About Us

Our Mission
Our History
Board of Directors

Program Directors
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Our Mission

The mission of the Lawrence Arts Center is to enrich individuals and the community by nurturing love of the arts through education, exploration and expression.

Our History

For over 30 years, the Lawrence Arts Center has acted as a unifying force in our community, drawing people of all ages, neighborhoods, backgrounds and abilities to participate in an ever-growing array of education, exhibition and performance programs. Performing and visual arts programs have steadily grown to an annual participation of 95,000.

The Gallery is filled continually with creative works ranging from children's works to that of professional artists. The Arts Education Program offers an extensive array of classes and workshops in drawing, ceramics, painting, printmaking, photography, writing and more. Dancers develop skills and have performance opportunities in the Dance Program . Preschoolers develop and learn through their creative experiences in the Arts-Based Preschool . Professional actors share their skills and experiences that engender creativity and confidence in students grades kindergarten-12th in the Drama Program.

Events and performances are presented by community groups and the Center. The Center publishes The Arts in Action , a magazine about the arts in the community. Literary programming offers the Langston Hughes Creative Writing Award and the Lawrence Poetry Series.

A Place to Imagine, the Lawrence Arts Center's new home, opened in 2002 in the 900 block of New Hampshire. The facility has two exhibition galleries, gallery sales shop, theatre, ten studios for art drama and dance classes. The Arts-Based Preschool has two classrooms and an outside classroom.

Board of Directors 2007-2008

Dave Adams
Grace Carmody
Bill Carswell
Larry S. Chance
Louis Copt
Jason Edmonds
Steve Frederickson
Sidney Garrett
Gunda Hiebert
Evan Ice
June Jones
Mike Maude
John Olson
Michael J. Orozco
Phillip Rademacher
Dan Sabatini
Elizabeth Schultz
Dolph C. Simons III

Officers for 2008-2009

Mike Maude, President
Louis Copt, Vice President
Phil Rademacher, Secretary-Treasurer

Program Directors

Drama: Ric Averill
Dance: Candi Baker
Arts Based Preschool: Linda Reimond
Art Education Program Director: Kris Hermanson

Ric Averill

Ric Averill is Drama Program Director and Artistic Director of the Seem-to-Be Players, professional children's theatre company. Averill has been the artistic director, composer and principal playwright since the company was founded 31 years ago. He directs the Center's drama program including Summer Youth Theatre program, Lil'Bees, Soon-to-Be Players, First Saturday Players and City Youth Theatre. For 30 years the Summer Youth Theatre has been an extensive theatre program providing high quality educational and performance opportunities for young people during the summer. The Seem-to-be Players touring company have performed in 50 Kansas communities, 35 states, performing for and education more than 200,000 students each year. The company is on the Kansas Arts Commission and Mid-American Arts Alliance Touring Programs. They have received the Kansas Governor's Arts Award.

Averill has received numerous playwriting fellowships and has been selected for five professional play development symposiums including the Kennedy Center's New Visions/New Voices and the Indianapolis Bonderman Youth Theatre Playwriting Symposium. He has had plays published by Dramatic Publishing, including The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, Sacagawea, The Princess and the Pea, Kings and Magical Things, Alex and the Shrink World and T-Money and Wolf (with Kevin Willmont). Among his commission are the Kennedy Center's Alice and Wonderland, First Stage Milwaukee's Little Drummer Boy, and the Coterie Theatre's Frankenstein. His children's opera based on the story of The Emperor's New Clothes was commissioned by the Kennedy Center, premiered in 2001 and toured nationally in 2003-20004. Ric graduated with a BFA in Music Composition and an MA in Children's Theatre from the University of Kansas, studying with Dr. Jed Davis.

Candi Baker

Candi Baker is Dance Program Director and Artistic Director of the Prairie Wind Dancers, a professional, educational dance company. Ms. Baker started the Center's dance program in 1984 with the introduction of Creative Movement classes for ages 4-8 and Child/Parent Movement and Music classes for infants and parents. With the popular Peanut, Popcorn, Pretzel and Pistachio Companies, performance dance classes, she produces 2-3 children's storydances per year. In 1992, the Center assumed the dance studio from the local dance studio, which had closed. The program has grown from 12 to 60 classes per week, from 120 to 800 students enrollments per semester and from 2 to 24 professional teachers.

The Prairie Wind Dancers continue their residency at First Step House in Lawrence, working with the residents and their children. This includes regular workshops, mini-concerts, and the development of the dance, Stories of Addiction, based on the lives of the residents. The Company works with students at four elementary schools After School Programs. They are on the artists rosters of the Kansas Arts Commission, Missouri Arts Council, Arts Midwest and Kansas City Young Audiences. Candi was recognized during National Education Week with the "Community Friend" Award from the Alternative High School and USD # 497. She received the Lawrence Arts Commission's Phoenix Award for Performing Arts in 1998.

Ms. Baker has an MA in dance from Mills College. She founded a high school dance program and her own school of dance in California, before moving to Kansas. She was a founder and first president of the Kansas Dance Network. She has served on numerous panel and boards dealing with artists and dancers in education. Candi was one of 4 authors of the Dance Curriculum Guide for the Kansas State Board of Education. She has also written a publication "Move Freeze" about her approach to movement and music for the young child.

Linda Reimond

Linda Reimond is the Director of the Arts-Based Preschool Program, which was started in 1985. Linda was the original director and lead teacher. The program has grown from 20 students and two teacher/artists to 140 children and 9 teacher/artists, as well as visiting artists. The Center believes that art education for all individuals is imperative to the future of the arts and what better way to work for this vision than a preschool program teaching the arts--dance, drama, music, literature, storytelling, drawing, sculpture and architecture.

This special teacher, who truly enjoys her students, has a degree in elementary education and taught kindergarten for 4 years and preschool for 12 years. In 1994, she completed her master's degree in early childhood education. Linda has presented workshops at local, state, regional and national Early Childhood Conferences. She was an instructor for the training grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and has been an adjunct instructor in the Early Childhood Education at Washburn University. Linda is Past President of the Douglas County Association for the Young Child and currently serving on the board. In 2004, Mayor David Dunfield made a surprise to the preschool and awarded Linda the Excellence in Education Award from the City of Lawrence.

Kris Hermanson