BY SANDY STAGGS DRAMA CRITIC When Jenna Tamisea Elser was hired last summer to reinvigorate the opera program at Converse College, one could scarcely imagine the end-result would be such a sumptuous affair as “Summer and Smoke.” Co-founder of Glow...
BY SANDY STAGGS DRAMA CRITIC Shakespeare is alive and well at Upstate colleges and universities as two new plays around the Bard just closed and a reimagined version of one of his histories opens on December 4. The Shoestring Players...
BY SANDY STAGGS ARTS WRITER The Spartanburg Philharmonic Orchestra’s Project Maestro enters phase two this weekend when the second of three finalists takes the podium to vie for the coveted title of SPO conductor. Patrick Dupré Quigley will lead the...
BY SANDY STAGGS DRAMA CRITIC As usual, it’s the college theatres that are pushing boundaries, for better or worse, with contemporary tales in an amalgam of teenage angst and the macabre. On the heels of the horror-film spoof “Evil Dead:...
BY SANDY STAGGS ARTS WRITER Spartanburg Philharmonic Orchestra launched its ProjectMaestro search for a new conductor last night in glorious fashion with the first of three finalists for the podium, Stefan Sanders. And he excelled eloquently. In tux and tails,...
BY SANDY STAGGS DRAMA CRITIC Their name may be Scrappy, but Spartanburg’s only professional Shakespeare company’s production of “Twelfth Night” at Converse College is anything but scrappy. With focus on solid, concise and high-caliber acting, wistful and creative direction and...
