Reflections on Cape Charles and the Eastern Shore
Have you seen our new signage outside the Historic Palace Theatre? We have a new logo and new home for GEAR, the non profit that will continue to bring you Experimental Film Virginia, all the performance and education formerly under Arts Enter…and more!!!
Grand Gala “Celebrating the Arts” with the Virginia Opera and live music by Ghost Town Union
Saturday September 29, 2018 6:00 PM Tickets: $50 Call 757-331-4327 to make reservations or come to Lemon Tree Gallery at 301 Mason Avenue in Cape Charles
Arts Enter and GEAR invite you to join us in celebrating the arts and kicking off our 2018-19 Season of Performing Arts at the Historic Palace Theatre, now under the direction and management of GEAR.
This celebratory Gala launches GEAR as the new steward of arts programming, education and creative programs that will continue to thrive at the Historic Palace Theatre. We move forward with dance, theater, music and visual arts programs as well as educational opportunities for area schools.
During the evening, we announce the new theatre season, other program information and future changes to the organization and management of GEAR. The Gala will include a performance by the Virginia Opera, food by Gourmet Gang, champagne and live dancing music by Ghost Town Union. Surprise performances and guests will also add to the fun.
Put on your dancing shoes for this fun evening, find a cocktail or evening dress you haven’t had an excuse to put on in a while and find out more about the new vision, management and future for our beautiful theatre and arts programming at the Historic Palace Theatre, now home to GEAR, Global Exchange Arts Roundtable.
Schedule of Events: Saturday September 29, 2018
6-6:30 PM Champagne and elegant tastings
6:30 – 7 PM Virginia opera Arias and Duets
7:30 – 7:45 PM Announcements
8 – 11 PM Dancing & Bar
Historic Palace Theatre
305 Mason Ave. Cape Charles, VA 23310
757-331-4327
Boston’s Brown Box Theatre Project and artistic director Kyler Taustin set to stage classic romantic comedy in Exmore Town Park
EXMORE, VA —Exile. Banishment. Disguise. Chance encounters and romantic entanglements. Shakespeare’s As You Like It is a comedy that weaves many themes— including love and friendship in all its forms—into a series of merry events. This popular Shakespearian work has been selected for Exmore’s 2nd Annual Free Shakespeare in the Park production, set for Friday, September 21, 2018, at 7:30 p.m.
Presented in partnership with Boston’s Brown Box Theatre, Kyler Taustin, artistic director, Exmore’s Free Shakespeare in the Park series aims to make professionally staged theatre accessible to all ESVA residents, guests and visiting tourists by staging free events outdoors in the casual, family-friendly setting of the Exmore Town Park.
Much of the action in As You Like It takes place in the woods of the Forest of Arden and many directors, including Kyler Taustin, prefer staging this play outdoors. Exmore’s spacious, leafy Town Park is the ideal setting. The atmosphere with the backdrop of trees is informal and there are picnic spots, playground areas for children and plenty of space to accommodate large audiences. Exmore’s inaugural Free Shakespeare in the Park, a full-length production of Hamlet, drew over 300 people from all over the Eastern Shore, and beyond. An even larger turn-out is expected this year.
As You Like It is one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies, and the source for one of the his most recognized lines: “All the world’s a stage, / and all the men and women merely players.” That line might serve as a summation of this comedy, which is rich with fantasy, roleplaying and gender-bending costumes. Throughout the five acts, many questions are raised and bantered about by the characters, but rather than establishing answers, Shakespeare presents several points of view, leaving it to the audience to formulate their own answers. In other words, life can be this or that depending on how you look at it—and how you look at it is your choice: As You Like It.
Shakespeare’s plays are part of our cultural heritage, yet they are rarely accessible to residents away from established urban centers. The Town of Exmore and the Brown Box Theatre Project are working to correct that; expanding the reach of professional performing arts to smaller, more rural communities by bringing the best in performance, design, and collaboration to communities that, like those here on the Eastern Shore, may be underserved or too far off the grid for most professional touring groups.
“These performances are intended for everyone on the Eastern Shore, and they are presented compliments of the Town of Exmore,” said Exmore Town Manager Robert Duer. “As You Like It is a follow-on to our 2017 premiere event, Hamlet. By continuing to bring the classics to life here in our Town Park, we are hoping to establish Exmore as a cultural and entertainment anchor for the Eastern Shore region.”
Prior to the play, the Broadwater Academy chorus, under the direction of Ms. Ally Tarwater will perform a free concert. These talented students will take the stage at 6:30 pm. To enjoy the evening, just bring a lawn chair or blanket, and picnic basket or cooler if you like. There’s ample free parking, but plan to arrive early. A large turn-out is anticipated.”
The Exmore Town Park is located at 3330 Main Street, and is within minutes of Exmore’s downtown, and three national hotel chains. For more information, email visitexmore@exmore.org or check the Town of Exmore’s Facebook Page, http://tinyurl.com/y8g6lkuq.
The Cape Charles Memorial Library will be host two unique writing events. On May 19th from 1 to 3, Robert Pruett of Brandylane Publishing will discuss the pros and cons of traditional vs. self-publishing. On May 24th, Mary M. Barrow will facilitate classes on Memoir and Creative writing.
The Iceman is special to the Mirror by Michael C. Jordan
As the boy entered the massive icehouse door facing the Cabin Branch tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, the brutally cold air stunned him. The shock reminded him of how his skin felt last November, when on a dare, he dove into the frigid water of a swimming pool.
As his eyes became accustomed to the poorly lit chamber, he focused on the large cakes of ice stored there. Each one weighed at least three hundred and sixty pounds; three times his own weight. The task at hand was dangerous for a grown man, let alone a twelve-year-old boy. He had seen these massive cakes fall and break into chunks of ice capable of doing great bodily harm. If one of these whole cakes fell on him, it would kill him or cripple him for life. He was afraid… but he had something to prove.
He had the equipment he needed: heavy gloves, ice tongs and an ice pick that was sharp, straight, and true. He thought of wearing his steel-toed boots, but he knew that if a full cake of ice fell on those boots as he was lowering it to the floor, it could collapse the steel and sever the toes from his feet. Crushed toes could heal, but severed toes were… well… severed.
Photograph unknown
Earlier that morning he had asked for a pay raise. He had been working at the icehouse for several months, alongside men who made twenty times his rate of pay. He felt that if he did the same work as the men, he should receive the same pay. But his employer did not share his logic.
His employer, who also happened to be his father, shared very little of his son’s logic or few of his opinions on life in general. When the boy approached him, armed with what he thought to impeccable logic concerning the disparity of the current pay scale, he was rebuffed with an opposing impeccable logic. To wit, “Son, if you want to be paid like a full-fledge Iceman, you must be able to do all the work required of one”. He told the boy that when he could lay down a cake of ice and cut it into twelve equal pieces without breakage, then and only then, could he hope to be paid as a full-fledged Iceman.
Not long after their conversation, the boy stood alone in the frosty room, facing the great dangerous masses of frozen water. He had witnessed the procedure used to lower these heavy monoliths many times, but with varying results. Sometimes the cake was lowered with ease and grace, if the ice tongs bit sharply and deeply into the top section of the ice before it was lowered, and the Iceman was strong enough to gently place it on the floor. He had also seen those three-hundred-and-sixty-pound-giants slip from a man’s hands and crash to the floor as the man scrambled to avoid the ice from crushing a part of his body.
The boy blinked. . .then, with the aid of his tongs, he pried one of the cakes loose from the others. Each of the cakes of ice stood about four feet high, were two and one-half feet wide and ten inches deep. After securing the tongs to the top edge of the cake and placing his left foot at its base, he pulled. The cake tilted, its forward edge became a temporary fulcrum balancing its own massive weight for just an instant before the strain of hundreds of pounds of ice were transferred to the boy’s muscles. He took up the strain of the falling mass and lowered the ice gently and gracefully to the floor with no breakage. This was followed by the laying down of two other cakes with similar results. Finally, by multiple thrusts of his ice pick he completed the job of reducing the three cakes of ice into separate piles of twelve equal pieces. He had met, and then exceeded, his father’s challenge.
He attempted to a second time that day to secure an increase in pay. But again, he was refused based on his inability to perform all the duties required of an Iceman. At that point in the conversation, he led his employer to not one, but three successfully lowered and dissected cakes of ice, whereupon he was granted a pay raise. Not equal to the men, but a raise tripling the amount of is current salary. No longer would he receive one dollar per eight-hour workday; he would now receive three, in recognition of his ability to execute gently and gracefully the duties of a full-fledged Iceman.
Note: The boy in this story is, of course, me growing up in Baltimore. It is an account of my psychological passage to manhood. Additionally, my paternal grandfather was witness to this vignette, and only chuckled in delight at my achievement!
On May 11 thru 13, Arts Enter and the Palace Theatre will present the musical Don’t Stop Believen’. The Ethel Lampert Community Center has seen better days and may soon see its final days unless the teens, volunteers, and staff find a way to save it. Some sleazy town council members want to bulldoze the place to redevelop and commercialize the neighborhood and bring them gobs of sales tax revenue, but that’s not stopping the teens who frequent the community center. From basketball players to computer nerds to artists, these down-on-their-luck kids have no place else to go, and losing the center would mean losing their home away from home. When they hear of a new television reality contest for glee clubs, they decide to form their own and try out. If they win the top prize, they’ll earn enough money to keep the center open.
Also at the Palace, a screening of the Aviva Kempner documentary “Rosenwald: The Remarkable Story of a Jewish Partnership with African American Communities” at the historic Palace Theatre on Saturday, May 12th at 1pm. DVDs of the documentary will be available for purchase.
The Rosenwald taken circa 1928-29, while the school was under construction. The Cape Charles Elementary Rosenwald School was built for the education of our community’s African American children during legal segregation, and still stands today. It, along with Rosenwald Fund schools throughout the Commonwealth, has been on Preservation Virginia’s list of most endangered historical sites since 2013
The Orchestra of the Eastern Shore, under the direction of Dr. Paul Kim, will perform George F. Handel’s Water Music and Johann Strauss’ On the Beautiful Blue Danube for the spring concert.
The first performance will take place Friday May 4th at 7:30pm at Cokesbury Church in Onancock. A second performance will take place on Sunday May 6th at Hungars Episcopal Church in Bridgetown at 4:00 pm.
There is no cost for admission however donations are welcome.
Taschen Publishing has released a book of photography by Dennis Hopper (1936-2010) the acclaimed artist, actor, screenwriter, and director who first impressed audiences with his performances in Rebel Without A Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). He changed the face of American cinema with Easy Rider (1969), which he co-wrote, directed, and starred in. Hopper went on to act in hundreds of memorable films and television shows, including Apocalypse Now (1979), Blue Velvet (1986), Hoosiers (1986), True Romance (1993), Basquiat (1997), Elegy (2008), and the TV series Crash (2008).
During the 1960s, Dennis Hopper carried a camera everywhere—on film sets and locations, at parties, in diners, bars and galleries, driving on freeways and walking on political marches. He photographed movie idols, pop stars, writers, artists, girlfriends, and complete strangers. Along the way he captured some of the most intriguing moments of his generation with a keen and intuitive eye. A reluctant icon at the epicenter of that decade’s cultural upheaval, Hopper documented the likes of Tina Turner in the studio, Andy Warhol at his first West Coast show, Paul Newman on set, and Martin Luther King during the Civil Rights March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
From a selection of photographs compiled by Hopper and gallerist Tony Shafrazi—more than a third of them previously unpublished—this extensive volume distills the essence of Hopper’s brilliantly prodigious photographic career. Also included are introductory essays by Tony Shafrazi and legendary West Coast art pioneer Walter Hopps, and an extensive biography by journalist Jessica Hundley. With excerpts from Victor Bockris’s interviews of Hopper’s famous subjects, friends, and family, this volume is an unprecedented exploration of the life and mind of one of America’s most fascinating personalities.
Thelma Peterson (Photo Phillip Spohn)
Local Artist Thelma Peterson has entered “Tiny Desk Contest” with her original song Beaches of Normandy, as a tribute to her dad, Cary L. Jarvis, who landed D-Day, first wave, on Omaha Beach. Thelma told the Mirror, “The song also for all who have bravely served our country to ensure its freedom. I wrote the song after returning from Normandy with my dad for the D-Days 60th landing anniversary. It was a very emotional trip, and I wrote this song soon after returning. I don’t perform it often, as it is a hard one to make it through without choking up.”
Watch Thelma perform Beaches of Normandy below:
The Tiny Desk Contest began in 2014, and according to NPR, they did it for one simple reason: discovering new music. And since then, this contest has done just that.
Scott & Melinda perform “Bittersweet” (Youtube photo)
Three previous winners, Fantastic Negrito, Gaelynn Lea and Tank and the Bangas have gone on find success. Fantastic Negrito won a Grammy; Gaelynn Lea went on to play at renowned venues like the Kennedy Center; and Tank and the Bangas toured internationally and even headlined NPR Music’s 10-year anniversary party.
Our own local stars Scott and Melinda have taken up the challenge and entered the 2018 contest with a brilliant new song entitled “Bittersweet”.
Here’s the video: