While it may be easy to let academics overshadow the arts in university circles, FHU is working to bring balance to a school that is rich in both arenas. September 24 - October 1 the Fine Arts Department will be presenting Fine Arts Week, a celebration of the creative interests and abilities of artists at FHU and an opportunity for others to actively engage in the arts through choral performances, plays, visual art exhibits, movies and more. 

As part of the celebration this month, the Visual Arts Department welcomed Ellis Truett from Henderson County with his exhibit, West Tennessee Musical Instruments. Currently on view at the Troy Plunk Art Gallery, this exhibit is an interesting assortment of 19th and 20th century musical instruments.  Truett has worked closely with the Tennessee Folklore Society and Middle Tennessee State University to document early music and instruments used by country folk in Middle and West Tennessee.  Included in the collection on view are traditional folk instruments such as dulcimers, fiddles and banjos.  Also included are a couple of "homemade dulcimers," officially called Tennessee Music Boxes.  This particular vernacular instrument is native to the area of the southern part of middle and western Tennessee, including the counties of Hardin, Wayne, Lawrence and Giles.  They have also been found in McNairy and Chester Counties.  Nothing more than rectangular wooden boxes with sound holes, the instruments are constructed with simple hardware such as bailing wire, nails, screw eyes and staples.  Also of particular interest is a collapsing parson's organ from the 19th century, which was taken to camp meetings.  Included with the organ is a shaped note hymnal used by Truett's great-grandfather to teach singing schools. 

FHU’s choral group, Chorale, will be performing in chapel on Wednesday the 23 in celebration of the event. 

On September 25 at 6:30 FHU will also be hosting Fine Arts Night at the movies: "Angels and Demons" starring Tom Hanks in the Crews Activity Center Movie Theatre. Introducing the movie and leading a discussion session will be Fine Arts and Bible professor Dr. Terry Edwards. Admission is free. 

The theatre department will celebrate by welcoming Tom Key in C.S. Lewis Onstage on September 28 at 7 p.m. C.S. Lewis on Stage captures the personality and fiction of the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and subject of the Anthony Hopkins’ film Shadowlands—a person he proposes was an Oxford don who could make his audience think as deeply as he made them laugh. Tom Key is the artistic director of a theatrical outfit in Atlanta and has performed off Broadway, in films and on television. Admission is free.

On October 1 the Theatre Department will also be presenting Hurricane Ann, the first stage presentation of a new play by senior theatre major Melanie McCullough and directed by John McLaughlin. The play records a night in the life of the Monroes, a family prepared to weather any storm…except Hurricane Ann. Still reeling from the loss of the family matriarch, the Monroes find themselves trapped in a small basement for what promises to be the biggest landfall in decades. Attitudes and old grievances collide as secrets are revealed, accusations are made and Christmas trees are assembled. Join the Monroes for the wildest and best Hurricane party the South has ever seen, and be a part of theatre history as Melanie develops her new work. The October performance preludes the December 3 performance which will feature a talk-back session led by professional playwright, Jan Buttram. Jan is the artistic director of the Abingdon Theater Company in Manhattan. This week’s staged reading of Hurricane Ann will be at 7 p.m. at the Black Box Theatre. Admission is $3.