ART AND STAGE NEWS

The latest New Orleans theater, opera and arts updates

Jefferson Performing Arts Society announces sign-ups for its Children's Apprentice Chorus through September 8. The Children's Apprentice Chorus is open to children in first and second grades and no audition is necessary.

The intriguingly titled "Ventriloquist Verses: Voices from Beneath the Water's Edge," will open the season at The Alamo Underground on Aug. 29, the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Actress-writer Diana Shortes says the "highly stylized spoken-word, movement and video installation explores the cycle of trauma: loss. forgiveness and renewal, experienced by so many of us in the wake of tragedy. It's an honoring, a commemoration of those who lost their lives and hopefully, a healing."

Steven Forester / The Times-Picayune ArchiveJohn Biguenet

JOHN BIGUENET, novelist, playwright ("The Vulgar Soul," "Rising Water"):

'When it comes to writing plays, you never know what you've got on the page until you hear it on the stage.'

The Slidell Little Theatre will hold auditions for Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" Sunday, Aug. 24 beginning at 5:30 p.m. and Monday, Aug. 25 at 6:30 p.m., at the theater, 2024 Nellie Drive in Slidell.

This week in The Reading Life, mysteries columnist Diana Pinckley talks with Bill Loehfelm, winner of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for his thriller, "Fresh Kills."

And children's book columnist Marigny Dupuy surveys inspiring biographies in picture book form.

Susan Larson, Book editor

Kathy Anderson / The Times-PicayuneAuthor Bill Loehfelm's book "Fresh Kills," was chosen as winner of the first Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

New Orleanian Bill Loehfelm wrote most of his new novel at a small table near the window in the back of Rue de la Course because it was then the only coffee shop in his neighborhood that allowed smoking inside.

"Art From The Heart: Folk Artist Clementine Hunter" Written by Kathy Whitehead Illustrated by Shane W. Evans (G. P. Putnam's Sons, $16.99, ages 6-8)

The life and work of Clementine Hunter are inspiring in so many ways, as this excellent biography, "Art from Her Heart," shows. Hunter was born to formerly enslaved parents on Melrose Plantation in Natchitoches about 20 years after the Civil War brought an official end to the practice of slavery. Young Clementine worked hard in the fields alongside her family, but with no formal education, the possibilities in her life seemed quite limited.

BEACH BOOK

The Gargoyle: A Novel
By Andrew Davidson (Doubleday, $25.95)

A coke-addicted pornographer embarks on an unusual love affair with a sculptress who makes gargoyles and is convinced they were lovers in past lives.

"The Moon in the Mango Tree" by Pamela Binnings Ewen.

SPOTLIGHT ON:

Who: Bev Marshall and Pamela Binnings Ewen.

What: The seventh season of "Coffee and Conversation," sponsored by the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival and the Jefferson Parish Library, kicks off tonight at 7 p.m. at the library, 4747 West Napoleon Ave., Metairie. Marshall interviews Ewen, author of "The Moon in the Mango Tree," about "Family to Fiction."