Tallman owner Bernie Butcher (center) presents a check to the Soper-Reese Theatre Funding Committee members, including (left to right) Wally Fuller, Nina Marino, Taira St. John and John Ross. Photo by Barbara Ross.

LAKEPORT – The Soper-Reese Theatre in Lakeport, in the final stages of fundraising to complete its conversion into a state-of-the-art performing arts center, received a big boost this week from the Tallman Hotel in Upper Lake.

The Tallman sponsors an annual series of small concerts in its Riffe’s Meeting House and donates 10 percent of the gross proceeds to the theater fund.

On Monday, Tallman owner Bernie Butcher presented this year’s contribution, a check for $500, to volunteer Executive Director John Ross and other members of the fundraising committee.

Since its renovation, the Soper-Reese has become a popular venue for a wide variety of shows and events. However, fundraising continues in order to complete the project with needed backstage dressing rooms and disabled access facilities.

“We’re almost there,” said committee member Wally Fuller, “but we need one final fundraising push to raise the half-million dollars needed to complete the project. We appreciate the support of the Tallman in getting us started on this last phase.”

In addition to the Tallman concert series, the Blue Wing Restaurant next door has live music on Sundays, blues bands on Mondays and sponsors a three-day Blues Festival in August.

“The Soper-Reese has added much to the Lake County cultural scene since it reopened, and we’re really happy to have helped in some small way,” said Butcher.

Contributions to the Theatre Fund can be directed to Soper-Reese Community Theatre, Attn. John Ross, P.O. Box 756, Lakeport, CA 95453.

The annual fundraising gala will be held at the Theatre this year on Saturday, Oct. 16.

Check the website (www.soperreesetheatre.com) for upcoming events and theater information.

KELSEYVILLE – Jack Ballance’s painting, “Spring Farm, Lake County,” took the first place in the Nature Art contest show-cased at the Lake County Land Trust Spring Dinner at the Saw Shop Gallery Bistro on May 11.

Also awarded were Lyle Madeson, photography; Renee Geare; Meredith Gambrell; Carmen Patterson; and Jacqueline Farley.

Many thanks to Gail Salituri, Tom Gilliam and Barbara LaVasseur for helping to organize and judge the art show.

The artwork presented at the annual Spring Dinner and Art Show is donated by local artists and very much appreciated.

The Lake County Land Trust was honored with many entries and thanks all of the artists who participated.

An 'Archy and Mehitabel' cartoon. Courtesy of the Lower Lake Historic School Preservation Committee.

Just who are Archy and Mehitabel?

First appearing in 1916 in the New York Sun newspaper as a serial, Archy is a cockroach (yes, cockroach!) and the “transmigrated” soul of a free verse poet, while Mehitabel is a toujours gai alley cat with a celebrated past, including Cleopatra and a number of cheap floozies who have trouble maintaining the dignity that was once theirs by natural right.

Writing after hours on the typewriter of Don Marquis, Archy jumps up and down on the keys (lower case only and with no punctuation as he cannot use the shift key) to painstakingly write his observations of the day concerning “life, death, love, politics, kittens and library paste.”

Writing from an insect's point of view, Archy makes sharp, incisive, not always very complimentary (but highly amusing) comments on the foibles and fallibilities of humanity.

Don Marquis was said to be “America’s next Mark Twain,” and the stories out of Archy’s poetic mind are full of wit, wisdom and philosophy.

Archy and Mehitabel ran until the late 1920s as a newspaper serial. The pair have been featured as a Broadway musical, “Shinbone Alley,” written by a young Mel Brooks in 1957, and no less than Eartha Kitt and Carol Channing have performed the role of Mehitabel on stage, on records and as a television special in 1960.

A full-length feature movie, again with Carol Channing, was released in 1971.

Other memorable characters by Don Marquis include Warty Bliggens the Toad, Freddy the Rat, The Old Soak, and a host of whimsical characters with a bent toward literary ruminations.

Gale McNeeley’s career has spanned Broadway, regional theater, television, film and circus. An Irish tenor with a wide musical and performance range, McNeeley has studied physical comedy in Europe and teaches clowning and Commedia Dell’Arte.

He is a graduate of the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theater and Antonio Fava’s Scuola Intenazionale Dell’Attore Comico in Italy.

Actor Gale McNeeley will perform his one-man show,