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Nov. 12-15
Broad Ripple High School
’Tis the season for high school musicals, but this isn’t
exactly that. Let me explain.

Butler University’s Lyric Theatre wanted to stage Stephen Sondheim’s
“Into the Woods,” (which deals with big issues of responsibility, guilt, infidelity, faith and retribution, all
in the guise of a fairy-tale mash-up). With thoughts of a creative collaboration, Artistic Director Nancy Davis Booth decided
to take the show to Broad Ripple High School. The arrangement: Butler students will perform for all of the shows except the
Saturday matinee, when they will turn the stage over to the high schoolers. Meanwhile, the Broad Ripple teens will earn valuable
experience taking care of lighting and backstage crew work.

The upside? Students at IPS’ arts magnet school
get a taste of college-level work, the Butler students get increased resources (and a larger potential audience), and ticket-buyers,
we hope, get a strong production of an outstanding musical. For details, click here.

Nov. 13-14
Cabaret at the Connoisseur Room
The Broadway star of “A Tale of Two Cities”
and “Les Miserables” isn’t just performing her cabaret show here. Natalie Toro also is offering the first
in what is hoped will be a series of Saturday afternoon master classes, in which local vocal talent can work with the visiting
headliners. As anyone who has attended such sessions knows, these can be as enriching and entertaining for the audience as
they are challenging and rewarding for the participants. Give a listen to Toro here. For details on the concert and the master class,
click here.

Nov. 12-14
Lucas Oil Stadium
Hearing a thumping outside your downtown office? If you are reading this any time on Thursday or Friday after 10:45, that sound is probably coming from Lucas Oil Stadium, where 90 bands from around the country are squaring off in competition. They’ll be narrowed down to 36 for Saturday afternoon, with the top 12 moving on to Saturday evening’s finals.

If you tend to like the half-time show more than the game, this is the event for you. In addition to the action on the field, it includes clinics, a 100-booth expo, and student leadership workshops. For details, click here.

Ongoing
Claypool Court
A “soft” opening is the time between a place accepting customers
and its official grand opening. Downtown Indy’s latest attraction is in that period right now, as the Rhythm! Discovery
Center fine-tunes its operation.

But, in this case, “soft” is the last thing you should expect. Created
by the Indy-based Percussive Arts Society, the largely hands-on, 15,000-square-foot activity center could become the loudest
attraction this side of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The official grand opening—including an appearance by Death
Cab for Cutie drummer Jason McGerr—will be Nov. 21, but expect crowds this week thanks to the throngs in town for the
Bands of America Grand Nationals (see item, below). For details, click here.

Indianapolis-based Arcadia Resources Inc. has appointed former Indianapolis Mayor Steve Goldsmith to its
board of directors. Goldsmith, who served as mayor from 1992 to 2000, is a professor in the American
Government Program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He will replace Tres Lund, a
major Arcadia shareholder.

Dr. Christine Davis has joined St. Vincent Physician
Network in Indianapolis. The internist received her medical degree from the University of Louisville
School of Medicine.

Community Health Network promoted Jon Fohrer to CEO of its ambulatory
services.  He has served as network vice president of ambulatory services since November 2002 and led the orthopedic
service line since 2006. Fohrer holds a bachelor’s degree from Ball State University and an MBA from Butler University.

Indianapolis-based Clarian Health has named Mike Yost its executive director of marketing. Yost was
a brand leader at locally based Eli Lilly and Co. for its Zyprexa and Cymbalta drugs.

Clarian also named attorney Tory Castor its vice president of government affairs. Castor worked at Hays
Murray Castor LLP and Bingham McHale.

A panel of medical advisers recommended against wider use of Zimmer Holdings Inc.’s spine stabilization
device, according to Reuters. In a 5-1 vote, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s advisory panel said the data for Zimmer’s
Dynesys Spinal System were unclear and left them with questions about the device’s durability and propensity to break.
Warsaw-based Zimmer already markets the device, which is a series of screws and flexible spacers that help align and support
the spine, for patients who have received fusion surgery. The company is seeking
FDA approval to market Dynesys for stand-alone use. FDA officials will weigh the
panel’s recommendation before making their final approval decision.

New Jersey-based Enzon
Pharmaceuticals Inc. has agreed to sell its specialty pharmaceutical business, along with its
Indianapolis manufacturing facility, to Italy-based Sigma-tau Group. As of January 2008, Enzon’s
facility in Indianapolis employed about 150 workers. It made four medicines, which treated certain kinds of leukemia, meningitis,
fungal infections and the immunodeficiency malady known as “bubble boy disease.” Sigma-tau
paid $300 million for the business, as well as royalties and other payments contingent upon future sales
and development achievements.

Arcadia Resources Inc. sold nearly 16 million
shares of stock in a registered direct offering that raised $11.1 million. Arcadia Chief Financial Officer
Matt Mittendorf said the Indianapolis-based company would use the cash to fund the rollout of its DailyMed pharmacy service
to customers of Indianapolis-based health insurer WellPoint Inc. in Virginia and soon
in California. The company needed more cash, as its reserves had dwindled to $517,000 at the end of the
second quarter, down from $2.4 million a year earlier.

California-based Beckman Coulter
Inc., which makes biomedical testing instrument systems, said it is relocating its precision
plastics injection molding operation to Park 100. The move will add about 100 jobs to the 400 people the company already employs
in Indianapolis. The jobs will pay $22.30 an hour, on average. In 2007, Beckman Coulter closed its 220-employee centrifuge
development and manufacturing facility in Palo Alto, Calif., and moved operations to the Indianapolis area.

For
the 14th straight year, St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital won a Consumer Choice award from the National Research
Corp. The award identifies hospitals that health care consumers have chosen as having the highest quality and image in more
than 300 U.S. markets. No other Indianapolis hospitals won the award this year.

As pharmaceutical
giants re-evaluate their pipelines and seek to sell off products that no longer fit their strategies, it gives opportunities
for pharmaceutical startups. Such divestiture of pharmaceutical products will be discussed Tuesday at the Life Sciences Lunch
at the Barnes & Thornburg LLP law firm in downtown Indianapolis. The lunch will include three speakers:
Reed Tarwater, director of pharmaceutical consulting services at  Carmel-based Anson Group LLC; Ron
Ellis, CEO of Endocyte Inc. in West Lafayette; and Eli Lilly and Co.‘s Pete Robins. The
lunch costs $10 per person and begins at 11:30 a.m.

Former President George H.W. Bush will come to Indianapolis
Nov. 19 to speak at a $250-per-person fund raiser for Alzheimer’s research. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Indiana
Alzheimer Disease Center at the Indiana University School of Medicine and the Indiana Chapter of the
Alzheimer’s Association. Money will also go to the Deane F. Johnson Center Foundation at the University of
California at Los Angeles, a clinical trial center that supports the research of such companies as Indianapolis-based
Eli Lilly and Co. Bush’s speech, which will occur at the Indiana Roof Ballroom, is sponsored
locally by Fishers-based Ambassador Healthcare and the Central Indiana Community
Foundation. Ticket information can be found here.
 

Medicare had support from 62 percent of the public when it passed. HillaryCare failed with public support running at between
39 percent and 43 percent. Now ObamaCare is receiving support ranging from 34 percent to 49 percent. Is that enough to pass?

Voters in the Hamilton Southeastern school district are voting Tuesday in a special referendum to address funding shortfalls.
District leaders are asking for a seven-year property-tax hike to help it close a $5.5 million-per-year budget gap. Enrollment
in the district grew by 850 students this year, according to officials. They say approval of the tax hike would let them hire
more teachers. The district, which cut $3 million from its budget earlier this year, said the deficits have been brought on
by the state’s funding formula, which shortchanges fast-growing districts. Polls close at 6 p.m.