Musicians, visual artists, poets, dancers, playwrights, and many other talented creative people make Westport Center for the Arts the unique organization that it is. Meet some of those we work with and who help to make us what we are.
The Dancing Word: Dancers and Poets
Nora Burkitt-Davis
Nora Burkitt-Davis has been dancing since she was three years old, but she says participating in Westport Center for the Arts’ Dancing Word has opened a whole new avenue of communication for her. More
Musicians
Lyra Pherigo
Lyra Pherigo manages the Westport Center for the Arts’ Brown Bag Concert Series. Before and since she took over management of the program, Pherigo has performed regularly with her husband Robert, seen in the photo to the left. She loves giving other musicians the opportunity to perform in a great venue and to design a program that is personal to them. more
Doug Talley Quartet
The Doug Talley Quartet first played for a Westport Center for the Arts Brown Bag Concert on the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday in the year 2001. more
Playwrights
Scott Myers
Ask playwright Scott Myers why he started writing for the stage and he will tell you that it started with a fire.
That was the devastating 2011 fire that required the Westport Presbyterian Church to be rebuilt.
“Somehow the fire totally exploded my head,” Myers, who in addition to writing plays serves as the pastor of the church, says. He had never written a play before. But one evening he saw an interview with a woman who had known John F. Kennedy, and it sparked his imagination. more
Jacqee Gafford
Theatre director Jacqee Gafford has something of a motto that overarches her work: only the wounds and weapons change.
She used to feature this concept in a speech she did on Black history.
It meant, to her, “now the wounds may not be lashes across your back, they may be someone trying to take your house. The weapon may once have been a whip, now it’s the law.” more
Actors
Paulette Dawn
For the actor Paulette Dawn, there is absolutely positively nothing better than being on stage.
“It is a fire I have in me,” she says. “I don’t want to put it out.”
It took her a while to make her childhood dream of singing and acting come true, and now that it has, she has no intention of letting it go. more
Visual Artists
Stan Morgan
The Westport Center for the Arts will present a new exhibition called “The Lifetime Art and Works of Brian Stanley Morgan.” The show opens on Friday, July 21 at 6 p.m. at the Westport Presbyterian Church art galleries. The show will document the oil paintings, sculpture, watercolor, masks, found art and collage Morgan has created over the past five decades.more