Backstage
Bandle is devoted to Center
I smiled as politely as I could and decided this was
shaping up to be an ordeal.
Ten minutes later I was following Bandle's assistant,
Ltsa Chase, through the corridors of the Hult Center's
elaborate office network.
Bandle's office is expansive and cluttered. She was
perched behind the desk, a robust, energetic person
whom I liked at once. "Sit down, sit down,' she gestured.
I detec ted a slight southern drawl.
Luke Bandle came to Eugene from Washington, D.C.
in the summer of 1980, ter be the direc tor of programming
and marketing for the Hult Center.
Her late husband was an Oregonian and she has
relatives in Oakridge who convinc ed her to at least talk to
the performing arts center planners. "I really wasn't sure
about c oming out here. I love Washington,'' she says.
"But I’m delighted. This center is fantastic," she says.
"The planners had a lot of insight to develop a performing
arts center, a conference center and a hotel in the same
area."
Her job responsibilities include searc hing lor artists,
negotiations with agents, promotion, marketing, ticket
pricing, editing "On Stage" magazine and actual produc
tion of advertising.
Currently she is booking entertainers tor the 84-85
season
I'd heard the stories about Luke Bandle1 sleeping
nights at the Hult Center, Luke Bandle sleeping a tew
hours at the Hilton, Luke Bandle living in that nice office
of hers where a congratulatory letter from the President
of the United States shares the wallspace with celebrity
photos and lots of colorful graphic prints.
She didn t deny the rumors.
"It you don't plan to spend at least 12 hours a day on
something like this in the first two years ot operation,
you’re going to tail," she says. "You have to be there."
Actually Handle's days were filled with lb-20 workday
hours during the first tew months that the Hult Center
was open.
It takes that kind ol dedication to launch a center
like* this, especially in depressed economic times," she*
says.
"It's a lot of work/' says Handle. "But I love my job."
Our conversation was frequently interrupted by
several emergencies. For example, the stage hands
wanted a dinner break. However the tec hnic lans c (aimed
the stage wouldn't be ready for the Jane Pcrwell show it
the hands left. Bandle made some calls.
Or, a reporter on one line needed some information
about the champagne dinner celebrating the Hult
Center's first year, while* Bandle s son needed transporta
tion to the* dentist's office on another line. She worked it
all out
Knowing Bandle is a widow, I wondered how she*
managed her hetty career and her family alone. I asked.
"I have four children. My late husband and I were
always both workaholics. I don't think the children suf
fered," she says.
Most of her compulsive energy is incused on her job
rather than her children, she* says. "That's healthy tor
them," she says, adding that she doesn't hover over her
children "like some mothers are inclined to do "
Does Luke Bandle ever have free time for herself?
"I took one Sunday off once,” she says with a wide
grin
Bandle holds a degree in music and plays the piano
She also reads "everything from trade magazines to
cereal boxes.” She raises cals and roses.
Her job gives her the opportunity to travel a lot When
in New York City, she make a point to see plays.
Mostly though, she works.
”1 thoroughly love* my |<>b. It s like washing a tar The
end result is there. You can really see what you’ve done.
And that’s neat ”
I asked her it she had advice tor students starting their
own careers.
“Pick something you want to do. Don't be afraid of
i hange either.” she ottered. She added that too many
people are miserable in their jobs. "Don’t let tear
motivate you.”
Luke Bandle obviously hasn’t.
Kim Carlson
jazzer
Continued from page 1B
packaged — a style, he says, which
does not allow players to “screw
around much," that is, "exercise
thematic variation."
Reviewers label his music fu
sion, cinematic/pop and most
often, accessible — implying both
commercially viable and less
esthetically complex, or painful,
depending on your orientation.
Siegel is by no means deaf to that
charge, if it is indeed taken as
such.
“The idiom I write in is a com
bination, a fusing of different
styles," he says.That fusion is of
an eclectic musical background,
from classical and jazz melody to
driving rock'n'roll, providing a
broad base for appreciation.
More than anything, Siegel's
style suggests unity, and to that
degree, it is somewhat classically
romantic, sentimental. He admits
it. Deep down, he says he's a
“romantic, sentimental kinda
guy," and there is nothing preten
tious or maudlin in the admission.
Siegel will be missed. Anyone
lucky enough to have seen his
show will preserve the vicarious
vanity of having been there when
he used to play in town, in the lit
tle bars like )o Federigo's and the
Electric Station.
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'Cathedral'
Continued from page 2B
Most of these characters avoid
confrontations that might jolt
them out of the haze, until
something too big to avoid forces
its way into their awareness. In "A
Small, Good Thing," winner of
first place in the 1983 O. Henry
Prize Stories Collection, that event
is the death by hit-and-run of a
small boy on his birthday, and the
crass attitude of the baker who
demands that the parents pay for
a cake ordered that day. Such ac
cidental events in Carver's stories
bring people together in unex
pected ways, with powerful
consequences.
Heroes here are as rare as in real
life, and Carver isn't afraid to
make his narrator biased and in
sensitive. The narrator of the title
story, last in the collection, hates
the idea that his wife's blind
friend will visit them. Blind people
give him the creeps. To the nar
rator, a cathedral is just
“something you watch a show
about on late-night T.V.," until the
blind man is able to make him ex
perience what a cathedral can be.
The book is pulled together as a
whole when the blind man proves
greater than the demands of
everyday life.
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T
Portland
Gay Mens
Chorus
Presents
“Design For October”
Featuring Special Guest Artist
David Smith, Pianist
Featuring Classics by
Casals, Schumann, DeBussey,
Wagner, Brahms
Huh Center • Soreng Theatre
2 p.m. • October 16th
All Tickets cost *6.00 and are
available at Hult Center Ticket Outlets
Also in Portland
8 p.m. • October 22nd
Westminster Presbyterian Church
N.E. 17th & Schuyler