1 What do you know about the festival?
Here's a little trivia quiz to test your Summer Festival savvy:
Who had the bright idea to start the Summer Festival? (The late U-M regent Eugene Power who was interested in eliminating the lull in activity at the performing arts center that bears his family name.)
Do the movies just come from Blockbuster? (No, the festival has to rent them from a special vendor and pay an average of about $350 each, though the total cost of showing a movie - including hiring a projectionist, postage - brings that cost up to about $600.)
How many people are on the Summer Festival board? (The board can have up to 35 people. Currently there are 34, half from the university and half from the city.) What band traditionally ends the TOP season every year? (George Bedard and the Kingpins.)
Multiple choice: After five years as executive director of the Summer Festival, Evy Warshawski is leaving. Her new job is to head up: a) the Napa Opera House; b) Ann Arbor Art Fairs; c) the Museum of the American Piano in
New York; d) the Radiator Hall of Fame outside Philadelphia. (Warshawski will head the Napa Opera House.)
TOP movies are shown on the blank, white wall of which building? (They're shown on the side of the parking structure elevator shaft.)
Which U-M building was asked to keep its lights out after dusk because
moviegoers at TOP complained? (The Dental School. Once the Undergraduate Science Building is done, those lights also will have to be extinguished during the festival, too.)
Which venue is hosting Summer Festival performances for the first time this year? (Hill Auditorium.)
A new artist designed this year's Summer Festival poster (shown at left).
What is her job? (Carmen Gagliardi Flesher is 9 and just finished third grade at Emerson School.)
How many Summer Festival shows does Warshawski go to each year? (Every one.) How many bands will play at the Top of the Park this year? (56.)
How many dancers, singers, designers, et al, travel with Cirque Eloize, the first ticketed performance of this year's Summer Festival? (25, with 18 of them appearing on stage.)
How many months does it take to organize the festival? (The staff of four full-time employees takes 13 months, according to Warshawski, because "we wish we had another month" to do it all.) Marianne Rzepka, News features staff
COURTESY SUMMER FESTIVAL