Northark Drama and the
Ozark Arts Council Present:
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Fridays & Saturdays, May 3 & 4, 10 & 11, 7:00PM
Sundays, May 5 & 12, 2:00PM
If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times: do not fan the girls when they’re wet! But you’ll never learn; you’ll be a eunuch all your life!
– Marcus Lycus
This May, come to the Lyric for something familiar…something peculiar…something for everyone…yes, it’s “a comedy tonight”! In fact it’s the comedy of comedies that transcends time and space, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum! Produced by NorthArk Drama and The Theatre Company of the Ozarks, in association with the Ozark Arts Council and under license from Music Theatre International, Forum brings a full 21 centuries of laughs from Rome to the Lyric stage on May 3, 4, 10, 11 at 7:00PM and May 5, 12 at 2:00PM. Tickets are available through TheLyric.org with Advance Tickets priced at $8 children, $10 seniors, $12 adults. Ticket prices at the door will be $11 children, $13 seniors, $15 adults.

Set in Rome during the first century A.D., when the Roman Empire was in its youth, the film opens with one of musical theatre’s most famous songs, “Comedy Tonight,” performed by Pseudolus (Preston Garrison). The action, Pseudolus tells the audience, takes place in Rome around three adjacent houses: the house of Erronius (Clark Middleton), an old man who has been searching for his children who were stolen by pirates while they were infants; the house of Marcus Lycus (Jamie Taylor), a buyer and seller of beautiful women, and the house of Senex (Jim Gresham), a Roman senator, his wife, Domina (Ann Lemley), their son, Hero (Laine Hilliard), and the family slaves, Pseudolus and Hysterium (Michael Amburn).
When Senex and Domina leave for the day, Hero declares his love for one of the ladies who live at his next door neighbor’s house, Philia (Katie Blessing), and that’s when Pseudolus begins to hatch a scheme to buy his own freedom.
When the two visit Lycus’s house, once they get past the eunuchs (Donovan Walters and Nicholas Prpich) they meet Tintinabula (Cady Wheeler), a bell-wearing beauty; Vibrata (Kennedy Bottoms), an energetic, lively lovely with a leopard skin bikini; the Geminae (Faith Nix and Dante Lowe), a “matched pair”; Panacea (Nikki Forehand), a seductive dancer; and Gymnasia (Spree Hilliard), with a body upon which “a thousand dramas can be played.” They and the other lovely courtesans (Lena Rocole, Jenna Wilson, Rilee Young, Kaley Jones) are tempting, but Hero and Pseudolus are alarmed to find out that Philia has been sold to the great Captain Miles Gloriosus (Caleb Lord), and will be claimed that very day.
The confusion, comedy, and chases that ensue when Captain Miles and his illustrious soldiers (Kinder Hinrichs, Laken Rudelis, Andrew Coble, Daniel Hart, Wynn Mahoney) come to claim her will have audiences
doubled over with laughter, attempting to keep up with what wackiness will occur next.
So join us again at the Lyric Theater for a fun evening, where “weighty affairs will just have to wait,” and where we promise to have “morals tomorrow, comedy tonight!”


If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times: do not fan the girls when they’re wet! But you’ll never learn; you’ll be a eunuch all your life!



In 1999,
a world record, though: it was to help the Ozark Arts Council raise both money and awareness to make it possible to purchase the theater and transform it into the venue for live music, drama, and education that we all love today—and now it’s time to celebrate that historic concert and all the entertainment that followed it these past 20 years!
Fender P-Bass drives the music with every bit of intense energy that Fender’s naming it “Precision-Bass” was meant to convey: Precision = Power! Powerful rock and blues classics and the band’s own compositions drive up the excitement all night long.
The doors of the Roots Music Palace of the Ozarks—Harrison, Arkansas’s historic Lyric Theater—will open at 6:00 for a 7:00 performance on Saturday, March 16. Adult beverages and general concessions will be available throughout the concert, and
Earth Bone
by Susan Boone whose renditions of blues and ballads are exciting to hear to say the least. Dave Dore ties it all together with his vocals, keyboard and guitar. Wayne Angel’s conga, djembe and cajon riffs add a taste of the exotic to all of Earth Bone’s songs. The band is often joined by Denise Dore, who provides strong backup vocals.
The doors of the Roots Music Palace of the Ozarks—Harrison, Arkansas’s historic Lyric Theater—will open at 6:00 for a 7:00 performance on Saturday, January 26. Adult beverages and general concessions will be available throughout the concert, and


“Bryan and Bernice Hembree (Smokey & The Mirror) are making some of the best folk music today. The songs remind me of a time when Guy Clark was unknown and Ray Wylie Hubbard was still a folkie. Smart, cool and never pretentious.”
It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s what you do with your dancin’ shoes.



Springsteen and back to the blues underpinnings of rock giants Led Zeppelin, White Fox Kill has no problem weaving together both lyrical and musical images that are both pleasing and challenging. Considering that they are fans of some of the greatest roots music lyricists of the past century—Bob Dylan, Townes Van Zandt—and have an expressiveness akin to some of today’s top artists (from Kings of Leon to Lana Del Rey), their willingness to mix
styles to get their point across is the very picture of being an Arkansawyer in the modern world: they build on the best of the past and extract the best from today, as well. The influences of Nirvana and The Pixies come through, as well, in the band’s willingness to mix hard and soft, all to present their ‘jungles of Arkansas’ take on their subject matter.
couple of years. Recently, they were able to complete their first album, with Scott Hoffmann in charge of production. He says that they went for a “raw, puckish” sound that lets the composition of the music shine forth as both simple and complex, allowing the hearer to fix on the lyrics that are, he says, “reminiscent of Lennon, Dylan, Cobain, and Townes [Van Zandt].”