ArtsGala planned for Wright State


CELEBRATING THE ARTS IN OUR REGION

Every week, arts writer Meredith Moss highlights some of the arts groups and arts leaders throughout our region and shares arts-related news. If you have news you’d like to see included, send it to Meredith: MMoss@coxohio.com

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If you ask folks in our region to name their favorite community fund-raising gala, chances are many will pick Wright State University’s annual ArtsGala.

What makes this event so special are the 250 talented students who entertain guests with theater, dance, motion pictures, music, visual arts. In the past 14 years, the festive evening has raised $1.6 million for arts scholarships.

This year’s party, which will take place from 6:30 p.m. until midnight, is slated for Saturday, April 12, and will be held in the Creative Arts Center. About 600 attend each year.

Among the highlights for this 15th anniversary celebration are a Wind Symphony, selections from “Les Miserables,” live artistic creations by student artists, a student film festival, chamber orchestra and dance performances.

The event will also feature a cigar and sports tent, wine-tasting, bourbon tasting and a martini lounge. There were also be a silent auction with 100 items for bidding — including artwork by Wright State faculty, students and alumni.

ArtsGala tickets ($200 each) and information are available at (937) 775-5512 or http://www.wright.edu/artsgala.

Kings Island will introduce Cirque Imagine

The folks at Kings Island have announced a new live acrobatic show entitled “Cirque Imagine.”

Designed for guests of all ages, the 30-minute show will include acts ranging from trampoline to juggling and roller-blade.

The show, which will run six days a week May 24 through Aug. 17, was created by Les Productions Haut-Vol (PHV) founded in Levis, Quebec in 1995.

Trio to perform at DAI

A program of all-Russian chamber music will be performed by The Hofeldt-Phillips Piano Trio at the Dayton Art Institute at 2 p.m. on Sun., March 30. The group will be joined by soprano Karen Wicklund for the “Seven Romances on Poems of Alexander Blok,” composed by Shostakovich. Also on the Afternoon Musicales program is Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise” and the “Arensky Trio.”

The Hofeldt-Phillips Piano Trio got its start when its members were all pursuing graduate studies at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. They’ve been performing together for 23 years. Betsey and Mark Hofeldt are members of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra; Stephen Phillips collaborates with vocalists and instrumentalists in the Cincinnati area.

Tickets to the concert are free for members and $8 for nonmembers. Seniors and college students are $5, youth and children 17 and under are free. For information, call (937) 223-4278. Reservations are not required.

Neon will show “Burn”

“Burn,” an award-winning documentary that captures the lives of Detroit firefighters who are charged with the thankless task of saving a city that many have written off as dead, will be shown at The Neon movie theater in downtown Dayton at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 1, and Wednesday, April 2.

Lion Apparel, sponsor of the event, is encouraging firefighters and their friends to come for the special showing. Minimum $5 donation is payable at the door. Money raised will go toward the Firefighter Cancer Support Network.

Dedication concert to feature Yon Kyong Kim

Daytonian Dr. Yon Kyong Kim, Director of Music of Christ Episcopal Church, will be the guest organist when the members of Shiloh Church dedicate their new organ console.

The free dedication concert is slated for 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 30, and the public is welcome, including children.

The program, co-sponsored by Shiloh and The Dayton Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, will feature selections including “Variations on a Theme of Handel” by Amo Landmann, “Toccata” by Sergei Prokofiev and Lain Farrington’s “Fiestal.”

Shiloh Church is located at 5300 Philadelphia Drive at N. Main St. in Dayton.

Playhouse in the Park announces 2014-2015 season

Among the shows slated for the next season at Cincinnati’s Playhouse in the Park are a homegrown world premiere, two Tony Award-winning plays, recent New York hits and musical tributes to Johnny Cash and singer Rosemary Clooney.

Highlights include a world premiere by playwright and Cincinnati native Keith Josef Adkins entitled “Safe House,” inspired by the playwright’s Kentucky ancestors, Christopher Durang’s hit “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” “Peter and the Starcatcher,” the Peter Pan prequel that won five Tony Awards.

Also on tap are “Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash,” “Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical,” “Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Suicide Club” and “Circle Mirror Transformation,” winner of the the Obie Award for best new American play. The Playhouse will also host the second American production of “Chapatti” and “I Loved, I Lost, I made Spaghetti. A new play, “Buzzer” is also on the schedule.

Subscriptions to the season are available now in a variety of packages. A student Build Your Own package allows full-time students to pick as few as four shows and as many as 10 from either theater for as little as $15 per show. The Baby Sitter Rebate Series allows a couple purchasing two full subscriptions in the Marx Theatre to attend any performance and receive $100 at the end of the season to help cover the cost of baby sitters.

More immediately, the playhouse will host a reading of Stephen MacDonald’s drama about the real-life friendship of two World War I soldier poets,”Not About Heroes,” at 7 p.m. Monday, March 24. The reading is part of the Cincinnati Remembers World War I series, the Cincinnati Opera’s citywide series of events in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the onset of World War I.

The evening is free but reservations are required. Contact the Playhouse Box Office at (513) 421-3888 (toll-free in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana at (800) 582-3208). Call (513) 345-2248 for Telecommunications Device for the Deaf accessibility.

African American Visual Artists Guild

The African American Visual Artists Guild(AAVAG) is continuing its series of monthly arts presentations and demonstrations for 2014.

Next up is a workshop on “Thread Painting (Fibre Art)” that will be presented by Andrea Cummings at 1:30 p.m. on March 29, at the Wright Dunbar Interpretive Center.

Materials will be supplied and the workshop is free and open to the public. The Center is located on West Third Street and South Williams Street in Dayton. For more information call Clifford Darrett, (937)263-9907.

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