I’ve received the following letter from Science Museum of Western Virginia director Jim Rollings in response to reader Chris VanCantfort’s letter questioning the museum’s new prices, and I’m sharing it here.

The OmniGlobe at the Science Museum of Western Virginia.

The Science Museum of Western Virginia at Center in the Square is poised to be among the most outstanding attractions in the region. The complete renovation of Center has been augmented by an investment of more than $3 million by area donors to the Science Museum to provide new exhibits that not only are spectacular but also designed for all ages. That’s an added dimension for the community.

We will continue to install these one-of-a-kind exhibits over the next several weeks, with most of them fully completed by the end of June.

Now, our attention is focused on operations and sustainability for the future. Along those lines, we gave a long, hard look at new admission rates for the Museum and for the Butterfly Garden. (“Butterflies and Killer Prices,” May 21)

As a baseline, Science Museum admission, back when we moved out of Center in the Square in 2011, was $8 for adults and $6 for children 3-12 years old. Planetarium shows and MegaDome movies were an additional $3 to $5 depending on the program. That meant that a non-member family of four paid $28 for general admission. If they added a MegaDome movie, that total was $48.

MegaDome, incidentally, is out of business. So we no longer have their 40-minute big-screen documentaries to show.

Today, that same family of four – adding a Butterfly Garden visit – sees a total fee of $52, a $4 increase. And by the way, because we extended our “child” admission age from 12 years up to 17 years, it could literally be that same family who, two years later, still pay the lower child rate! Read more »

Did you attend “The Role of the Arts in Economic Development” panel? What did you think? Do you have further questions, or answers to suggest? Please let me know in the comments. –MikeA

DON PETERSEN | Special to The Roanoke Times. Panelist David Mickenberg, former president and CEO of the Taubman Museum of Art, makes a point at the Executive Discussion Series on Wednesday. Titled “The Role of the Arts in Economic Development,” the forum was attended by many artists, university faculty and regional officials.

The regional arts community wants answers.

The questions, articulated with urgency, weren’t new. How does a community sustain the arts financially over the long term, where does the funding come from, who deserves to receive it? How do you battle the perception that arts aren’t essential? Will localities in Roanoke and the New River Valley band together to promote the arts as part of their brand, and if so how?

Wednesday morning, those question were posed to and raised by the five panelists at a roundtable discussion, part of the ongoing Executive Discussion Series co-sponsored by The Roanoke Times and Cox Business. The panel, “The Role of the Arts in Economic Development,” attracted the largest crowd in the two-year history of the series, with about 135 attending the breakfast meeting at the Sheraton Roanoke Hotel and Conference Center.

Moderator Connie Stevens of public radio station WVTF-FM noted that the audience was made up almost entirely of stakeholders: artists, representatives from nonprofits, government officials, university faculty.

The panelists were Roanoke City Manager Chris Morrill; former Taubman Museum of Art CEO and President David Mickenberg; Ruth Waalkes, executive director of the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech; Amy Moorefield, director of the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University; and Roanoke Valley-Alleghany Regional Commission Executive Director Wayne Strickland. These heavy hitters didn’t have specific answers to many of the sweeping questions placed on the table, though often they brought up issues of their own.

“I hope this is the beginning of a broader conversation on why we support the arts and what it takes to support the arts,” Mickenberg said.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

This past Sunday, we published a preview of the roundtable in which the five panelists provided written answers to questions about the role of the arts in regional economic development. Click here to read those interviews.

Tbe Buchanan Theatre

The movie industry has spoken — after this year, new movies will no longer be released on 35mm film. As a result, those theaters that don’t switch to digital projectors won’t be able to show first-run releases.

To make the switch, independent movie theaters in the region have turned to the public for help.

The Buchanan Theatre installed its projector in November but still needs to pay off the $60,000 expense. The all-volunteer organization that runs the historical movie house is hosting a fund-raising gala with music, hors d’oeuvres and croquet, called “An Evening of Elegance,” on April 13.

“This is the first time we’ve done something like this,” said Sharon Coleman , president of non-profit Standing Room Only.

The Grandin Theatre in Roanoke and the Lyric Theatre in Blacksburg also have ongoing fund drives to pay for the expensive new equipment.

Both theaters have put in the order for digital projectors but have run into another common problem ­­— the equipment is on back order.

“The demand for the units is high,” said Mark Arciaga , the Lyric’s production manager. “Many, many theaters are converting this year.” He said the Lyric ordered its projector at the end of last year and still hasn’t received it.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

From Sunday’s column:

American pianist Jeremy Denk will present a program featuring the works of Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms, infused with his fresh interpretation of the classical pieces. (Photo credit: Samantha West)

The Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech continues its 2012-13 season with a performance by classical pianist Jeremy Denk at The Lyric Theatre in Blacksburg. The performance happens 8 p.m. March 24 and will include compositions by Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms.

As well as one-man concerts, Denk has performed with chamber music ensembles and as a soloist with orchestras from Los Angeles to London.

His playing racks up rave reviews in The New York Times the way LeBron James racks up slam dunks during a Miami Heat pre-game. (Full disclosure: my thanks to Sports Editor Steve Hemphill for his assistance in the construction of this metaphor.)

Denk’s profile has been raised further by his popular blog, Think Denk (jeremydenk.net/blog/), on which he shares thoughts about music, life and the music life.

Here’s a sample of how a New York Times critic painted him in 2010: “There is nothing generic about this adventurous musician. His vivacious intellect is manifest both in his playing and on his blog, Think Denk, an outlet for astute musical observations and witty musings, whether a lament about inedible meatballs or a spoof interview with Sarah Palin.”

In 2009, when I attended the NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera in New York, I had the opportunity to hear Denk perform some of American composer Charles Ives’ incredibly difficult piano compositions during a broadcast by New York Public Radio station WXQR.

Not having a background in music, I lack the vocabulary to articulately describe Denk’s playing other than to say it was an amazing experience. He also had a great rapport with his audience, explaining the pieces to us and helping us to pick out motifs.

Admission is $30 , senior citizens and Virginia Tech faculty and staff $24, and for students and youth 18 and under $10. For more information, call 951-4771 or visit www.thelyric.com/.

Click here to read the rest of the column.

The Grandin Theatre needs to raise $28,000 to reach its funding goal.

The Grandin Theatre has announced a public campaign to raise funds to replace its film projectors with digital equipment. Executive director Kathy Chittum outlines the details in a press release she sent, excerpted below. —MikeA

• Theaters around the country are converting to digital as a result of production companies abandoning the 35mm format.  20^th Century Fox has stated that they will no longer support 35mm film after December 2013.
• The GT will convert all four screens to digital.
• With a successful digital conversion capital campaign, the GT will hope to complete the digital conversion during by mid-April.
• During conversion, the GT will need to shut down screens on a rotating basis for a few days, minimizing the impact upon our business/patrons.
• Digital conversion is a significant step forward in implementing the strategic plan for GT’s future by the GTF executive and Board
• Digital conversion will enhance the GT experience by providing better sound and visual quality for our patrons
• The digital conversion will not result in an increased ticket price
• The digital conversion will cost approximately $210k
• The GTF is excited to announce that we have made significant progress in achieving our capital campaign goal through generous grants from the Roanoke Valley Women’s Foundation ($95k), the Taubman Sustainability fund ($50k), and from our members ($37k) such that we now have $182k on hand.
• The GTF invites the general public to partner with us in helping us achieve our fundraising goal by sending donations of ANY AMOUNT to the GTF, 1310 Grandin Road, Roanoke, VA 24015 or donating via our website, www.grandintheatre.com  to insure that the GT remains a vibrant part of Roanoke’s regional culture community by providing the very best in cinematic arts.
• We look forward to many exciting events this year, our first-ever film festival will be held in April 2013, stay tuned for more details!

For even more about today’s feature story, check out this post by Elizabeth Watts-Jones of SWoCo and my own previous blog post, where you can compare the photo with the book cover and see the “Flutter” book trailer.

Courtesy Dorothy Nguyen. Cave Spring High School seniors Sarah Beth Penny (left) and Colleen Truskey. Truskey’s photograph of longtime friend Penny graces the dusk jacket of “Flutter,” a young adult science fiction novel.

Thousands of young artists hope to break into the New York publishing scene.

Cave Spring High School senior Colleen Truskey did it by posting a portrait of a friend online.

Colleen’s photograph of longtime friend and fellow Cave Spring senior Sarah Beth Penny graces the dust jacket of “Flutter,” a young adult science fiction novel by Chicago author Gina Linko . It was released Oct. 23 by Random House Books for Young Readers.

“Flutter” follows the adventures of 17-year-old Emery, a teenage girl troubled by seizures, that she calls “loops,” during which she seems to travel through time. She escapes the hospital where she’s being kept when she discovers the town she has seen in her visions is a real place.

As Linko explained in an email, “in the moment before she seizes, which she believes takes her into time-traveling, she has some warning signs – smelling ammonia, her eyelids fluttering, etc. And this photo sort of caught the emotion and motion of that moment for Emery. Sort of a creepy/cool vibe.

“Also, later in the book, the way she explains her time traveling, she uses the curls in her hair as a visual. So, the curls of her hair underneath the title are super cool,” Linko wrote.

Because of Colleen’s photo, Sarah Beth is now the “face” of Emery. In fact, Linko asked Colleen to shoot footage of Sarah Beth made up as the character for the official book trailer.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Expanded from Sunday’s Cornershot.

Our region has a winning streak when it comes to forging connections to Academy Award-nominated movies, even if those nominees didn’t win this time around (last year, winning film “The Artist” featured an appearance from Roanoke County native Jen Lilley.)

One connection this year came through Christiansburg actress Sarah Wylie, who appeared in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln.”

Bill Logan and Quvenzhané Wallis. Courtesy of http://thenovoproject.com.

Here’s another one. Proud Roanoke mom Jackie Logan wrote me to let me about her son Bill Logan, who worked as props master for the independent magical realist movie “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

A 1998 graduate of North Cross School, Bill Logan discovered an interest in art under the tutelage of teacher Shirley Johnson. He’s pursuing a master of fine arts degree at the New York Academy of Art.

He spent more than four months building sets in Louisiana for the reported $1.8 million production. Set in a bayou community flooded by a hurricane, the movie took the film festival circuit by storm, so to speak, winning the Grand Jury Prize for drama at Sundance and the Camera d’Or award at Cannes.

The film’s Oscar nominations included best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay and best actress for star Quvenzhane Wallis, who at 9 years old was the youngest ever to be a candidate for the category.

She was 6 when she acted the part of Hushpuppy, a girl who faces down both her temperamental, fatally ill father and prehistoric creatures released from the polar ice caps.

A behind-the-scenes photo shows Logan and Quvenzhane clowning together, both striking strongman poses.

In an interview at thenovoproject.com, he said he gets artistic inspiration from everyone around him, and writes that the love of his life is “either paint or all the people I’ve known.”

As pledged in today’s Q&A with Peter Davison, star of All Creatures Great and Small, Doctor Who and Law & Order: UK, which doubles as a preview of MystiCon, here is a longer (if still not entirely complete) transcript of the half-hour interview he granted me. —MikeA.

Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor.

You have a long, still-active television career in the United Kingdom, but in the United States you’re primarily known as the Fifth Doctor from “Doctor Who” or as Tristan from “All Creatures Great and Small.”

Certainly other series have been out in America, but I guess they’ve been out on cable channels … the last time I was in America, I went to Barnes & Noble, and I saw all the series in the series I did called “The Last Detective” were for sale in there, and I know that a series I did called “At Home with the Braithwaites” also went out there and got a good reaction. You just don’t know the numbers you’re dealing with. Dealing with a cable channel, BBC America, obviously the numbers are very small, but I think there’ve been a few things that’ve gone out. There’s a series I did called “Campion.” Actually, that was quite popular in America. The box sets are available in America and I know that the “Campion” box sets also sell very well there.

When I do a convention, there’s always a few fans that come up and ask about “Campion” and how they liked it and also “Last Detective” as well. Obviously when you’re dealing with fans, you’ll deal with people who know your work because they go out and look for you because of their love for Doctor Who.

I think probably above Doctor Who, “All Creatures Great and Small” has the widest audience, because it went out on so many PBS stations way back. I would get recognized for being Tristan in America.

Tristan was a loveable troublemaker. Where do you find what you need to play a character like that? Did it affect perceptions of you as a person?

It didn’t really, it wasn’t like me at all, I have to say. My being cast had a lot to do with looking like I could be Robert Hardy’s brother rather than being blown away by my reading. I kind of grew into the part. A about a week of filming I met the real Tristan –Tristan, Siegfried and James, they were based on two brothers and a vet that came together in this practice – it helped a lot meeting him. I think he’s described on page two or three of the first book as being like a “debauched choirboy, “ and I think that really sums up my approach to him. He has a kind of innocence about him, but if he can get into any kind of mischief he will. Read more »