10
Dec
2008
Michael
J. Miles, the freelance educator, composer, and musician currently in
the area as Quad City Arts' latest visiting artist, isn't blind
to the common associations connected with the banjo. "The general
awareness," he says, "if there is
any, of the banjo sits on
things like The Beverly
Hillbillies or Deliverance
or O
Brother, Where Art Thou?"
So when introducing his musical instrument of choice to audiences, be they adults or children, Miles likes to begin with a little history.
Thirty years after the group's inception, executive director June Podagrosi remembers the moment that she and her husband, Victor, embarked on the project that would become Child's Play Touring Theatre, the professional, Chicago-based organization dedicated to producing stage works for children, written by children. Moreover, she remembers the frog and the hillbilly that inspired them.
