UKIAH
28th annual Professional Pianist Concert January 11-13
On January 10, 11 & 12, 2020 the 28th Professional Pianist Concert will hit the stage with three concerts featuring nine different pianists at the Mendocino College Center Theatre in Ukiah. Performers include Spencer Brewer, Elena Casanova, Wendy deWitt, Barney McClure, among others. The musical styles range from classical to jazz, boogie-woogie to Cuban, Broadway to ragtime.
This utterly fun and stimulating series features the finest regional pianists on stage in a living room environment throughout the performance trading stories and melodies with two pianos on stage to accommodate impromptu collaborations. A special sculpture art show benefitting fire victims featuring Spencer Brewer and Esther Siegel will also be on display at the Mendocino College Art Gallery throughout the weekend.
There are Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoon performances. No two concerts are the same, so if you love piano and piano music, enjoy more than one performance.
The concert benefits the Ukiah Community Concert Association, Mendocino College Recording Arts & Technology Program and the Allegro Scholarship Program. Tickets are on sale at Mendocino Book Co. in Ukiah, Mazahar in Willits and online www.UkiahConcerts.org. Tickets are $20 general admission and $30 “I ‘Wanna’ See the Hands” limited seating. For more information call (707) 463-2738.
—Submitted
UKIAH
Mendocino College play ‘Wild Fire’ selected to travel to theatre festival
The Mendocino College Theatre Arts Department has been invited to bring their fall 2019 production of Jody Gehrman’s new play Wild Fire to the Region VII Conference of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival this coming February 2020. The play was originally produced this past fall semester at Mendocino College as part of the Phoenix Project, a multi-disciplinary arts initiative of artists responding to human-caused climate change.
According to Director Reid Edelman, “this is a great honor for our students and a great opportunity to represent Mendocino College and our community at this nationally recognized festival. Only three plays were chosen to be performed at the festival, out of more than 30 qualified entries. As you can imagine, our students are just beaming with excitement!”
The festival brings together college theatre students and faculty from all over the northwestern states, including Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Colorado, Idaho, and Montana.
The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) hosts regional festivals which lead up to a national festival each year hosted by the Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington DC. As a participating production, Mendocino College’s play was attended by two visiting professors from other colleges and considered for inclusion in the festival.
In all, 16 student actors and crew members from Mendocino College will attend this week-long festival. They will be accompanied by college theatre faculty and staff including Director Reid Edelman, Technical Director Steve Decker, Playwright Jody Gehrman and Set Designer / Carpenter David Wolf.
Wild Fire, written by Mendocino College Professor Jody Gehrman, transports audiences into the future of Mendocino County in a disturbing look at the cataclysmic future which awaits if we fail to adequately address our human-caused climate crisis. However, according to Edelman, “it is also an engaging personal story, following a group of interwoven characters and their descendants. The play looks at sacred and artistic elements which define our humanity and make our survival as a species meaningful and worth fighting for.”
Theatre Arts Department needs to raise a total of $23 thousand dollars. Through the help of generous donors, half of these funds have already been raised. To help raise the rest, the students are presenting a Tri-Tip Drive-Up Dinner Fundraiser. Tickets for the fundraiser cost $60 dollars each and can be purchased at the Mendocino Book Company and also directly from students participating in the trip.
On Friday, January 24 between 4 and 6 p.m., ticket-holders will pick up a ready-to-eat take-home dinner bag at Mendocino College near the Agriculture Department and Sonoma State Extension Center. Dinner bags will include a freshly barbequed tri-tip roast for four people, four baked potatoes, four cookies, four dinner rolls, and salad for four.
For more information about the Tri-Tip Drive-Up Diner Fundraiser or the Mendocino College Theatre Arts Department, e-mail redelman@mendocino.edu. The Mendocino College Ukiah campus is located at 1000 Hensley Creek Rd. Ukiah, CA 95482. www.mendocino.edu
