What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/920204
DECEMBER 31, 2017-JANUARY 6, 2018 WHAT'S UP! 39 PREVIOUS PEOPLE 2017 Stephen Caldwell Jenni Taylor Swain Laura Shatkus Kholoud Sawaf Mike Shirkey Katy Henriksen Joseph Farmer Hannah Withers Morgan Hicks Kat Robinson 2016 Jason Suel Dana Idlet Jennifer McClory Kelly & Donna Mulhollan Sabine Schmidt Erika Wilhite Jenny McKnight Eve Smith Gina Gallina Bob Stevenson 2015 Sara Parnell Luetgens Justin & Virginia Scheuer Mark Landon Smith Missy Gipson John Rankine Sons of Otis Malone 2014 Zeek Taylor Eve Smith Amy Herzberg & Bob Ford Michael Riha Amber Perrodin Kyle Kellams Zach Denison Bryan Hembree Janet Alexander 2018 See People Page 40 MICHAEL MYERS Michael Myers popped on to the theater scene in the River Valley as a teenager working backstage with director Missy Gipson at the Young Actors Guild. "Michael is one of those rare people that you want in your life as much as you want him in your show," Gipson says. "He's a generous person as an actor and as a human. And he's still not at the peak of his potential!" Since moving to Northwest Arkansas, Myers has blown the top out of half a dozen coveted roles for Arkansas Public Theatre — the Emcee in "Cabaret," Bert in "Mary Poppins," Lucas in "The Addams Family," Igor in "Young Frankenstein," the Boy George character in "The Wedding Singer," Dr. Frank N. Furter in "The Rocky Horror Show" — prompting someone in the audience to ask, "How did they make Tim Curry young again?" — in addition to playing Ren in November in "Footloose," the first show for Gipson's new Pilot Arts theater company, based in Fayetteville. "I enjoyed being real in 'Footloose,'" he told Gipson recently. "That is something that is difficult for me to do on stage. Exposing authentic emotions comfortably in front of other people. And dancing is always a thing." Myers says his dream productions include "Jekyll and Hyde," "A Chorus Line," "Les Miserables," "Pippin," "Little Shop of Horrors" and "Company." Let's see who provides the vehicles in 2018! HALLEY MAYO Halley Mayo is going places. Which is not to say that the University of Arkansas MFA theater student and Fayetteville native hasn't already been places — after graduating from Hendrix College, she gave New York City living a try before moving briefly to Chicago. "I hated it," she confesses of New York. "It takes so much energy to just live there. To commute to work, you have to deal with so many people, but it can also feel very lonely. Even though you're surrounded by so many people, no one acknowledges you. And then I tried Chicago, too, and that didn't work, either." When her father fell ill back in Arkansas, Mayo says she took it as a sign that it was time to return to her home state, at least for a little while. "I didn't want my career to stagnate, so I thought I should try to do the program at the University of Arkansas," she says. "I grew up working with [T2 co-founder] Amy [Herzberg], I loved working with her, and so I thought that would be the best thing for me." Show-stopping, scene-stealing performances in "Fun Home" at TheatreSquared and "Avenue Q" at the University Theatre this year confirm that Mayo is, indeed, where she's supposed to be — which wasn't a foregone conclusion, to hear her tell it. "[At Hendrix,] I tried to do anything but theater in school and ended up declaring my major at 4:59 p.m. the last day I could," she says. She had this hesitation despite the fact that she had been involved in theater since she was 12 through organizations like Arts Live Theatre in Fayetteville and Arts Center of the Ozarks in Springdale. "I was raised by parents that were so great and told me I could do anything I wanted, but they were also very practical. I had so many interests in school — I was really drawn to religion and history. But, ultimately, I couldn't imagine myself having a career as a professor or museum curator, which is what I thought I could do with one of those majors. It's not easy to make a living as an actor, but I could picture that. "I just couldn't escape theater." She got her first professional acting job at Arkansas Shakespeare the day after she graduated. "That made me think, 'This is what I should be doing — this is great,'" she says. Mayo will be appearing on the TheatreSquared stage again in January and February in "The Humans." She's almost exactly halfway through her graduate program at the UA, and, currently, she's unsure what comes next. "I grew up thinking I was a city girl," she says. "I grew up outside of the Fayetteville city limits, and, now that I'm an adult, I love Fayetteville and appreciate what it has to offer. It's really important for me to be somewhere I feel comfortable and happy, and I think the work will come. I might stay in Fayetteville a little longer. I'm sort of open for whatever happens." People Continued From Page 39 Michael Myers Halley Mayo