It started with a book club. Laurelyn found that fellow reader Kari Sickenberger liked harmony-rich songs by the Carter Family and Gillian Welch. Both women could play guitar. They found their voices blended well. They both started writing songs. The result: Polecat Creek.

A mixture of country and Celtic and earthy old-time and bluesy sass, the band defies categories. Constant are the harmonies, sometimes sweet, often bracing, always distinctive.

They've released three CDs: “Salt Sea Bound” (2002), “Leaving Eden” (2004) and “Ordinary Seasons” (2007).

Riley Baugus, best known as a banjo player, and fiddler Natalya Weinstein play with the group as well.

Kari had grown up playing violin and hearing Doc Watson and Flatt & Scruggs but grew to love punk rock. Returning from Europe in the mid-'90s, she rediscovered the state's traditional music.

Kari worked toward her MALS degree in the late '90s while an ESL and Spanish teacher. Dr. Charlie Headington, an advocate for sustainable living, was a favorite professor. She recently became an eco-consultant in real estate in Asheville, working in the growing field of “green” real estate. Changing careers helped her conserve her voice for singing.

“We don't shoot for ‘easy on the ears,’” she says of Polecat Creek harmonies. “We shoot for ‘interesting.’”

Since 2002, Triad Stage has been a force for the arts in Greensboro, and a big part of Downtown Greensboro's upsurge. The professional regional theatre will stage at least 225 performances in the coming season. And since the first production, there have been UNCG ties.

Theatre professor Jim Wren has served as fight choreographer and helped oversee Theatre 232. Theatre professor John Wolf has served as lighting designer.

Then there are the students. Last season, students played lead roles in “Mrs. Warren's Profession,” “The Little Foxes” and “Beautiful Star.”

Twenty or so UNCG students were involved in “Bloody Blackbeard,” either onstage or backstage.

Just as UNCG helps Triad Stage, Triad Stage helps UNCG. It not only offers opportunities for students to gain points toward their Equity cards, it provides real-world experience, theatre department head James Fisher '76 MFA points out. “They're working with seasoned professionals.” Fisher helped direct a Theatre 232 offering this summer, “Mere Mortals.”

Preston Lane, Triad Stage's co-founder and artistic director, has been an adjunct professor in UNCG's theatre department since 2001. This fall, three new “director students” will enter UNCG's revamped MFA in Directing program. He will help oversee their work, including assistant director duties and dramaturgical research.

Other developments:

• UpStage Cabaret singer/songwriter series. Watch for concerts this season in a new performance space on the third floor. Laurelyn will direct the series.
• “Beautiful Star” returns. The musical, a blending of Appalachian culture and European medieval religious drama, has become one of Greensboro's signature holiday offerings. This year will feature earlier curtain-times and additional afternoon matinees.
• 2008-9 season. Six productions are on tap, plus “Beautiful Star.”

Laurelyn earned her master's degree in counseling and educational development in the late 1990s at UNCG. She was a clinical intern at Family Services of the Piedmont and after graduation, she worked intake there. She was the first contact — getting a person or family who needed help to the right person and the right service. Ultimately, a full-time musical career pulled her away.

Dr. DiAnne Borders, chair of the Department of Counseling & Educational Development, recalls Laurelyn's passion for her clients — and her music. She likes to think “her singing complemented her counseling, and vice versa. The songs she liked to sing — and now writes — are very insightful about people, their lives and relationships.”

Laurelyn says, “I think it's all about storytelling basically. … People's stories — how they tell their own stories and write their own stories — that’s all a part of counseling.”