LADY AND THE TRAMP © The Walt Disney Co. "Lady and tbe Tramp" Sericel limited Edition of 5,000 Disney Art Additions Preferred Gallery • A Family Classic Skates Into Music Hall Twin brothers Gag and Mark Blackmanfounded ArtsPower to entertain and teach. SUZANNE CHESSLER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS Animation Art Gallery • Cartoon Collectibles Westchester Square 550 Forest Avenue, Plymouth • (3131 455-0190 109 N. Center Downtown Northville (810) 349-4131 CHARLES MIRE 3 dimensional Wall Pieces from Puppet Show films Show begins Nov. nth HOURS: M-TH 10-6, FRI 10-7, SA 10-5, SUN 12-4 •-::;14 $4 p.v.42,111 29203 Northwestern Hwy. erY Southfield (810) 356-5454 e (810) 354-6060 . . Advertise in our new Entertainment Section! THE JEWISH NEWS H ins Brinker & the Silver Skates dramatizes a broth- er's and sister's resolve to keep their family together. ArtsPower, the production corn- pany bringing the musical to Michigan, dramatizes twin broth- ers' resolve to keep family enter- tainment touring around the country. Hans Brinker will be per- formed Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 9 and 10, at the Music H211 as part of a Youtheatre series for children ages 7 and older. ArtsPower, founded by Gary and Mark Blackman in 1985, has toured 13 shows around the country. The brothers started their nonprofit organization in New Jersey after touring them- selves as jazz musicians for 10 years. Finding success with "Journey Into Jazz," a school program, they wanted to work on other original road shows. Trips to Michigan are special because Gary married Amy Winkelman, who is from the Detroit area and has family here. "What I like about Hans Brinker is that all the characters develop and change," said Gary Blackman, ArtsPower's manag- ing director whose brother, Mark, is director of development. "It's a show that families can enjoy together, and it will give parents and children lots to talk about after the show is over." In other years at the Music Hall, the Blackman brothers, 38, have introduced Anne of Green Gables, Fourscore and Seven Years Ago and Olympic Spirit, which has a Jewish theme and is among 13 shows created and de- veloped by ArtsPower. Development is what Arts- Power is all about. During the past decade, the corporation has presented 2,500 performances to 2 million people in 30 states, and throughout the 1995-96 season, there will be more than 500 per- formances reaching nearly 300,000 people. "When we first started Arts- Power, a lot of the revenue that we generated was from perfor- mances," Gary Blackman ex- plained. "We'd actually earn the money for things like adminis- trative costs or office supplies or promotional materials. Hans Brinker & the Siver Skates will be presented tomorrow and Sunday as part of the Youtheatre season. "My brother now solicits funds on a full-time basis, going to in dividuals, foundations and cor porations. Our state arts counci 1 first helped fund us, and we have since received support from com- panies such as Panasonic. Last year there was funding from the National Endowment for the Arts." The Blackman brothers orig- inally planned on becoming mu- sic therapists, first studying psychology at Columbia College in New York and later music at Florida State University in Tal- lahassee. They soon realized, however, that they were more interested in performing with Gary on trumpet or piano and Mark on saxophone, flute or clar- inet. As they built ArtsPower, the twinshared a commitment to moral issues raised through their productions. "Moral development is helped by programs that have good lessons," said Blackman, who be- lieves that moral growth is the primary responsibility of families. "We don't preach be- cause I think that would turn audiences off to any message in our plays. Instead, our shows provide good role models and good examples." Olympic Spirit, for instance, goes beyond the story of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. It also recounts what happened to American Jew- ish runner Marty Glickman and German Jewish fencer Helene Mayer. About a year before each sea-