LOWER LAKE, Calif. – The Lower Lake High School Drama Club will present the musical, “Back to the 80s” this month.
Shows will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 11, and Saturday, April 12, with a 2 p.m. matinée on Sunday, April 13, in the Lower Lake High School multipurpose room, 9430 Lake St.
Come enjoy a funny and witty script that plays on words while referencing pop culture of the 80s that we all know so well.
Watch a cast of 25 students – some of whom have been acting since middle school – perform and sing many of the popular songs from the 80s.
The musical has been organized by a dynamic duo made up of Tracy Lahr as the director and adviser to the drama club and Michelle John-Smith as the choreographer.
“The students performing this musical were born in the late 90s or later, so it's been fun to watch them learn and really love what the 80s had to offer,” said Lahr.
“Back to the 80s” doesn't follow the typical format of most musicals where you will find a strong female lead and other supportive roles. Here many of the characters are given lead roles. This is exciting for many of the students, half of which are seniors who will be graduating at the end of the school year.
The senior cast includes Alli Lahr and Wayne Harris (both of whom have been with Lahr since seventh grade), Elijah Andre-Orlando, Cruz Torres, Exzonta Mosley, Corey Snipes, Cierrah Sherman, Ashlee Andaya, Jacie Baker and D'Art Markowski.
The rest of the cast includes Weedan Wetmore, Erick Layne, Kono Geary, Avrill Pier, Rachel Cabral, Natalie Carte, Scott Nelson, Sadie Sheldon, Dominic Cole, Jordan Harris, Johnna Vineyard and Destiny Parlet.
All students, including college students, will pay an admission fee of $10 at the door with seniors (age 65 and above) paying $11 and all other adults paying $12.
All of the proceeds go directly to the drama club to help finance the next big show at Lower Lake High School.
Finally, the yearbook club will be having a bake sale which includes beverages in order to raise funds for this year's yearbook.
Come watch our youth perform their best.
For more information, please call Lower Lake High School, 707-994-6474, Extension 2735.
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Weather forecasts suggest the Old Time Fiddlers Association can resume its first Sunday of the month Fiddlers Jam sessions at the Ely Stage Stop and Country Museum on Sunday, April 6.
Weather permitting, the fiddlers will meet in the Ely barn to perform their wonderful Americana music.
The fun begins at the museum at 11 a.m. with the fiddlers playing from noon through 2 p.m.
Donations will benefit the Ely Stage Stop and the Old Time Fiddlers Association.
Come early and check out the latest museum acquisitions and displays. Take this final opportunity to purchase tickets for two gift baskets, one for bakers and one for wine and poetry lovers. Winning tickets will be drawn during the fiddlers intermission. You don’t have to be present to win, but you will have more fun if you are.
This free, family friendly event can be enjoyed by all, young and old alike. Enjoy the music with beverages and tasty treats. Bring your own wine and sip it in Ely Stage Stop wine glasses that are always available for purchase or bring your own glass. Come ready to clap your hands, tap your toes or get up and dance.
The stage stop, operated by the Lake County Historical Society, is located at 9921 Soda Bay Road (Highway 281) in Kelseyville.
Current hours of operation are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday.
Despite having once been bitten by a rabid bat, and survived, much to the disappointment of my critics, I find bats fascinating, and Peggy Shumaker of Alaska has written a fine poem about them.
I am especially fond of her perfect verb, “snick,” for the way they snatch insects out of the air.
Spirit of the Bat
Hair rush, low swoop— so those of us
stuck here on earth know—you must be gods.
Or friends of gods, granted chances
to push off into sky, granted chances
to hear so well your own voice bounced
back to you maps the night.
Each hinge in your wing’s
an act of creation. Each insect
you snick out of air a witness.
You transform obstacles
into sounds, then dodge them.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2013 by Peggy Shumaker from her most recent book of poems, Toucan Nest: Poems of Costa Rica, Red Hen Press, 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of Peggy Shumaker and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Mother Teresa claimed, “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.”
In the disturbing and poignant Lake County Theatre Co. production of Daniel Keyes' “Flowers for Algernon,” the rapt audience is painfully taken to this place of destitution, while tantalized with the hope of love and acceptance.
Most may remember the story from their middle or high school English class.
Charlie, a cognitively impaired young man in Brooklyn who is happily employed as a bakery delivery boy and cleaner, is chosen by a medical research team to undergo an experimental surgery to have his low intelligence dramatically and seemingly permanently increased, like the team's laboratory mouse Algernon.
Soon able to devour “War and Peace” in an evening, Charlie's intellectual capacity soars while his simple desire to be loved and accepted becomes more and more remote.
Tim Fischer and Tim Barnes trade off the roles of arrogant professor and willing guinea pig to great effect.
Blinded by ambition and success, like the designers of the Titantic, Fischer's Professor Nemur boasts that “Nothing can go wrong.” His hubris bristles the audience's sensibilities, representing the modern theme of science without morality or conscience.
The driven hardness and scientific aloofness Fischer's character symbolizes, and that of Charlie's embarrassed and ashamed mother, acted jarringly by Suna Flores, are counterpoised by the kindness and concern of lab assistant Burt Seldon and Charlie's teacher and love interest, Alice Kinnian. These two roles, smashingly performed by Cameron Beighle and Laura Barnes respectively, provide the kindness and camaraderie that may truly be all that Charlie really needs.
They also provide the virtually traumatized audience, aching for Charlie's lonely plight as he self-proclaims “That's a man in torment!,” with the promise goodness and friendship afford.
Like so many of our own lives as we grow older and a bit wiser, the clarity of our life's desires and purpose can be lost in our failures and unfulfilled expectations.
Barnes' Charlie tastes love momentarily, but the audience watches horrified, knowing it cannot last but fleeting moments. His frenetic urge to understand his past treatment by family and friends as a mentally challenged boy haunts him.
Under Carol Dobusch's direction, a series of flashbacks of Charlie's childhood and adolescence, courtesy of young players Cotton Andrade and Chance Andrade (Maurice Bingdom and Will McCauley in alternate performances) masterfully allows the audience a truly disturbing opportunity to walk in the shoes of the “retarded.”
For this viewer, the painful identifications with stereotyping, bullying and valuing a person for what they could be in your eyes as opposed to simply who and what they already are, rocks you and challenges you to discover where you land on the empathy and kindness scale.
This is not a production for the faint of heart. There is no escapism here, but there is an amazing opportunity to see art scream – to face multiple ethical and moral themes: man's efforts to play God, the nature of happiness, the acceptance of ourselves against the perceptions of others and imagined expectations of ourselves.
Not since I saw Sean O'Casey's “Shadow of a Gunman” in Dublin's Abbey Theatre have I left a theater so racked with emotion, so unsettled by a performance.
Dobusch's Lake County players provide an impressive chance and need to unwind and converse after the show, decompressing with what Charlie needed most – kindness and connection, and in this reviewer's case, a hearty pint of beer.
Catch the final performances this weekend at Gard Street Elementary, 3980 Gard St., in Kelseyville, 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The legendary Queens of Boogie Woogie take the stage at the Soper Reese Theatre on Friday, April 4, for an unpredictable, high energy night of foot stomping, gotta-dance music.
The show starts at 7 p.m. at the theater, located at 275 S. Main St.
This year's line up of great American boogie woogie piano stylists includes Deanna Bogart, Doña Oxford, Sue Palmer and Wendy DeWitt.
Upholding the tradition of the original boogie woogie artists from the 1920s and 1930s, such as Albert Ammons and Pine Top Smith, these four women attack the music form with intensity, skill and humor, often playing around and over each other on the keyboard at a breathtaking pace.
Bogart, winner of three consecutive Blues Music Awards, has played for U.S. troops in Iraq, Kuwait and Egypt.
“Blues Wax” describes her as “playing a jumpin’ piano that rollicks with a fast tempo and panoramic solos.”
Oxford has played with Keith Richards, Buddy Guy, and former Chuck Berry sideman and Father of Rock & Roll piano, Johnnie Johnson. She has toured in Europe, Japan and Canada.
Palmer, notorious for her beehive stint with blues diva Candye Kane, has performed with Marcia Ball, Hadda Brooks and Sonny Leyland and is the winner of the Jim Croce Award for Excellence and Dedication to Music.
DeWitt, a 2014 International Blues Challenge finalist, is inspired by Otis Spann and R&B legend Hank Ballard. She has played with Charlie Musselwhite and Otis Rush.
The event is sponsored by the Tallman Hotel and Blue Wing Saloon.
Tickets are $25 for table seating, $20 for center loge and $15 for side loge.
Get tickets online at www.SoperReeseTheatre.com at the Theatre Box Office, 275 S. Main St. on Friday from 10:30 a.m. to show time, or by phone at 707-263-0577.
Tickets also are available at The Travel Center, 1265 S. Main in Lakeport, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The dystopian future has become a commonplace staple of the cinema geared to young adults. From “Twilight” to “The Hunger Games,” an imaginary world where dehumanized people lead fearful lives is all the rage.
“Divergent,” based upon young author Veronica Roth’s bestselling novel of the same title, has been likened to “The Hunger Games” meets “The Matrix,” as noted by one of the film’s producers in the press notes.
The above-mentioned films that fit into this anti-utopian genre have gained popularity for their respective franchises. The jury may be out on whether “Divergent” scores big enough at the box office to elevate Roth’s sequel novels, “Insurgent” and “Allegiant,” into the same cinematic orbit.
Running at 140 minutes, “Divergent” may achieve a split decision with critics and audiences alike. The film has promise, especially with Shailene Woodley in the leading role, but it appears in need of surgical strikes to trim some of the narrative overload and the surfeit of action set-pieces.
The setting of the story is in a post-apocalyptic, decaying Chicago, where the inhabitants are believed to be the last remnants of civilization. The city’s boundaries are protected by electrified high walls.
Societal functions are given to five basic factions, including Amity, Candor, Abnegation, Dauntless and Erudite. One needs to be able to fit neatly into one of the factions. It’s a cultural phenomenon typically relegated to high schools. But here it is more insidious and consequential.
Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley) lives with her parents (Tony Goldwyn and Ashley Judd) and twin brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) in the drab world of Abnegation, where people wear sack clothes, reject vanity and pursue altruistic motives.
The lifestyle of the Abnegation faction is vaguely communal and boring. This explains why Beatrice is tormented when confronted with being required to choose her path in life during her teens.
All children at the age of 16 must choose a faction, resulting in a decision that is irreversible. The Choosing Ceremony follows a drug-induced test that measures each young person’s aptitude and personality traits, thereby guiding impressionable minds to a permanent choice.
At the ceremony, following the usual rituals, Beatrice is confused because the tests conducted by sympathetic Tori (Maggie Q) had shown that her aptitude rests in several factions, making her a “Divergent,” or what others would call a rebellious outsider.
Inexplicably, Beatrice chooses to join Dauntless, the fearless warriors and soldiers who are assigned to guard the other factions against harm, but seem to have no problem with inflicting it on their own members.
Joining Dauntless obliges Beatrice to undergo extreme physical training, a feat for which she appears unsuited, even to the somewhat considerate Dauntless teacher Four (Theo James), a hunky, handsome dude who just may warm to the beautiful innocence of his charge.
“Divergent” spends an inordinate amount of time with the training exercises, which range from jumping onto rooftops from fast-moving elevated subway trains and zip lining from skyscrapers to winner-take-all boxing matches that often send the participants to the infirmary.
Not one of the top-ranked initiates, Beatrice has a lot to prove. For one thing, she changes her name to Tris, because it sounds more fitting for Dauntless. Her skills improve when she realizes that coming in at the bottom of the class will get rookies booted from the faction.
Free thinkers are frowned upon, apparently in every faction. Tris proves not to be the best fit even for the supposedly rebellious Dauntless faction, where one of its leaders, Eric (Jai Courtney), is a basic jerk who disdains independent thought.
Conflict comes when the Erudite faction, led by the imperious Jeanine Matthews (Kate Winslet), believes it is superior to everyone else and seeks to overthrow the benevolent rule of the Abnegation faction.
The stench of fascism lingers in the air as the ruthless Jeanine seeks to impose her will on the other factions. In fact, Erudite is masterminding an evil plot of mind control so that Dauntless is turned into an army of suppression.
Oddly enough, the Candor and Amity factions are barely noticed, since unfiltered truth-tellers and communal, hard-working agrarian populists are not high on the dystopian hit parade.
“Divergent” is a parable about the virtue of an individual going up against the soul-crushing arrogance of an elite that misguidedly believes it will govern with compassion and benevolence.
The trouble here is that a parable needs to be a short story, and that’s just not the case for “Divergent,” which runs too long for no apparent reason. But hey, Shailene Woodley and Theo James end up making a good team.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
