What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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with a slimy pick- up line: "There's no need for introductions, Ray Don, we know who you are," is the quotable sentence that begins her address, actress Dixie Carter's rage simmering just barely below the surface. Julia's eloquent, passionate rants — as well as the rest of Bloodworth- Thomason's whippet-quick dialogue, rife with zingers — would become a signature of the show as it tackled weighty social issues of the 1980s and early 1990s like AIDS discrimination, LGBTQ rights, misogyny and sexual harassment. Bloodworth- Thomason's new script carries that legacy into the 21st century as the audience learns what the women at Sugarbakers think about of-the- moment social issues. "What I really wanted to do was take those women as we last saw them and set them down right now," Bloodworth- Thomason said in an interview with The New York Times when the show was announced. "They'll have the same history, be the same people, have the same attitudes, the same philosophies, but they'll be talking about #MeToo and the Kardashians and Donald Trump and all that's going on right now." "'Designing Women' was written and created by a woman, and I don't think a lot of people pay homage to that — they may recognize it, but they don't really credit her with being one of the trailblazers in that regard," says actor Carla Renata, who plays the character of Cleo, newly introduced in the play's script as cousin to Anthony Bouvier, an original character on the television show. Renata was last seen on Broadway as Gary Coleman in "Avenue Q" and has worked on the national tours of "Smokey Joe's Cafe," "The Who's Tommy," "The Lion King" and "We Will Rock You." Currently, she's the creator and host of a popular podcast called "The Curvy Critic with Carla Renata." Her Cleo is a blunt, funny truth teller who is not afraid to address any elephants that might be hiding in the corners of the room. "I feel like Cleo's sensibility and her personality is to carry on [her cousin, Anthony's] lineage within the confines of that world," says Renata. "Cleo is gay. She's married, she has a child — she represents what society is now. Back then, they were talking anti-gay, they were thinking that you could get AIDS from touching people — it was a very different world then. Now we live in a world where we see same sex couples, we see same sex marriages, we see the LGBTQ community fighting for their rights, just like everybody else has fought for their rights — women, Black people, Indigenous people. She's a symbol of the social revolution that has taken place since the show premiered on television." Watching the original show had an impact on her as a young woman, says Renata. "I think that Linda Bloodworth- Thomason's writing is very sharp, is very blunt — it has a definitive female voice to it. And I appreciated that, even as a youngster. I appreciated watching that. And I appreciated hearing these actors spout out these long monologues that, at the end of the day, had this very powerful message at the end." Sarah Colonna is a University of Arkansas graduate who cut her teeth in Hollywood as a stand-up comic and later went on to sit on the "Chelsea Lately" roundtable, appear in the television shows "Insatiable" and "Shameless" and author two best-selling memoirs. She says the original show made an impression on her as well. "They were showing clips of the last night at this [Designing Women Drag Dinner, a collaboration between Northwest Arkansas Equality, TheatreSquared and the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas,] of Julia's speech about AIDS, telling a woman off for [being homophobic], and, oh my God, everyone in the room was crying," says Colonna. "There's so much credit to be given to Linda and to Harry for being the first people to speak out about certain things on television." SEPTEMBER 19-25, 2021 WHAT'S UP! 9 FYI Hometown Girl Hits Big Time Sarah Colonna had great success in the theater department of the Univer- sity of Arkansas, bringing her singular sense of preci- sion comic timing to shows like "Reckless" and "Sexual Perversity in Chicago." Those who saw her on stage then were not surprised when she courageously struck out for the wilds of Los Angeles immediately following graduation, taking on the stand-up comedy circuit. "Starting stand-up in Los Angeles is certainly one of the hardest ways to do it," she said in a previous interview with this newspa - per. "You're starting with all of these other people who are experi- enced, because there were places they could perform where they came from. It definitely is a different style, especially since you're no longer relying on someone else's words — in stand-up, they're all yours." She quickly gained a following and, before long, earned a place at the roundtable late-night comedy talk show "Chelsea Lately," where her quick wit made her a standout. She would later work as a writer on the show, as well as a producer, writer and star of the show's spin-off, "After Lately." More recently, she used her native Southern accent and a hilarious flair for the bizarre in her starring role as Angie on the Netflix series "Insatiable" and had a recurring role on "Shameless." Her movie roles include "Back in the Day," "Paradise" and "Killing Hasselhoff." Meanwhile, she somehow found time to write two bestselling memoirs: "Life as I Blow It" which debuted at No. 5 on The New York Times Bestseller list, and "Has Anyone Seen My Pants?" of which Publisher's Weekly said that she "maintains her signature charm and caustic humor, and the final chapter's happy ending is worth sticking around for." Bringing the role of Mary Jo Shively to the T2 stage will be the first time Colonna has worked with TheatreSquared. "I had to really wrap my brain around it, like: 'That's where I went to college!'" she says of the theater company. "It's so great, because I never get to spend this much time here. There are certain things where I think, 'Oh, I forgot how much I love this!' It's kind of nice to see how much it's changed, and in what ways it's changed — everything, to me, being a positive. And having this theater here — we didn't have anything like this when I was in school here." Colonna still has a large coterie of family in the area who, she says, are excited at the prospect of seeing her onstage in Fayette - ville again. "My mom is already stressed about where she's going to sit, where the best view is, just all the questions," she says. "I have a bunch of family coming." Colonna's mother works just off the Fayetteville square, a few blocks away from TheatreSquared, and Colonna marvels at the ease with which she walked up to see her and have coffee with her after a rehearsal — quite a difference from the 1,500 miles that usually separates her from her family. "And the first day I got here, I went up there and borrowed her car," says Colonna with a laugh. "I said, 'I have to run some errands, can I borrow your car?' and she said, 'Oh my God, it's just like you're 16 years old again.'" Follow Sarah Colonna's Stand Up at sarahcolonna.com and on Instagram @ sarahcolonna1. See Designing Page 37 Sarah Colonna "What I really wanted to do was take those women as we last saw them and set them down right now. They'll have the same history, be the same people, have the same attitudes, the same philosophies, but they'll be talking about #MeToo and the Kardashians and Donald Trump and all that's going on right now." — Linda Bloodworth-Thomason