Benjamin Dallas Redding grew up in the Chattahoochee Valley, but it’s his new musical theater production that sustains his sojourn in his hometown. “I made it for Columbus,” Redding (Ben to those who know him) explains of r + j theory, his wild reimagination of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Already an accomplished theater professional in his mid-20s, Redding discusses the project—slated to...
Fresh from summer break, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra returns to the RiverCenter stage tonight eager to share its new star attraction. While plenty of excitement surrounds the return of classical piano phenom Clare Huangci to perform with CSO, the buzz building inside Bill Heard Theatre is not about a person or a player. It’s about a piano. A really, REALLY nice piano. This elite concert...
“Columbus taught me everything,” Rachel Joy Baribeau says of a hometown that will never drop that Joy, no matter how much her remarkable success works to streamline a given name. “Columbus taught me hustle and grind, dreams and passion,” Baribeau continues, speaking by phone during a break for from taping her ESPNU show on SiriusXM that reaches up to 10 million listeners. “It taught me to not...
“We don’t like to dwell on the past,” Frank Lumpkin IV answers when asked why Columbus isn’t connected to I-85. “It was definitely a mistake,” the 20-year-old Columbus native, University of Georgia student and president of the Youth Infrastructure Coalition (YIC) continues during a recent interview at Iron Bank Coffee. “Some of our leaders didn’t want labor unions coming to Columbus and made sure...
The monthly gathering of Peachtree NORML at Mellow Mushroom Thursday night brought together a table for 15 that included an attorney, a political operative and a dude tribe-identified in tie-dye. Past guest speakers at the meeting have included Jose Guzman, an attorney with the city’s public defender office, Libertarian Party candidate for Georgia governor Ted Metz and Dr. Eric Codner, a...
Hosting her next-to-last “Let’s Talk” community-conversation series inside the Springer Opera House in March, Mayor Teresa Tomlinson was asked by a South Columbus resident what the city was going to do to bring back the banks and retailers where the elderly woman had long deposited and spent her money. Though blunt in stating such big-box operations won’t be coming back—not to South Columbus, not...
When she reported for work each day at the Stewart County Detention Center, Latifa Craword recalls, “I didn’t know what to expect.” Hired as a case manager when the facility first opened in October 2006, Crawford was assigned to Level 4 detainees—”drug dealers, rapists, murderers, child molesters, and I didn’t feel safe. My working conditions were too “open” for a detention center.” Crawford then...
To celebrate its recent installation of the Little Lending Library on its Riverfront campus, , Troy University is holding a book-drive now through Friday. This public donation campaign to fill up the cute new library just off Whitewater Way wraps up with another celebration: the grand opening of the Phenix City Food Truck Park, with the vendors lunch-hour fare paired with live music and...
“It’s the year of the woman so we wanted to do something for the ladies,” Carnel “Mr. C” Coyle explains of the inspiration for bringing together four of the top female talents in comedy to Columbus for a special one-night show Saturday at the Springer Springer Opera. “Single in the City” draws from concept developed by headliner Kiana Dancie, the TV/YouTube star best known for her hilarious takes...
When he was approached with the request to write a poem about his hometown, Isiah Harper responded that he was an essayist, not a poet. No matter, as the Northside High School English and drama teacher put into eloquent prose a unified narrative to describe Columbus. The final piece in the city-wide mural project envisioned and paid for by the Together 2017 initiative, Harper’s poem “My River...