What's Been Going On Here: Asheville, NC and the University (and Terence Mann, Jarrod Emick, and Adam Pascal singing "Helluva Guy/Same Boy Now")

 I have really written very little for my blog for two weeks.  The "On Writing and Reading" series I wrote on the long rainy afternoon of March 15th. 

March 16 and 17, dear husband, daughter and I had a whirlwind trip to Asheville to see a bit of the city and go to an information session and take a tour of UNC-Asheville.

Even though it was a gray and drizzly time, we enjoyed both Asheville and the university.  We went up on Sunday afternoon and wandered around downtown until everything closed.  Unlike the downtowns of most NC cities, Asheville actually has a lot to do on a Sunday afternoon - stores, restaurants, and lots of interesting architecture.  It's a dangerous place, though, financially speaking.  I bought a book at Malaprop's Bookstore (in the gray building on the left, above) - a wonderful, independent, bookstore, crowded with  people.  A few doors down, I bought a dress (I rarely buy clothes), daughter also bought a hat, we bought a (very early) Christmas present at a craft store, and daughter bought a present for a friend at a children's bookstore (pictured, right) (more on our trip, including a photo of the shop where I bought the dress, at dear husband's blog). 

Oh, and we bought some chocolates to bring home for the guys from a store called The Chocolate Fetish. 

We deliberately went in the late winter to see Asheville and the university at it's grayist, gloomiest worst.  Daughter loved the university anyway.  She'd like to go right now!  It's a small (3,000 undergraduates and a handful of graduate students), public university on its own little campus less than two miles north of downtown.  There's also a bus that goes right through the university to downtown.  Most of the classes are small.  There are lots of opportunities to get involved in research because there isn't a regular graduate program so, if the professors need students to help with research, the undergraduates get to do it. 

UNC-Asheville also has a very different "feel" to it than the universities in our area.  We've noticed that a significant number of the undergraduate women at UNC-Chapel Hill all seem to be trying to look the same.  We wandered around the campus at UNC-Asheville, and spent a long time (surreptitiously) looking at the students at lunch in the main cafeteria.  The students there didn't seem to be trying to look like anything in particular.  There was a lot more facial hair on guys than I'm used to at local, university campuses.  One guy had a fantastic set of "mutton chops." 

One thing I was concerned about was the dance program.  You can minor in dance there, but would it be challenging enough for daughter?  We started looking at some of the other universities from a dance perspective.  The other one that appeals to her is Western Carolina University.  From my college days, I remembered it as a small, regional university.  No more.  It's larger than daughter wants (10,000 students), but it has the majors she's interested in - and a great theater program.

Daughter isn't going into theater, professionally, but one college possibility is double majoring in dance/theater and biology.  We haven't found out enough about WCU yet to know whether that is a possibility, but, from a dance, particularly a theater dance, perspective, the program is great.  It's also possible to minor in dance there, and the classes are more in line with daughter's interests than the dance classes at UNC-A.

We'll be visiting WCU sometime later this spring. 

Surprisingly, one of the professors there is Terence Mann - who originated the role of the Rum Tum Tugger in Cats, was nominated for a Tony for the role of Javert in Les Miserables, and was nominated again for the role of the Beast in Beauty and the Beast.   Two of our other favorite roles of his were Chauvelin in The Scarlet Pimpernel and Frank N Furter in the revival of Rocky Horror. 

I was curious why a Broadway star is teaching at one of the lesser-known UNC schools.  I knew he was involved in the NC Theater (in fact, he helped launch it), but his NC involvement goes back beyond that.  He went to the NC School of the Arts (and graduated two years before I went there).  I haven't been able to find anything online about how he ended up at WCU.  Did they recruit him?  Did he offer to teach there? 

Daughter says she's not choosing a university just based on the fact that her all-time favorite Broadway actor teaches there! 

 

...so many posts turn into Broadway ones.  To top it off, here's a performance by Terence Mann, Jarrod Emick (Miss Saigon, The Boy from Oz, Rocky Horror), and Adam Pascal (Rent) singing "Helluva Guy/Same Boy Now" at a benefit concert at  B.B. King's:

[Photos are all from downtown Asheville.  It was foggy the day we toured the university.  The bottom photo is from the Grove Arcade, a lovely, 1920's building downtown.]