ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 9, 1996 TAG: 9602090043
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: Out & About
SOURCE: DONNA ALVIS BANKS
Lots of people in and around Blacksburg had their first dates at the Lyric Theatre.
It also was the place where we spent our childhood watching the Saturday matinees and ruining our teeth with Grapette, hot buttered popcorn and chewy Milk Duds.
When the Lyric closed in 1989, it left an empty space on College Avenue - and in the hearts of all those people who loved the grand old movie house.
Now, thanks to the efforts of a bunch of concerned movers and shakers, the Lyric is ready for a return engagement. For the past two weeks, volunteers from the community and Virginia Tech have been cleaning, repairing, painting and sprucing up the theater.
At last, it's time to dust off the projector.
Starting this weekend, you can catch classic films at the Lyric every Friday and Saturday night. "West Side Story" opens the series.
The musical, winner of 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture in 1961, features the well-known Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim score. The story is a modernized version of Romeo and Juliet involving New York City street gangs.
Show time is at 7:30 tonight and Saturday. Admission is $3.
The series of Academy Award-winning musicals continues Feb. 16-17 with "Gigi" and Feb. 23-24 with "An American in Paris."
Meanwhile, the renovations will continue. If you're handy with a hammer or interested in staffing the box office, the Lyric Council wants you. Volunteers are always needed.
Call 951-1604 or stop by the theater any weekday between 3 and 5 p.m.
CHICKEN FEET AND CHITTERLINGS: Well, what's a rent party without 'em?
Whoa - you've never heard of a rent party, you say?
"Why, child, that's how folks paid their rent back in the '20s," says Nikki Giovanni.
It's also how jazz and the blues were born, according to the celebrated poet and professor of English at Virginia Tech.
Giovanni, who's teaching a class about the Harlem Renaissance, is one of the organizers of a rent party at the University Club tonight. The event starts at 5:30 and goes until 9, and everyone is invited. Admission is only $1.
"We're holding prices to the '20s and dressing to the nines," Giovanni said.
You can enjoy a dinner of fried chicken, baked ham, chitterlings, pig feet, sauerkraut, potato salad, slaw and cornbread for $1.50. Drinks are 50 cents.
"We wanted chicken feet and rice, but nobody has any chicken feet," Giovanni said.
Back in the '20s, neighbors helped neighbors pay the rent by attending rent parties where there was good food, good music, dancing and games. The event at Virginia Tech will feature all of the above.
It's part of the Black History Month celebration at the university.
MOUNTAIN MEMORIES: Folks at Radford University have Appalachia on their minds today.
Appalachian Awareness Day, an annual event at the university, gets under way at 9 a.m. and runs until 4 p.m. in Heth Ballroom. Admission is free.
You'll hear readings by mountain poet Vivian Boston and Radford's own author Don Secreast. Storyteller Cat White and singer Carl Rutherford will perform, along with the Radford University Gospel Choir and Celtic Community.
Tonight, you're invited to join in the square dancing workshop with caller Tina Hicks. It starts at 7:30 in the ballroom.
The Jug Busters will play the tunes, and the Wilderness Trail Cloggers will help lead you through the steps.
For information, call the Appalachian Regional Studies Program at 831-5366.
THE JAZZMAN PLAYETH: Ted Shumate was 4 years old when his family moved from Mississippi to Florida. In his earliest years, he weltered in the gospel music of the Southern Baptist Church and Mississippi's Delta blues. His move to the Sunshine State found him basking in the music of Cubans and South Americans.
No wonder Shumate - now a jazz musician - plays such a variety of styles.
Shumate graduated from St.Petersburg's Eckerd College with a bachelor of arts degree in jazz studies and went on to attend the Guitar Institute of Technology in Los Angeles. Since then, he has performed and recorded with some of the best contemporary jazz artists, including Branford Marsalis and Nat Adderley.
Shumate will join the Chip McNeill Jazz Quartet this weekend for a gig at the Cafe at Champs in Blacksburg. You can catch them tonight and Saturday at 9. The cover charge both nights is $3.
THE TUNES ARE... "Big Spender," "If My Friends Could See Me Now" and "I Love to Cry at Weddings."
OK, fans, name that musical!
If you guessed that big, brassy, blockbuster hit, "Sweet Charity," you take the cake.
The play, which premiered in New York in 1966, features a Neil Simon script, music by Cy Coleman, and Dorothy Fields' clever lyrics. It's a romantic comedy that revolves around Charity Hope Valentine, a dance hall hostess who is repeatedly rejected by the losers in her life.
Gateway Theatrical will bring its production of "Sweet Charity" to Virginia Tech's Burruss Auditorium on Thursday for a 7:30 p.m. performance. It's part of the Virginia Tech Union's Broadway Series.
Tickets are available at the box office in Squires Student Center. They're $16 for adults, $8 for kids under 12, $14 for Tech faculty and staff or $5 for Tech students. Call 231-5615.
HOT MUSIC: The band says that's "a loose, convenient, but apt term" for its music. Akin to the swing and jazz styles of the '20s, '30s and '40s, it's the kind of sound that makes you want to get up off the sofa and dance.
So who's playing?
The Squirrel Nut Zippers, that's who!
The name's atypical, but so's the band. (Actually, the name comes from an old-time brand of chewy peanut-flavored sweets.)
The Squirrel Nut Zippers have been playing in and around Chapel Hill, N.C., and recently recorded "The Inevitable," a Mammoth Records release.
The group has seven singers and musicians who play instruments ranging from trumpet to banjo to string bass. These guys and gals also put on a ritzy, glitzy stage show.
You can catch it Tuesday night at the Top of the Stairs in downtown Blacksburg. The Squirrel Nut Zippers will perform, along with the Red Clay Jazz Sextet. The music starts at 9:30. Admission at the door is $4.
LENGTH: Long : 120 linesby CNB