CAMILLE GAVIN: Dress up Halloween with arts events
| Wednesday, Oct 28 2009 04:11 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, Oct 28 2009 04:11 PM
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Mischief Night Masquerade
When: 9 p.m. Friday
Where: The Empty Space, 706 Oak St.
Admission: Tickets at the door: $10; $8, pre-sale
Information: 327-PLAY
Gaslight event
What: "The Skylight Zone," "Auntie Ilenie Weenie's Halloween Hoedown" and costume contest
When: 7 p.m., Saturday
Where: Gaslight Melodrama, 12748 Jomani Drive.
Admission: $20, adults; $18, seniors; $9, children 12 and under
Information: 587-3377
Burn the Witch IV
When: 3 p.m. Saturday
Where: Metro Special Events, 2801 F St.
Admission: $5
T-POPS concert
When: 1, 3 and 5 p.m., Saturday
Where: BeeKay Theater, 110 S. Green St., Tehachapi
Admission: $10, adult; $5, children under 12
Info: 823-9994
Banshee in the Kitchen
When: 4 p.m. Sunday
Where: First Congregational Church, 5 Real Road
Admission: Free
Information: 327-1609
Several arts organizations are pulling out all the stops with plenty of opportunities for partying while dressed as an eerie creature or as your favorite fantasy figure.
The Empty Space is getting a head start on festivities by holding a "Mischief Night Masquerade" on Friday evening. Guinevere PH Dethlefson, one of the organizers, said part of the fun will be playing traditional games, like bobbing for apples. Now that should be a cinch for anyone who comes as a vampire. But then again, maybe not -- it all depends on how well the fangs fit.
Prizes will be awarded for the best costumes. Unlike its usual free admission policy, the theater is treating this as fundraiser so it will cost you $10 to get in.
Gaslight Melodrama's costume contest on Saturday fits in perfectly with "Auntie Ilenie Weenie's Halloween Hoedown," the vaudeville revue that's on the same bill as "The Skylight Zone."
The revue features Coryn McBride as Auntie Ilenie Weenie, an over-the-top character that artistic director Michael Prince first dreamed up last spring for the melodrama's highly successful "My Big Fat Oildale Wedding,"
First-place prize for the best costume is a $100 Visa card, Prince said. The runner-up gets a season pass to the Melodrama.
"Burn the Witch IV," will combine the closing of its art exhibit with an afternoon reception and costume contest at the Metro Special Event Galleries. Guests will also have an opportunity to win a piece of fine art.
This is the fourth year the "Burn the Witch" exhibit has been held and about 50 artists are involved. It started out as a way to encourage women artists to show their work and to give them a more public venue. As I recall, the title refers to the 17th century Salem witch trials where women who thought or acted differently were punished by being tied to a stake and burned in the town square.
Nyoka Jameson, Jen Raven, Jenn Williams and Amber Saunders founded the art exhibit. Jameson, who also is a vocalist with a local band, Destroy the Throne, served as curator of the show. Proceeds benefit Bakersfield Emerging Contemporary Artists, or BECA, and Alliance Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault.
BC's Martinez conducts T-POPS
Robert Martinez, music professor at Bakersfield College, will lead the Tehachapi Pops Orchestra, also known as T-POPS in a Halloween-inspired concert that will be repeated three times on Saturday at the BeeKay Theater. The 50-minute concert is family-oriented and features the orchestra and singers performing "Monster Mash," themes from the motion pictures "Harry Potter," and "Ghostbusters," and a medley from "Phantom of the Opera."
"Tehachapi Community Theatre members will put their special touch on the concert with spooky effects and general Halloween mayhem," said Debby Hand, spokeswoman. The event is a fundraiser for both the orchestra and the community theater.
T-POPS originated last summer as part of Camp Kiyu, a music camp held in Tehachapi Mountain Park. It prides itself on informality, and the musicians typically perform wearing T-shirts and jeans. I'm wondering if they'll switch to Halloween costumes for this concert.
Banshee in the Kitchen
A local trio that specializes in Celtic music will perform Sunday afternoon at First Congregational Church. The group is made up of violinist Mary Tulin, Jill Egland on accordion and flute, and Brenda Hunter on the hammered dulcimer.
If you've never seen a dulcimer played, or heard its distinctive sounds, you're in for a treat. It's a very unusual instrument, one you don't see very often. The "hammers" Hunter uses to strike the strings are actually small mallets, not the sort of tool used to pound a nail into a wall.
Banshee's appearance is part of the Fred and Beverly Dukes Memorial Concert Series. Both of the Dukes were schoolteachers who left a portion of their estate as an endowment to encourage the performance of music in our community. This concert is also sponsored by the Fresno-Bakersfield National Public Radio station, KVPR 89.1 FM.
Haslam's book on Hayakawa
Author Gerald Haslam, a Bakersfield native who grew up in Oildale, tells me, in an e-mail, that he's just finished work on his latest book, "S.I. Hayakawa: American Samurai." It's a biography due to be published in the fall of 2010.
Although he didn't say so, I'm assuming Haslam has an insider's view of Hayakawa, a controversial figure in California's history. The author studied under Hayakawa at San Francisco State College in the mid-1960s. Hayakawa, who became president of the college in 1968 and later served as a U.S. senator from California, became nationally known for his actions in the wake of a student strike fomented by such counter-culture groups as the Black Panthers, People's Liberation Party and Students for a Democratic Society.
Haslam will be in town on Nov. 7 as keynote speaker for Cal State Bakersfield's "Oildale and Beyond" conference. Read more about the conference in Sunday's Eye Street, a tribute to Oildale.
