, the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium’s Coastal Reading Club for formal, non-formal, or homeschool educators, discussing Beaver Girl. Online. More info here.

• Sunday, September 22 at 3:00-6:00 PM - ONE BOOK 2024 Round-Up Party and Potluck Dinner with BYOB. Music, Art, DJ, Poetry, Cozy Conversations and Hugs! One Columbia Co-Op, 1013 Duke Avenue, Columbia, SC

The NiA Company Presents Jasper's Play Right Series 2023 Winning Play THERAPY by LONETTA THOMPSON

August 29, 30, 31

at the Trustus Side Door Theatre

Few things make us happier at the Jasper Project than seeing art that we had some small hand in helping to launch continue to grow, thrive, and take on a life of it’s own. We are so pleased to share the news about one such theatrical project coming to the stage this month – Lonetta Thompson’s 2023 Play Right Series-winning play, Therapy!

As the third of our Play Right Series winning plays, Lonetta Thompson’s Therapy was workshopped and presented as a staged reading in August 2023. The book, Therapy: A Play by Lonetta Thompson, was published the same month. Now, after a workshopping session in June, Therapy is coming to the Trustus Side Door Theatre August 29, 30, and 31,as a production of the NiA Company.

Jasper’s 2023 Cast of Therapy — Left to right - Jon Tuttle - Play Right Series Manager, Emily Deck Harrill - stage manager, Rick Edwards, Marilyn Matheus, Michelle Jacobs, Allison Allgood, Elena Martinez-Vidal - director, and front & center Lonetta Thompson - playwright.

THANK YOU TO OUR COMMUNITY PRODUCERS WITHOUT WHOM WE WOULD BE UNABLE TO LAUNCH THESE PLAYS!

Jasper caught up with a very busy Lonetta Thompson and asked her what she’s feeling as she goes into the final weeks before a full production of Therapy comes to life.

“Winning the Jasper Project's Play Right Series and watching the staged reading was thrilling but watching it come to life with this amazing group of people is beyond anything I could have imagined,” Thompson says. “Being on this side of the story can be nerve-wracking, but I know it's in the best possible hands. We're still technically workshopping it, but I don't know how the experience could get any better. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to the Jasper Project, all those involved with the staged reading, Trustus Theatre and the always amazing NiA Company! 

The cast for this production includes Dr. V. played again by Marilyn Matheus, Max - Andie Lowe, Alex - Ellen Rodillo-Fowler, Charlie - DaMarius Allen, Young Alex - Kerasan Ulmer, and Chris is played by De'On Turner. Darion McCloud is the director with costumes from Taylor Thompson and Lights/Sound/Set Design by Teddy Palmer.

Jasper wishes broken legs and happy times to the cast and crew of Therapy, especially our award-winning playwright Lonetta Thompson, and encourages all of you who enjoy seeing new theatre art in Columbia to grab your limited seating tickets and look forward to a night of excitement – presented by NiA Company at the Trustus Side Door Theatre the last weekend in August!

Reserve Your Ticket Here!

2nd Act Film Project is Accepting Applications!

Jasper’s 2nd Act Film Project  has opened the

CALL for SC Film Artists!

An innovative project unlike any other we’re aware of, 2nd Act is conceived and executed by Jasper Project Board of Directors President Wade Sellers, founder and owner of Coal Powered Filmworks, and is in its 8th year of production, having already nurtured the birth of 70 new indie films from SC filmmakers.

For more information read here.

SEPTEMBER 14th -- A Double Dose of Jasper

Mark your calendars for the evening of Saturday, September 14th, after the LSU/Carolina game, to come out to Harbison Theatre for a double dose of Columbia Arts. Help Jasper welcome renown graphic artist Nate Puza to the walls of our Harbison Gallery with a free drop-in opening reception starting at 6 pm. Enjoy meeting Nate and hearing about his art, sip a little something, have a little snack, and chat with friends until 7:30 when the curtain rises on more new art coming out of Columbia, SC!

Let It Grow, by Chad Henderson, winner of the Jasper Project’s 2024 Play Right Project series, will premiere as a staged reading  and offer us the right to say I saw it first when it inevitably moves on to other stages near and far. Directed by Marybeth Gorman Craig, and starring Libby Campbell-Turner, G. Scott Wild, Kayla Machado, and David Britt, Let It Grow is a sweet and poignant comedy that looks at the expectations we share about family-like relationships, what happens when players outside of those relationships insert themselves, and PLANTS! The Play Right Series is administered by SC playwright Jon Tuttle and is in its fourth cycle of midwifing new theatre art onto the stage exclusively from South Carolina playwrights.

Previous Play Right Series winning plays include Sharks and Other Lovers by Randall David Cook, Moon Swallower by Colby Quick, and Therapy by Lonetta Thompson. Lonetta Thompson’s Therapy will be fully produced by the NiA Company August 29, 30, 31st at the Trustus Theatre Side Door Theatre and Jasper strongly encourages you to come out and support this new art, too! Tickets for Lonetta Thompson’s Therapy are here.

NATE PUZA OPENING RECEPTION

6 PM – FREE

 

LET IT GROW by Chad Henderson

7:30 pm -TICKETS

 

And while we have you, check out Harbison Theatre’s exciting calendar of events for 2024 – 2025 including Ensemble Eclectica on August 24th, South Carolina’s own singer-songwriter Cody Webb on September 6th, and The Box Masters featuring Billy Bob Thornton with opening act The Capital City Playboys, Friday October 18th!

Large-Scale Urban Canvas Art Tapestry Unveiling at Todd & Moore Sporting Goods

A new Urban Canvas tapestry, a component of the Columbia Streams Art public art program is scheduled to unveil on Tuesday, August 20 at 11:30 am by Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann, representatives from Todd & Moore, the host of the new piece of public art, and the artists themselves.

*The featured artists include:

Jennifer Bartell Boykin

Diane Condon

Wilma King

Tabitha Ott

Kristine Hartvigsen

Michael Cassidy

Lori Starnes

Michael Dwyer

Austin Sheppard

Anna Redwine

The tapestry measures 15 feet wide by 10 feet tall, and is comprised of images and artistic expressions by ten different local visual artists, poets, and jewelry designers.

The City of Columbia will also recognize the 20’ wide by 15’ tall Urban Canvas which was recently unfurled in the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center, which mirrors the original 10’ by 10’ original canvas first exhibited outside of Art Bar in The Vista in November 2022.

*The Jasper Project Congratulates and Appreciates All the Artists Involved in this Project and Wants to Make Sure Your Names are Heard, Known, and Celebrated!

Todd & Moore Sporting Goods exterior

(Back of the building facing Blossom St.)

620 Huger Street

Al Black's Poetry of the People with Ellen Malphrus

This week's Poet of the People is Ellen Malphrus. Ellen is a vibrant force in South Carolina's literary community as she links the present with the past. A former student of James Dickey, and is a fierce warrior and advocate of the literary craft. 

I am still waiting for the honor of hosting and sharing the mic with her at an event.

-Al Black

Ellen Malphrus is author of the novel Untying the Moon (foreword by Pat Conroy). Her collection Mapmaking with Sisyphus was a finalist for the 2023 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize. Publications include Atlanta Review, Chariton, Weber: Contemporary West, Poetry South, James Dickey Review, Blue Mountain Review, Natural Bridge, Southern Literary Journal, William & Mary Review, Fall Lines, Yemassee, Haight Ashbury Review, Catalyst, Without Halos, and Our Prince of Scribes. She is a professor and Writer-in-Residence at USC Beaufort who divides her time (unevenly) between the marshes of her native South Carolina Lowcountry and the mountains of western Montana.

____

Mother Emanuel

                                      for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, Reverend Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Mrs. Cynthia Graham-Hurd, Mrs. Susie J. Jackson, Mrs. Ethel Lee Lance, Reverend DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tiwanza, Kibwe Diop Sanders, Reverend Daniel Lee Simmons, Sr., and Mrs. Myra Singleton Quarles Thompson

In her custodian’s closet the big

squeeze handle bucket

sits on its rollers, weary and dented,

stained past judgment day

when the wash water went                            

pink to red to crimson

with each faithful swath                                 

across the solemn floor                                              

and anguish                                        

flowed through city pipelines

down the river

out to sea,

mingling with millennia of

mopped up blood—

ensanguined taint of senseless history.

We bow our heads, as nine cannot,

in awe of a

congregation who chose compassion.

Chose peace—

lest Charleston roil up in                                

hot black waves of wrath.

As surely it could have.

As some say it should have.

Dozens of unassailed steeples

rise above the peninsula canopy—    

yet the grace of but one

makes this the

Holy City.

     ~

Founding Father

As you gallop

through the park

in granite stillness

children stretch from playground swings

toward the cloud-capped roof of innocence—

expecting to break the sky

                                                if they spring out far enough.

And even if they land in earthbound sneakers

they have traveled farther

than your stone horse will take you

ever again.                                                                                                                        

A child’s rein might lead away from

this block of town square immortality

but they are busy

and don’t come close enough

to notice

your green streaked face

or hear the echo

in your bloodless veins,

Hero.

They don’t know that

you die again

as they squeal in sunlight

and still more

in the sharp of night—

when floodlights point

clear and cold.

          ~

Intermission

So you pitch a blue tent

in the field out back and

carry in enough booze

to pour yourself out,              

            prove you are alive

                                    or not.

And you must be alive because

you are unfit to sleep in the house—

because you would lie in the dirt but

you’re not drunk enough to stand

the mosquitoes.

Who cares about the snakes.

You must be alive because

the knife bolts you

when you find it

in the sleeping bag—

            because it’s the trap

            you want to kill and                           

            when you slash the top of the tent

                                                            the stars step back.

And you laugh.

That happens to you.

You, who must be alive because

you’re not watching yourself

wander           

            numb

by the river—

because that’s you, laughing.

Crying.

Crying when you remember

it is your mother who’s dying—

                                                not you.

Live guilt blossoms

because you would even consider

stealing the stars

from yourself

when soon there will be so much darkness.

And they are fragile, the stars,

despite how they sometimes slice you. 

Yes, you must be alive because

look at you scraping

labels from the empty bottles

            and slinging them

                        to the recycle pile—

because you pick up the knife

and wonder where you put

the duct tape.

Nobody dead would do that.

                      ~

Conjure Woman

Maiden, I have called you.  Enter.

Closer now, and fade the lamplight.

I have watched you

in the nighthawk alley

aching alone in the stillness.  But

in that courtyard news will never come.

Bound and bent they keep

            him, far from the reaches

                        of your ever listening.

Yet his cries mingle in the pale wind,

                        and I hear them every nightfall.

I will tell you where to find him,

if you choose the dread and desert.

Only then can you begin to know that

nothing stands but dark.  And

light bends to make the night more seemly.

They will tell you    

white and white and white

and never stop. They will tell you

                                                                        that but cannot keep you.

                                                                        Ride in distance

                                                            through the furied sunset

                                                past dahlias trailing

                                    wildly across black dirt.

                        When silver separates the thunder

            branch off at the thistle tree

and listen.

And if you can bear it, from

there you can hear the world.

Then you will find him.

Then you can know

why they tremble in the splintered twilight

and would sooner tear their hearts than say

that

I am of the other wonder.

~

Communion

The happy situation of a

notebook filled with lines—

no matter how poorly or

well placed on the page,

one following the next,

written here by me

or there by you

as we carefully

crashingly

longingly

lovingly

try to tell it

like it is,

was, will be.

Try.

We hold the pen and

roll our fingertips while

trains insist on distant tracks

and years bend over edgewise.

From time to time we walk away

to refill the larders

of life

but we always come back to them.

Words.

I didn’t think of you there

with your pain and tenderness

while I slow danced and

shimmied with my own.

But you are so clear to me now,

leaning over your cluttered desk  

or propped in a bed of pillows.

I have wishes for you—

to finish drafts

and publish work

and catch every train

your heart sends you.

And when I take up my pen

for the first mark of the day

I will raise a glass in your honor

whether I remember to lift it or not.

The South Carolina Writers Association Storyfest 2024

The South Carolina Writers Association will host its annual conference, 2024 Storyfest, Sept. 27 through 29 in Columbia, featuring more than a dozen acclaimed authors, agents and editors.

The event, to be held at the DoubleTree by Hilton, will include talks and classes by writers from South Carolina, Georgia, California and New York, including Lynn Cullen, national bestselling author of “The Woman with a Cure” and “Mrs. Poe;” Grady Hendrix, screenwriter and author of “How to Sell a Haunted House” and “The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires;” and Tiffany Yates Martin, author of six novels and the how-to book “Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing.”

Other features of 2024 Storyfest will be masterclasses, free talks, panels and keynotes addresses, manuscript critiques, craft classes, and meetings with sought-after editors and agents, including Andrew Geyer, the award-winning author or co-author of 10 books and editor of SCWA’s literary journal, The Petigru Review.

Other speakers include award-winning South Carolina novelist and short story writer Scott Gould; Southern Indie Bookstore bestselling author Mindy Friddle; Columbia poet laureate Jennifer Bartell Boykin; New York Times noteworthy author Cinelle Barnes; military science fiction and post-apocalyptic writer Alex Rath; and screenwriter and producer Alan Roth, a winner of the prestigious Nicholl Fellowship Award in Screenwriting.

Some of the South’s top publishers also will attend, including Arcadia Publishing, Palmetto Publishing and the University of South Carolina Press.

Registration is open with early bird registration fees for the full three-day conference of $250 for members and $325 for nonmembers; those fees will increase by $30 on June 16, so register early to save! Student registration for the full conference is $140. A one-day ticket for SATURDAY SESSIONS ONLY is available for $195. Masterclasses, manuscript critiques and query pitches will be available for additional charges as add-ons to your registration. For full details go to 2024 Storyfest. If you are not a member of SCWA, join now to enjoy the member rate for Storyfest along with other SCWA benefits. Membership is $75 annually; go to Join Us. (Be sure to renew if you haven't already!)

The hotel rate is $169 (plus taxes and fees) for 1 king or 2 queen beds. For reservation information, go to the 2024 Storyfest main page.

Alex Ruskell Creates Whimsical Friends for Jasper’s Tiny Gallery

Nighthawks by Alex Ruskell

Alex Ruskell is a man who wears many hats, serving as the Director of Academic Success for the University of South Carolina’s Law School by day and parading around stages with his band, the Merry Chevaliers, at night. 

All the while, strange little figures plague his mind, and fortunately for those who call Columbia home, those whimsical dudes materialize into joyful paintings patrons can hang on their own walls.

Crooner by Alex Ruskell

“When I started painting, all I really wanted to do was make people happy,” Ruskell shares. “I know that sounds dopey and saccharine, but that was it—along with making enough money per art show that I could take my family out to dinner without feeling guilty about it.” 

For his Tiny Gallery show (which has made his work available to those nearly as far-and-wide as the outer space dwellers he often paints), Ruskell has put together 8 new works alongside prints of 2 popular pieces.  

On the gallery site, patrons will see dinos and dragons floating in space (with astronaut helmets for their tails, of course); crooning, karaoke monsters; and kings and goths alike just trying to get by. Essentially? The usual.

Spaced by Alex Ruskell

“The painting thing has worked out better than I could hope for,” Ruskell says. “I've got paintings in my yard that the neighborhood children have named; I see my paintings in the backgrounds of college dorm photos; and I get asked to do commissioned paintings for family birthdays, baby nurseries, and wedding gifts.” 

Alex Ruskell’s Tiny Gallery show will be live until August 31st, so be sure to check out his funky friends filled with heart before then on Jasper’s virtual gallery space. 

“Life is wonderful, but everyone has their down moments,” Ruskell says. “I like to think that a person might buy an alien eating a slice of pizza, stick it on his or her wall, and get a chuckle out of it now and again."

Click Here to Shop Jasper’s TINY GALLERY

REVIEW -- Trustus Theatre's Workshop Premiere of Dandelion: An Original Musical

by Chad Henderson

Trustus Theatre opened its doors on Friday, August 9th to a sold-out audience that had been long-anticipating the first downbeat of Dandelion. This original musical was created by composer and lyricist Colleen Francis and book writers Jessica Fichter and Sean Riehm, with some additional music and lyrics from Hailee Beltzhoover-Zuniga and Bill Zeffiro. This work is a slick and well-devised exploration of trauma, mental illness, and the sinewy bonds of family. It will move you, you will relate to one or more of the characters in this multi-generational story and it will actually make you laugh quite a bit. So, if you’re reading this to find out if you should see Dandelion at Trustus - then let me go ahead and direct you to their website to buy tickets: trustus.org. Your Columbia artists are in your own backyard creating something new and you don’t have tickets yet? Shame on you. This is why we can’t have nice things in this town. The show runs through August 25th, so you’ve got plenty of chances to experience Dandelion and stick around for talkbacks after every performance if you wish.  

Now, for posterity, I will pontificate about the production as it stood on opening night. (As this is a workshop production, that means it can and probably will change on its journey to the next production. Hell, it might have already changed before the second weekend.) 

Dandelion tells the story of a teenager named Jane and her family. They live in Georgia, USA. Jane’s mother, Lilah, has endured a long struggle with mental illness and opioid addiction. Jane’s parents have split up, but her fun-loving parrothead of a father is still in the picture. At an impasse with Lilah, Jane’s brother Jordan has also left the house and raises a family away from his mother’s illness. So, this leaves Jane as the sole caretaker of her mother for quite some time, but she finds solace in the company of her best friend Gabbie as they begin the process of applying for college and going to the prom. Will Lilah find a pathway to a healthier life? Will Jane make the move to North College without her mother getting in the way? Are the systems that are supposed to protect those with mental illness totally fucked in America? Well, the audience will hope for the best as the inevitable answers to these questions are revealed. All the while, we’ll keep truly wishing the best for these characters, because they’re all really likable (and word on the street is that the story is based on an actual family from around these parts).  

On the road to this workshop production, one would assume that the script has undergone alteration and subtraction. The end result is a satisfyingly paced production that is dense but moves with plenty of locomotion. The play’s translation from page to stage was directed by co-book writer Jessica Francis Fichter (and Trustus Executive Director), and it is a winsome evening in the theatre through her collaboration with music director Steven Gross, choreographer Terrance Henderson and the production’s design team.

left to right Stann Gwynn, Sadie Wiskes, Katrina Garvin, and Sean Stephens photo by Thomas Hammond

Colleen Francis’ music and lyrics are clearly the result of an industry professional. Her work in her career spans from country to hip hop, and if you listen to Franky C (her performer name) you will joyfully experience music that would be at home on top 40s stations. The songwriter’s prowess comes front and center with the haunting “Lullaby” that serves as the introduction of Lilah’s mental illness, and one of the play’s most useful devices: the utilization of three actors to personify the character’s depression, rage, and paranoia. This storytelling gambit seems to have given Francis the permission to dive into some inventive places with numbers like “Nightmare,” “Throwing Me Away” and, truly one of the strongest of the production, “Bottom of a Bottle.” These tunes feel connected and original to this musical. Also noteworthy is “Not the Perfect Daughter,” which is a moving solo from Jane that boasts a memorable melody and hook.  

With Francis’ ability to be a songwriting chameleon, it was somewhat surprising that the team behind the show desired to lean into some of the more prosaic tropes of modern musical theatre. Much of the music that doesn’t center around Lilah’s internal journey sounds like some other song you’ve heard from some other musical in recent history, and sometimes even the moments in the show can seem (intentionally?) echoic. For example, with the device of having a present-day and younger Jane to demonstrate the story’s links to the past - one could remember Alison Bechdel in Fun Home. It was also hard to ignore the similarities between the Act II opener and Next to Normal’s “My Psychopharmacologist and I” - right down to the waltz and the list of side effects in the lyrics that end in “death” (or “use could be fatal” in N2N). It is entirely possible that a different approach to the arrangements or orchestrations could bring something unique to the sound of the show.

Left to right Mel Driggers and Hannah Bonnett — photo by Thomas Hammond

There are plenty of theatre fans that love the familiar, and Dandelion will ultimately feel safe with a cutting edge here and there to jar the viewer on occasion. The team and the cast give this new work sturdy legs to stand on, because it is indeed tight, well-crafted, and realized by professionals with proven track records. That is undoubtedly why the audience connected to the characters, pulled for them, related to them, and wiped the tears from their eyes as they stood for an ovation that was well-deserved by the cast and all in the show’s orbit.  

Speaking of the cast: new work can be stressful, fast-paced and a bit disorienting - but this group didn’t flinch. The quartet of Katrina Garvin (Lilah) and the voices in her head played by Kristin Claiborne, Terrance Henderson and Brittany Hammock provide the thrills in this story - both narratively and musically. As these characters build into moments of destruction (literally), the group illustrates the expanse of Lilah’s inner-struggle and how powerful her illness can be when confronted by others. Katrina as Lilah uses her toolbox to keep the character teetering on the brink of a possible breakthrough, while believably navigating the waters of hitting rock bottom (we hope they record  “Bottom of the Bottle” so we can relive her powerhouse performance).  

The Three Voices — Brittany Hammock, Kristin M. Claiborne, and Terrance Henderson - photo courtesy of Trustus Theatre

It must also be mentioned that the Three Voices get to play a grab-bag of other characters in the story, especially in “Welcome to Your New Life.” Some of these briefly-lived creations are some of the funniest in the show. Case in point: Brittany Hammock as Carla, the college tour guide. Some of the laughter she generated lasted longer than the built-in holds-for-chortle. 

New to the Trustus stage is guest artist Hannah Bonnet in the role of Jane. Bonnet is a magnetic performer, and she does a commendable job of holding the audience’s hand throughout the story and bringing them along. Jane’s best friend Gabbie is played by local actor Mel Driggers, who gets to play the clown a lot in this performance. Driggers’ Gabbie is an homage to all of our best friends in high school, and the friend who pushed us harder because they truly loved us. Seeing these two actors work together presents much needed levity between some of the darker moments. However, we did wonder if there might be more signaling in the playing of Jane that shows how her mother’s conditioning has set in over 18 years. Beyond her own guilt as a caretaker, what else is the character escaping in herself? 

Also in Jane’s sphere are her father Daniel (Stann Gwynn), her brother Jordan (Sean Stephens) and the memory of her younger self played by Sadie Wiskes. Young Sadie is there to show us Jane’s innocence, the child before the veneer is chipped away - and she does a lovely job. Stann Gwynn and Sean Stephens’ characters provide a lot of the uncomplicated familial love for Jane, though both characters have clearly abandoned her in some form or fashion. Both actors shine throughout the proceedings, but their turns in the chaotic “Get Your Shit Together” really turns up the energy on stage and the anxiety in the audience.  

The show’s title references an endearing moment early on in the play where Lilah tells the young Jane that when you blow a dandelion and make a wish, that your “wishes have wings.” I might be compelled to pick up the next few dandelions I come across. I hope I won’t jinx it by publishing it here, but I think I’ll wish for the following: 

1. More original plays and musicals by local artists

2. More producing organizations presenting new works 

3. Audiences showing up for new work

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world. Check out the show's dedicated website, see Dandelion and enjoy the conversation afterwards. 

CALL for Visual Artists -- Jasper is Accepting Applicants for the 2025 Jasper Galleries Series

We’re looking for a few good artists!

It’s already time for Jasper to plan our schedule for the 2025 Jasper Galleries Series and we want to hear from YOU! Just follow the instructions on the handy graphic above to let us know you are interested in sharing your work with the Jasper Project and your adoring fans.

In addition to our online 24/7 Tiny Gallery, Jasper has gallery spaces at Motor Supply Bistro, Sound Bites Eatery, The Nook at the Koger Center for Arts, the Lobby Gallery at Harbison Theatre, and at the Sidewalk Gallery in the Meridian Building Windows at Washington and Sumter Streets in downtown Columbia.

Application Deadline is October 15th.

We’re looking forward to hearing from YOU!

Special thanks to the good people at Motor Supply Bistro, Sound Bites Eatery, Koger Center for the Arts, Harbison Theatre, and the Meridian Building for supporting Columbia’s visual arts community by opening their walls to the Jasper Project for programming. We encourage you to support these businesses with your patronage. And if the walls need some love in your place of business, please contact our

Galleries Manager, Christina Xan at cxan@JasperProject.org,

to make plans for a Jasper Galleries arrangement custom created for you and your clientele.

Art Reception Double Feature at the Koger Center by Emily Moffitt

The Koger Center for the Arts underwent a large cosmetic upgrade during the summer months, including new carpet and the installation of telescopic seating in their large rehearsal room to create a black box theatre. Aside from the physical facelift of the building, the two gallery spaces now hold new exhibitions for patrons to enjoy before an event or any time throughout the day. The two new exhibits are “The Project 2023 Winners’ Exhibition” in the Gallery at the Koger Center, and in the Nook, one of our Jasper Galleries locations, Marius Valdes is the featured artist of August. A large-scale opening reception for both exhibits is scheduled for August 15, 2024, from 5:30 – 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.  

The Project 2023 Winners’ Exhibition features the winners of the Koger Center’s annual art competition. The 2023 iteration winners are Yvette Cummings, Roberto Clemente de Leon, Gerard Erley, Jo-Ann Morgan, and Susan Lenz. “The Project: A Call for Art” is a competition that began during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and is dedicated to uplifting and featuring visual artists across the state of South Carolina.

A variety of media is included in this exhibit: from oil paintings to sculpture, from collage to quilting. Stop by the Gallery at the Koger Center and mingle with artist peers from across the state!

 As a member of the Vista Guild Association, the Koger Center for the Arts is proud to partner with the Jasper Project in Third Thursday Art Night. We feature a different artist every month in our rotating gallery, The Nook, with an opening reception on the month's Third Thursday. August 2024's featured artist is Marius Valdes.

Marius Valdes is an artist currently based in Columbia, SC. Valdes has been recognized by design publications such as Graphic Design USA, HOW, Print, Communication Arts, Creative Boom, Creative Quarterly, Step, and industry competitions including American Illustration, and The World Illustration Awards. In 2022, the UK's Creative Boom website named Valdes as one of its "20 Most Exciting Illustrators" to follow.

Valdes is a Professor at the University of South Carolina. He teaches graphic design and illustration in the GD+I program in the School of Visual Art and Design. He lives in Forest Acres with his wife, Beth, and their daughter Emma. Mary, the dog, is always around for a good laugh.

CALL for Visual Artists -- Society 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art (Deadline August 30, 2024)

Deadline Extended!

The Gibbes Museum's Society 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art is awarded to an artist whose work contributes to a new understanding of art in the South. Presented annually, the Prize recognizes the highest level of artistic achievement and welcomes applications from artist working across any media. 

Artists from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia are encouraged and eligible to apply.

Previous winners have subsequently received awards from the Joan Mitchell Fellowship, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Additionally, winning artists' work has been received into the permanent collections of The National Gallery of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the Gibbes Museum of Art.

The extraordinary multi-disciplinary artist, Sherrill Roland was the recipient of the 2023 Prize, receiving a cash award of $10,000 and whose work is now on exhibit at the Gibbes Museum until 2025.

Applications are accepted exclusively through Slideroom. Rules for Submission are Here!

Apply Now.

Finney Center Kicks Off Black Philanthropy Month with an Open House August 15 6 - 8 pm

Bounded by two historic districts, the Robert Mills District and the Waverly District, The Finney Center connects the heart of the African American community, past and present, to an ever-changing downtown Columbia, South Carolina.

MIKKY FINNEY

The Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Cultural Arts Center is hosting a drop-in Open House on Thursday, August 15th from 6:00 to 8:00 PM for the community at-large as it launches a $2 million capital campaign to transform the former Southern Electric Company historical building, originally a tobacco warehouse from the 1940s, into a gathering place for people of all ages who view art as community building.  

The Finney Center will break ground on the renovation this fall, using a plan developed by the Boudreaux architectural firm. It will include a stage with seating for 200, which can be opened to the outdoors, an exhibition space with a 360-degree view, a dance floor, studio rooms, and other spaces for multidisciplinary endeavors.  

Bounded by two historic districts, the Robert Mills District and the Waverly District, The Finney Center connects the heart of the African American community, past and present, to an ever-changing downtown Columbia, South Carolina. It is housed in a former tobacco warehouse from the 1940s, which was renovated and repurposed in the 1960s for the offices of the Southern Electric Company. 

“Black Philanthropy Month is an annual August reminder for us in the Black community to look behind and to also look ahead,” says Director and Poet Nikky Finney. “Both my paternal and maternal grandparents taught me that it was just fine to focus on my own dreams as long as I also donated time, attention, and money to the community in which I lived, worked, and dreamed, making sure it too prospered. Join us at The Finney Center on August 15th as we host an Open House for our community. We want to share with you more about what’s been going on in 2024 and what’s ahead for 2025 and beyond.”

The Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Cultural Arts Center is a 501c3 organization located at 1510 Laurens Street, Columbia, South Carolina. The focus of this Cultural Arts Center is on the making of art, the keeping of community, living Black history, and the ongoing generational celebration of music, visual art, poetry, dance, theatre, the culinary arts, and other community building and life sustaining activities. The Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Cultural Arts Center is an incubator for progressive notions of what it means to be an involved, informed, and engaged creative human being, no matter that human being’s age or background. 

Nikky Finney is a nationally-acclaimed South Carolina-born poet and author of On Wings Made of Gauze; Rice; The World Is Round; and Head Off & Split, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2011. A graduate of Talladega College, Finney taught at the University of Kentucky for 23 years and holds a Carolina Distinguished Professorship and the John H. Bennett, Jr. Chair in Creative Writing and Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina. Nikky Finney is the daughter of the late SC Chief Justice Ernest A. Finney, Jr., for whom the Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Cultural Arts Center is named.

Columbia Repertory Dance Company Announces Upcoming Performance in New Koger Center Space

Cola Rep Dance Co will present a full bill of dance Saturday and Sunday in the Koger Center’s new performance space, August 17th and 18th, 2024. “How to Fall Down” explores the idea that though it is inescapable to fall down in our lives, it is how we get up and learn to fail better that develops our character. Cola Rep Dance Co will perform “How to Fall Down” on Saturday August 17th 2024 at 7pm and Sunday August 18th 2024 at 3pm in the Koger Center for the Arts Lower Level (1051 Greene St, Columbia, SC 29201). Admission is $35 for this event, and more info and tickets can be found at www.Colarep.com or https://donorbox.org/events/643006 for Saturday and  https://donorbox.org/events/643158 for Sunday.

“How to Fall Down” brings together eleven Company dancers and five female choreographers along with professionally designed costuming, and sound and lighting by Sherr Productions to be the first dance event in the newly outfitted lower level of the Koger Center for the Arts. Be the first to see three new works by Artistic Director and resident choreographer Stephanie Wilkins and join Cola Rep Dance Co in welcoming Jennifer Deckert, Simone Cuttino and Dale Lam as well as Cola Rep Dance Co Young Choreographer Kayla Uwagbai.

In 2018 co-founders Bonnie Boiter-Jolley and Stephanie Wilkins founded the Columbia Summer Repertory Dance Company with a desire to offer dancers more options in a city focused heavily on ballet. They started with the financial sponsorship of the Jasper Project, a plan focused on summer performances (Columbia’s dance offseason) and a sold out debut performance in 2019 which was followed by a sold out concert in 2021. The company has extended their season length and become a 501c3 non-profit organization. The group’s popularity among Columbia natives comes from their commitment to exploring refreshing narratives and styles of dance in their work. Cola Rep Dance Co will perform “How to Fall Down” on Saturday August 17th 2024 at 7pm and Sunday August 18th 2024 at 3pm in the Koger Center for the Arts Lower Level (1051 Greene St, Columbia, SC 29201). Admission is $35 for this event, and more info and tickets can be found at www.Colarep.com or https://donorbox.org/events/643006 for Saturday and  https://donorbox.org/events/643158 for Sunday. 

This program is supported in part by H-tax funding from the City of Columbia and by the South Carolina Arts Commission which is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts and collaborates in its work with the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and South Arts.

The Columbia Repertory Dance Company’s mission is to broaden the experience of professional dance artists and patrons in Columbia, SC through multidisciplinary collaborative performances year-round. We aim to retain the talents of South Carolina dance artists and provide a spectrum of professional opportunities while inspiring and developing a broader and deeper understanding of dance in Columbia and surrounding areas.

What's Up at Chapin Theatre Company -- New Work, Fundraisers, A Christmas Comedy, and a Classic

Jasper congratulates not only the writers of the winning plays selected for Chapin Theatre Company’s Ten Minute-ish Play Festival, but Chapin Community Theatre itself for creating another opportunity for South Carolina playwrights to see their work onto the stage! The winners of CTC’s 4th annual festival are

Lou Clyde, Jamie Carr Harrington, Chris Whitehead, Randall David Cook (the Jasper Project’s first ever featured Play Right Series author) Jonathan Cook, Jack Perry, Peter Dakutis, and Connie Mardis.

The festival will take place November 1 - 3 at the community theatre’s new home at 830 Columbia Avenue in Chapin with George Dinsmore serving as the emcee.

Auditions for the festival will be held at the same location on August 25 and 26.

~~~

The announcement provides a great opportunity to have a look at what else the company will be presenting as their 2024 season wraps up.

August 15 – 25 Fundraiser – So Long Roscoe!

Written and directed  by Monalisa Botts

So Long Roscoe! is a comedic look at Texas, family dynamics, and a World War II military-issue motorcycle complete with sidecar. Read more and get tickets here.

~~~

October 4 – 20 The 39 Steps

directed by Frank Thompson

~~~

December 5 – 15 A Nice Family Christmas

directed by Glenn Farr

Stay tuned to Jasper for CTC’s complete 2024 – 2025 season announcement.

Al Black's Poetry of the People with Katie Ellen Bowers

This week's Poet of the People is Katie Ellen Bowers. Katie is a wonderful Upstate poet. She is a delightful read and a wonderfully entertaining poet to hear recite her work. She is a Charleston native now residing in Heath Springs, SC. 

-Al Black

Katie Ellen Bowers is a Southern poet and educator living in a small rural town with her husband and daughter. Her poetry can be found in several literary journals and magazines such as Kakalak, Qu Literary Magazine, and Sky Island Journal. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize for poetry. She is the author of the poetry collection This Earthly Body (Main Street Rag, 2024). 

Clippings

This morning, I trimmed my daughter's fingernails,

clippings of her growth throughout this week and days

past. Uneven crescent moons—stained and sodden from

sinking her fingers into the inkwells of earth and sky—fall

to my lap, and we speak of yesterday and tomorrow and

of today: her basketball game, fried tofu with fortune

cookies for lunch.

This afternoon, I trimmed my mother’s skin from her fingers,

clippings and peelings from the ring, pointer, and thumb.

Flakes of nameless shapes rest on my lap, as my own

fingers, nervous and nimble, pull a piece of skin away as easily

as petals fall when the summer’s heat has become too heavy;

the sebaceous glands of sweat and oil no longer soften

her skin, and we speak of nothing, the only sound the

click of nail clippers, the heaviness of our breath.

On the Desire to Desire

Lately, it's all just a bunch of mylar

balloons—once blown up, puffed

out, a crinkling of nylon and foil,

maybe even getting caught in power

lines, maybe sparking a fire, maybe

even causing a blackout, but really,

mostly, it's just a deflating yellow smiley

face, stretched out—deformed and

disfigured, unsure of what it was

supposed to be good for all along.

Three Lives

                                after Sarah Russell

If I had three lives, I’d keep this one

just as it is—each early Saturday on

the soccer fields, each tangle in my

daughter's riot of curls, each syllable

she sounds out as she's reading aloud,

and I'd keep each early Friday night in,

each wink across a crowded room, each

subtle shifting of stacks of books.

I'd keep it just as it is; keep them—

both just as they are.

But me? The other two? Well, in both

I’d run in the mornings, do yoga before bed.

I'd drink protein shakes with flaxseed

and oats and collagen, and then I'd gorge

on chocolate-covered doughnuts. I'd walk

with confidence into each room, laugh

loudly at all my jokes, laugh louder at

all the inappropriate ones, unabashedly flirt

with my husband; I'd never worry if my

eyeliner was too much or if my face looked

weird or if this and if that and if and if

and if and if and if and if and

I would enjoy all the early Saturday mornings

and all the winks across crowded rooms, and

I would just exist in my body and mind and soul,

just as I am. 

Off-Beat On-Beat

After all this time

our hearts still

do not beat as one, & resting against

my husband's bare chest

in the early morning hours,

I learn this.

No rhythmic sound

of two heart’s beats

falling

into

a synchronous tempo

together; a perfectly aligned

beat            by beat         by beat,

& listening, my ear

pressed to him, I hear of

the off-beats and the on-beats

and a slowing and a quickening,

and there are beats

I miss all together—

from my yawn, his feet moving against the sheets,

readjusting our bodies from where arms have

fallen asleep or thighs have gotten too warm—

I listen & I hear

our hearts’ beats beating,

unsure of which

thrum belongs to him &

which belongs to me;

they are not one,

they are together a

  continuous                 quickening

before slowing

     off-beats

on-beat.

Carry(, As a Feeling)

It’s true:

       It’s hard to carry on with your well-

       crafted composure when the weight of

       your dying mother is laid upon you; her

       swollen belly, holding four liters of fluid,

       resting against you; her crepe-paper skin,

       maintaining no elasticity, tearing beneath

       you. Holding up her body—

                                                 Nevermind.

      This won't be

                about that.

It’s true:

      It’s hard to explain, hard to carefully

      craft these words that I don't even want,

      the ones I hold day-to-day, room-to-room,

      breath-to-breath. Take them.

     Turn out my pockets, remove my contacts,

     pull out my teeth, just gag me until I vomit

     up every last word I've choked down so someone

     else did not have to bear the weight of:

     the anger, the guilt, the sorrow, the shame

     from the relief I harbor. It's true

      this won't be

                  about that

                  either.

                                                Nevermind.

My God, This Is Aging

This is aging? Wearing panty liners because, having stood up too quickly, you pee—just a little and just enough. Getting texts about the passing away of dogs and sending texts concerning the sickness of aging parents: Any updates? Any updates? Anything at all? All whopping point four ounces of twenty-seven-dollar eye cream because a decent night of sleep is only one-sixteenth of what it used to be, but you want to stay up late, want to bathe and shave your legs and have sex only to find your spouse asleep, while also wanting to stay awake to watch the latest episode of Fargo. Taking preventative antacids and ibuprofen that you know you will need after holding up your mother in the ICU,  the weight of her illness and age pressed upon you, reminding you of the way time seems to move all at once and not at all. 

This, also, is aging? Wearing panty liners because, having laughed too hard at your husband's impression of Hank Hill as you walk by the lawnmowers in Lowes, you pee—just a little and just enough. Getting texts about the accomplishments and the anecdotal snippets of the day-in and day-out. The precise rhythm of each night: the eye cream, the moisturizer, your spouse curling behind you as you settle into sleep, drifting apart and back together throughout the night; the way his hand pats your hip when he wakes to run in the hour before dawn; still being tired from sometimes wanting to stay up late to have sex whether your legs are shaved or not, from staying up late to watch X-Files. Picking up prescriptions for your mother for your father, as it’s the only way you know to help, other than holding a straw to her mouth, letting her drink, so she can speak of and laugh about something that possibly didn’t even happen, and you laugh, too, let go of things that no longer matter, as her laughter sounds as it always has, reminding you of the way time moves not at all and all at once. 

Announcing Harbison Theatre's 2024-2025 Season of Performances & Tickets for Jasper's 2024 Winning Play Right Series Premier Staged Reading -- Chad Henderson's LET IT GROW -- are Available now

Support new South Carolina theatrical art by purchasing your tickets to Chad Henderson’s 2024 Play Right Series winning play LET IT GROW, September 14th at Harbison Theatre today!

As a double bonus, you’re also invited to the opening reception for Nate Puza, Jasper’s featured artist in the Harbison Theatre Gallery on the same evening at 6:30 pm, prior to the staged reading of LET IT GROW at 7:30 pm. Nate Puza will also be featured as the cover artist for the fall 2024 issue of Jasper Magazine, releasing on Sunday September 22nd with a free party at One Columbia for Arts & Culture’s 1013 Duke Avenue Co-op Space.

And while you’re at the Harbison Theatre website, check out all the other exciting performances Kristin Cobb and her Harbison Team have in store for 2024-2025. Among the shows we’re most excited about are:

Billy Bob Thornton & The Box Masters

with Columbia’s own Capital City Playboys

October 18th

This Music is Naked — An Acoustical Evening featuring Danielle Howle, Josh Roberts & the Hinges, and the Ain’t Sisters

November 15th

Columbia Children’s Theatre’s production of A Christmas Carol

December 7th

Mother’s Finest

March 1st, 2025

Tickets to all events are available at Harbison Theatre.

Click Here for Tickets to LET IT GROW

Poetry of the People – Glenda Bailey-Mershon

This week's Poet of the People is Glenda Bailey-Mershon. I have known Glenda for only a year or two after she moved back to her home state. She is gifted poet and prose writer and gives back to the literary community with kindness and a wealth of expertise.

IN THE PHOTOGRAPH SHE LIFTS HER HANDS

unpinning long hair. Chestnut, I knew only because relatives said her hair and my sister's were the same. 

In sepia, her gesture asks to be admired. And who could not admire the luminous eyes of youth, the sensuous mouth, the heavy hair about to fall?

Yet her eyes say she is puzzled, unfamiliar with the procedure. Innocent as a fawn in sudden light.

What I remember is her stiff hands spinning, yarn spilling from pointed fingers, her sharp tongue calling down our rising spirits.

And yet the photograph . . .

Youthful beauty surprised by life.

Grandmother?

A “GYPSY” (ROMA!) POET WALKS INTO A COFFEESHOP

The audience gapes. What’s this woman doing,

singing when she should be droning poetry?

I warble about having rhythm. No one knows

that’s Manouche swing. It’s what they asked

when I booked: Tell what inspires you.

Everything’s a song, I say, letting loose again, whether dirge or dance or ballad beat.

I snap fingers, swish my skirt.

The woman at the first coffeeshop table

has stopped knitting, pokes her husband

who looks up from his golf score, sees

I am about to show them how once

I skatted a whole poem because I wanted

to say, we Roma are here, most of us 

are mixed, some got Africa in our bones,

Spain in our step, French lilac scent

beneath our nails and under our skin.

Farther away, the pulse of Rajasthan.

And if I really want to confound, I’ll say

we married Persian tanbur and chang,

Turkish oud, Greek lyres and Parisian

accordions, then swung it all on a reed with dancing keys, but I know

I only need say Django, and they will sit up. Guitars are what Americans fancy. Now

I have to bring them down to hear enjambed

lines, marching stanzas. Somehow they get it, smile, clap their hands to the rhythm when asked. Yet when I finish and take my turn for the proffered drink at the bar, people stare and point their chins, say “Gypsy.” That’s all they need to know. 

I sashay my way out of the shop, smile.

They will be pulsing in their beds tonight.

AN INCANTATION FOR MY GRANDMOTHERS

Corn mother

Earth heavy

Great Raw Woman

What you must have been in childbed! 

Birthing with the force of two hundred hurricanes, crouching low, arching high, pushing out

squalling life and catching it in two fiery, rough hands.

Rocking, rocking, face like the moon over ravaged land.

Each day, I see you, 

rivulets of water running out of your body  across scorched fields,

over red clay front yards singing orange zinnias.

Your daughters, we are feathers tossed by angry winds,

falling lightly

half a continent away.

Quiet strangers riding fierce city rails,

stepping unseen through snow-hushed streets,

dancing to rain drumming on roofs,

greeting the sun in glowing glass.

Watching the moon rise in canyons of steel,

we find your image in junkyard windows,

in our own eyes, mirrored

under fluorescent lights. 

We quick-step down long alleys,

flame incense in silent rooms,

fathom the earth beneath asphalt and brick, 

recognize its rhythms beneath the thrum of cars.

Even city towers gleam with your life.

Skyscrapers spark starlight in the eyes of the Ancient Ones.

Lesson

Daughter, this is your womb. She put her warm hand on the child's belly and drew the outline of a cave.

Out of this cavity you will draw that which is most precious to you.

Into this space

you will draw that which is mysterious, unknowable. She drew a line from  the womb to the heart.

This is the straightest of lines.

Do you understand?

BACK WHEN I WAS JUICY

Back when I was juicy I pried the lid off morning, knifed from my bed, onto cold floor boards, scattered pennies enough for coffee in the café,  or a luscious scrum of chocolat on a cold Sartre afternoon. 

Virgin among molded tomes,  I, willing wand of destiny, jumped to conclusions about infinity while frat guys in the booth behind bet on the constants of integration.

Down the long green moments I strode, confident, to and from  class, shouldering book bags,  tippling volumes from overhead shelves,  palming change like bribes for fortunes, assured of redemption in the hands of destiny.

Every Saturday, I rambled bookstore to bookstore among other explorers,  seeking keys to unlock furtive encounters behind mothers’ cast-off lace curtains.

Jampot oozing thick syrup seeds, I melted into one after another armored knight. Later, we read each other  tales we could not fathom back when I was juicy.

UNORTHODOX RHYME

Preachers tease us with heaven’s riches  Make us choose: wives or whores  Warn us, we’re too big for our britches 

Then forbid abortion, divorce

Warn us we're too big for our britches 

Want us to scratch all their itches 

Then forbid abortion, divorce 

Good men writhe with remorse

Want us to scratch all their itches 

Scratch our own, they call us witches  Good men writhe with remorse

Veils conceal life’s source

Scratch our own, they call us witches  Force us to choose: wives or whores 

Veils conceal life’s source  Camels pass by your riches.

NOTE: This poem is dedicated to the South Carolina Legislature, who apparently think their religious beliefs should control all women’s health care.

BIO:

Glenda Mariah Bailey-Mershon is an American poet, essayist, novelist, cultural historian, and human rights activist. Born in Upstate South Carolina to a family with roots in the Southern Appalachians, she has explored in poetry and fiction her European, Native American, and Romani heritage. Her published works include the novel, Eve's Garden, a family saga of three generations of Romani-American women; the full-length poetry collection, Weaver’s Knot, an exploration of millworker communities ; Bird Talk: Poems; saconige/blue smoke: Poems from the Southern Appalachians, which plumbs the ties between European and Cherokee cultures in the mountains; A History of the American Women's Movement: A Study Guide, and four volumes as editor of the Jane's Stories anthologies by women writers, including Jane's Stories IV: Bridges and Borders, which includes work by women in conflicts around the world.

Glenda has been a finalist in Our Stories fiction contest; featured author at the Illinois Book Fair, the Other Words conference; and the St. Augustine PoetFest. For the 2024 Associated Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) national conference, she chaired a panel entitled “Toward a Romani Women’s Canon.”

She is a former bookstore and small press owner, and has taught women's studies, writing, anthropology, and political science. She is the originator of the Jane's Stories anthologies and Jane’s Stories Press Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that offers the Clara Johnson Prize in Women’s Literature. As a tutor, she helps young people achieve their GED degrees and learn strong conversation skills in English.

Announcing the Cast & Crew of Chad Henderson's Let It Grow -- Jasper's 2024 Play Right Series Winning Play

SAVE THE DATE

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 14, 2024

The Jasper Project is delighted to announce the cast for the premier staged reading of our 2024 Play Right Series winning play, Let It Grow, by Chad Henderson.

The performance will take place on Saturday, September 14th at 7:30 at Harbison Theatre. The evening will also feature the launch of the book, Let It Grow, by Chad Henderson, the 4th original play for the Play Right Series, and the third manuscript we’ve published and registered with the US Library of Congress. (It’s important to Jasper that we preserve for posterity as much of the art coming out of South Carolina as possible. )

Now, onto our cast.

LIBBY CAMPBELL-TURNER

We couldn’t be more excited to announce that Libby Campbell-Turner will lead the performance in the role of gardening talk show creator and host, Mary Lily.

Libby Campbell-Turner has worked in theatre (regional, professional, and community) for a number of years. She is currently a litigation paralegal with a law firm here in Columbia. (She was forced to seek out "normal" employment once she aged out of ingenue and district attorney roles.) She has also worked in television and film. In fact, she just received a royalty check for her work in Robbie Benson's  1990 rom-com film, Modern Love, and says “That 3 cents will go a long way toward paying off my credit card debt.” (Libby also loves shoes.) Libby works with the Jasper Project as its Theatre Editor for Jasper Magazine and is a member of our board of directors. She was most recently seen on stage in Death of a Salesman.

G. SCOTT WILD

G. Scott Wild will be playing the part of Christophe, a celebrated author, and a new panelist on Let It Grow.

A graduate of the Stella Adler Studio of acting, Scott has been around the Columbia theatre scene for many years now. He was last seen on stage in the Trustus production of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize winning Fairview. 

DAVID BRITT

David Britt will be playing the part of Jeb, a long-time panelist on the show.

Britt is in his18th year in the UofSC Dept. of Theatre and Dance. Directing credits at UofSC include Spinning into Butter, Proof, Becky Shaw, A Piece of My Heart and Of Mice and Men. At Workshop Theatre here in Columbia he has directed Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, Broadway Bound and Jake’s Women. He also performed in Workshop's production of Barefoot in the Park… see a pattern? David appeared on stage at Theatre South Carolina in Measure for Measure, A View from the Bridge, Bus Stop, Dancing at Lughnasa, Legend of Georgia McBride and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is from Raleigh, NC, where he appeared in more than 30 roles. He has trained at the New Actors Workshop in New York City and at the world-renowned Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, MA, and also completed the Second City Comedy Improvisation Boot Camp. David is a member of SAG/AFTRA. 

KAYLA CAHILL MACHADO

Kayla Cahill Machado will be playing the part of Charlotte, a panelist and co-producer of Let It Grow.

Machado is a Jersey-born writer and actor who lives in Columbia with her husband, Daniel; two-year-old son, Ben; and soon-to-be daughter, Harriet (and cat, Tate). She is a part of the Trustus Theatre company as well as The Mothers, most recently directing the group’s spring sketch comedy show. Acting credits include The Thanksgiving Play (Logan), Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Rachel), Silence! The Musical (Clarice), Rock of Ages (Regina), The Rocky Horror Show (Columbia), Godspell (Ana Maria), and The House of Blue Leaves (Corinna). She is excited for this chance to bring new work to life. 

MARYBETH GORMAN CRAIG

And Marybeth Gorman Craig will be captaining the ship as the director.

Marybeth Gorman Craig is an actor, director, intimacy choreographer, and text/dialect coach currently on faculty at the University of South Carolina in the Department of Theatre and Dance. A member of Actors' Equity Association, Marybeth has performed on local stages such as Trustus Theatre and UofSC, as well as at theatres across the country such as Arden Theatre Company, Walnut Street Theatre, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, The Hippodrome, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Lantern Theatre, Theatre Horizon, and 11th Hour. She is an advocate for consent and inclusion through her work as intimacy coordinator/director in professional and educational film and theatre projects, most recently this summer with Local Cinema Studios and the Texas Shakespeare Festival. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of South Carolina, and Bachelor of Arts from Temple University. Marybeth is thrilled to be a part of Jasper's Play Right project and is grateful to Jasper for all they do to support the arts in our community.

It’s not too late to support this new and original theatrical art by becoming a Play Right Series Community Producer or Sponsor. All the info you need is here!

Mark your calendars for Saturday September 14th at Harbison Theatre for the premier staged reading of Let It Grow, by Chad Henderson. Tickets will be available via Harbison Theatre and should be on sale soon!

On Jasper Radar -- Upcoming Events at NBT by Emily Moffitt

What’s been lovingly referred to as the “New New Brookland Tavern” by Columbia denizens, (or maybe just me) the freshly relocated Columbia staple New Brookland Tavern in the former Cotton Gin bar has reenergized the nightlife of Five Points and continued to bring communities together. There is a show for everyone there, and with new programming taking place almost every day, there is no shortage of things to do.

On Sunday, July 21, from 6 – 11 p.m., grab a ticket for Daddy Lion, Husband, and Moses & the Wilderness. The concert focuses on celebrating ten years of “introspective indie pop.” It also functions as a touching reunion for Daddy Lion, a dream pop group whose lead singer Jeremy Joseph moved away from Columbia not too long ago. The electro-pop duo Husband consists of resident Jasper Board of Directors member and Managing Director Bekah Rice, along with her husband Adam Corbett. The duo features local sound engineer MIDIMarc in this performance as well. Moses & the Wilderness is the solo project of Moses Andrews III, a live performer and session musician that brings soul and wit to any genre. Tickets for the show are available online for $10 before fees..

Join Mirci at New Brookland Tavern on Wednesday, July 31 for a family-friendly night of comedy, Laugh Therapy, presented by Healthy Laughter. Featuring side-splitting stand-up sets by Comedian Akintunde and "Atlanta's Best Clean Comedian" Joel Byars. Beats courtesy of your DJ & host for the night, Preach Jacobs. Participate in raffles, mental health trivia, and more! Entry is $9.88 to honor the Suicide & Crisis Prevention Lifeline. Proceeds from ticket sales go towards Mirci and supporting their mission. Tickets are available online or at the door.

The New Brookland Tavern adds programming to their schedule weekly. Check out their website for other great events and concerts.