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Gift breathes life into arts
The Royal Theater program will go "beyond hip- hop.''
By JON WILSON
Published November 15, 2006
The Royal Theater rocked Monday night - and laughed and cried and praised. Celebrating a $250,000 gift from the Hough Family Foundation to the theater's Arts Academy, young performers showcased a varied and energetic repertoire ranging from country music to classical piano, light opera to original poetry. When she finished piano renditions of Swan on the Lake and Run Away River, Shachaamah Brown, 7, delighted an audience of about 75 with a delicate curtsy. "Can we see that again?" coaxed Herbert Murphy, director of the Boys and Girls Club at the Royal Theater. Part of the 22nd Street S renaissance, the revamped Royal opened two years ago as a performing arts venue for young people, thanks to private contributions and city sponsorship. The Hough gift is the largest the theater has received, said Carl Lavender, executive director of Boys and Girls Clubs of the Suncoast. The Hough family had front-row seats. "Fantastic," a beaming Susan Hough Henry said of the show. "We're so happy to be a part of this." She is president of the Hough Family Foundation. The money, to be disbursed at $50,000 for the next five years, will pay for an arts program director, lessons for young performers and building improvements. "We are going beyond hip-hop to hip art," Lavender said. "We will have a holistic arts schedule for the community." An elaborate production studio already allows young apprentices to learn professional-caliber musical engineering techniques. The redone theater, at 1011 22nd St. S, opened as a segregated movie house in 1948. Its new stage holds the spot of the old one, where community talent shows took place. Past met present in another way Monday night when Rodrick and Ryan Williams performed a mime routine. When 22nd Street S was the African-American community's liveliest district, Sidney Harden operated a grocery store two blocks north of the Royal. The Williams brothers are his great-great-grandsons.
[Last modified November 14, 2006, 21:45:12]
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