Arts & Life

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Written by: Mendocino College

Published: 20 December 2019

NORTH COAST, Calif. – The Mendocino College Theatre Arts Department has been invited to bring its 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!”

For the students attending, it will be a once in a lifetime experience. They will not only perform their play for theatre students and faculty from all over the region, but they will participate in classes, workshops, and scholarship auditions.

At the festival, students will learn about transfer opportunities and other potential next steps in their education and careers.

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 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 addition, students in this production and last year’s spring musical “Once Upon a Mattress” were nominated for the prestigious Irene Ryan acting scholarship competition.

For these competitive auditions, five Mendocino College students will be paired with five scene partners who will audition at the festival with scenes and monologues.

College Technical Director Steve Decker, with the help of the production student crew, will be transporting and reassembling the play’s full set, costumes, lighting, and properties at the host theater at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

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 Edelman, Decker, Gehrman and set designer/carpenter David Wolf.

“Wild Fire,” written by Gehrman, a Mendocino College professor, 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.”

Bringing a full production all the way to Colorado will be very expensive. Costs will include airfare, hotel accommodations and festival registration in addition to truck rental to transport the set, props, and costumes.

To fund the trip, the college Theatre Arts Department needs to raise a total of $23,000. 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 Co. and also directly from students participating in the trip.

On Friday, Jan. 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 barbecued tri-tip roast for four people, four baked potatoes, four cookies, four dinner rolls, and salad for four.

Sponsors of this event include Raley’s Market, Forks Ranch Market, Coyote Valley Casino, the Broiler Steakhouse, Slam Dunk Pizza, Crush Restaurant, Mendocino College Culinary Arts Instructor Chef Nicholas Petti and barbeque masters Bruce Smith and Matt Hilton.

For more information about the tri-tip drive-up diner fundraiser or the Mendocino College Theatre Arts Department, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

The Mendocino College Ukiah campus is located at 1000 Hensley Creek Road, Ukiah.

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Written by: Elizabeth Larson

Published: 17 December 2019

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake County Symphony’s Christmas concert, set for Sunday, Dec. 22, at 2 p.m., at the Soper Reese Theatre, promises to be an interesting mix, with prolific singer Jude Darrin as the featured vocalist for three selections in the second half of the program.

The concert starts off with a performance by the LCSA Youth Orchestra, conducted by Sue Condit, followed by a selection of traditional Christmas favorites by the full symphony.

Jude Darrin starts the second half of the concert with three custom- arranged selections by local musician and symphony member Camm Linden: “Pretty Paper” by Willie Nelson; “Mary, Did You Know?” by Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene; and “Oh, Beautiful Star of Bethlehem” by R. Fisher Boyce.

“Pretty Paper” was written by Willie Nelson when he was a struggling musician, working as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner and encyclopedia salesman.

Frankie Brierton, a local man in Ft. Worth, Texas, was Nelson’s inspiration. Brierton had spinal meningitis as a child and was unable to walk.

Refusing to use a wheelchair, he crawled, wearing thick gloves and knee pads made from old tires. He was determined to live an independent life, so Brierton would sit near a busy intersection outside Leonard’s, a mega-sized department store in Ft. Worth, where he sold pencils, ribbons and wrapping paper during the holidays to passersby for a penny.

Nelson would pass by on his sales route and wrote his song after seeing Brierton hawking his wares and calling out, “Pretty paper, pretty ribbons!”

“Mary, Did You Know?” was a joint effort by Mark Lowry, a gospel songwriter and comedian, and his friend, Buddy Greene. Lowry wrote the lyrics to this song as the program for a living Christmas tree performance in 1991.

Seven years later he rediscovered the script, converted the lines into a poem, and asked Greene to put it to music. It took Greene just 30 minutes to compose the haunting minor-key accompaniment.

For this piece, sign-language aficionado and good friend to Lake County’s deaf community, Jaerae Berton, presents a signing interpretation of the lyrics and music.

“Oh, Beautiful Star of Bethlehem” was written in the early 20th century by a Tennessee dairy farmer, R. Fisher Boyce, who loved to sing while working in his milk barn. He was an avid shape-note singer and eventually held “singing schools” to teach others how to read the distinctive, geometrically shaped note heads that indicate which tone on the musical scale to sing.

For this piece, Sing Napa Valley! – a full soprano, alto, tenor and bass chorus – will provide the harmonies reminiscent of the shape-note tradition.

The concert will end with the traditional Christmas carol sing-a-long with the audience, Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride” by the orchestra and the “Hallelujah Chorus” with the audience.

The Soper Reese Theatre is located at 275 Main St. in Lakeport. Tickets may be purchased at the door the day of the concert the LCSA Christmas Concert is especially popular and it is advisable to order tickets online in advance at www.soperreesetheatre.com.

For those on a tight budget, the dress rehearsal starts at 11 a.m. for only $5 for adults and no charge for those under 18. Come early to ensure a seat.

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Written by: Ted Kooser

Published: 16 December 2019

Here's a poem about something that each of us receives, though only once. If you didn't get yours written into a poem, you've got it put away somewhere.

Wyatt Townley lives in Kansas, and "First Kiss" is from her new book, “Rewriting the Body,” from Stephen F. Austin State University Press.

First Kiss

Here you are forty years
later in a white coat
examining my ears.

All I can think
is how your tongue once
turned in the tunnel

you're peering into. The
fault is not in my ears,
but between them!

No one can see that far.
But could we gaze back
through the years and dead stars

to the doorstep of my parents' house,
you bending down with your tall mouth
to make the softest landing on mine,

having thrown off my balance
so tenderly, can you explain,
good Doctor, how to regain it?


American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. It is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2018 by Wyatt Townley, "First Kiss," from Rewriting the Body, (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2018). Poem reprinted by permission of Wyatt Townley and the publisher. Introduction copyright @2019 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.