Icons, collaborators, and dos amigos Steve Martin and Martin Short have teamed up once again, and they’re bringing it to venues across North America in 2022 and beyond! Promising a bit of music, plenty of new sketches, and tons of laughs, the duo’s new show is a delight for comedy nerds and casual fans alike — and should absolutely be on your schedule. After all, how often does a hilarious Steve Martin tour costarring his rubber-faced friend Martin Short come along?
Arts & Entertainment
TheatreLab Dayton presents: Something Rotten
Welcome to the Renaissance and the outrageous, crowd-pleasing musical farce, Something Rotten! Two brothers set out to write the world’s first musical in this hilarious mash-up of sixteenth-century Shakespeare and twenty-first-century Broadway. SOMETHING ROTTEN features large song and dance numbers, and a wacky cast of over-the-top characters, each given his or her own special moment in the show to shine. It was lauded by audience members and critics alike, receiving several Best Musical nominations and hailed by Time Out New York as “the funniest musical comedy in at least 400 years”.
Wiley’s Comedy Club Fireworks Competition
Calling all Dayton (and surrounding area) comics! Registration is now open for the annual Wiley’s Fireworks competition! Your best five minutes could win you $1000 and spectacular bragging rights. Shows will take place June 24-26 at Ohio’s oldest Comedy Club, which just celebrated it’s 40th anniversary in April.
Registration is $30, and all of that money will go to the top three winners of the competition.
We have an online form to sign up. Please note the following:
Registration fee is $30. Please click the “BUY TICKET” button below to pay. Onceyou have done so, please note your eight-digit confirmation number. You
will find it under the “DOWNLOAD TICKET” button once your payment has
been received. YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO REGISTER WITHOUT THIS NUMBER.
Once your payment has gone through, you can go to this page for your registration:
https://forms.gle/PK468WsjA89twDux9
You will be prompted to enter three choices for your performance times. Times are given on a first-come, first-served basis. We will be closing registration as soon as it is full, and you should know your time no later than June 16.
If you have any questions, please email us at wileysfireworkscompetition@gmail.com.
Registration is now open for the Wiley’s Comedy Club Fireworks Competition! Your best five minutes could win you $1000 and spectacular bragging rights.
Registration is $30, and all of that money will go to the top three winners of the competition. https://www.wileyscomedy.com/shows/176883
Click on the “biography” tab on the ticket page for directions. Shows will take place June 24-26. Looking forward to seeing you all there!
Full Moon Drum Circle
Come join Secret Eden and Wellspring Healing Studio on May 14th, 7-10pm, to bring in the May Flower Full Moon with our first full moon drum circle and sound healing of the year.
Gather around the fire for the sacred ceremony, or meditate around one of two ponds with the ducks and geese or commune with the goats and alien turkeys.
The May flower moon asks us to be more vulnerable so we can be more intimate with ourselves and others. It’s a time to give up what doesn’t serve you. This moon is an opportunity to continue to expand and evolve with nature.
Bring your lawn chair and drum (or whatever you can use to keep the beat) and release your free spirit into the night air.
‘Friend Art’ strikes many a NERVE!
The Nerve has a hit on their hands…not simply because the play is so-well written (by Sofia Alvarez SIRENS, MAN SEEKIN WOMAN); not just because the actors deliver punch after punch; not just because the direction is engaging and not just because it’s relatable material….but because of ALL of that! The story, at its core, really highlights the idea that somewhere along the line we have to go for our dreams, or leave them along the side of the road. It plucks at our desire to forever stay young, all the while knowing that the ‘jig’ is up. Through all of that is the age old question, can we ever really be honest with our friends…about their lives, their opinions, their art?
The play features four characters….Kevin (AJ Breslin) the one voice unafraid to face the fact that some parts of life in your 30s really just aren’t great; Nate (Christopher Hahn) the once famous, now joy-searching ‘pay me to show-up’ guy; Lil (Shalemar Davis), the performance artist unaware that she’s unaware and Molly (Lauren Everett) a do-gooder who faces the fact it’s time to dip her toes into some less calming waters. Each of the actors portrays their character with simple realness….you know them, you ARE them.
Friend Art, listed as a comedy, is much more than just laughs. It’s poignant, it’s promising and, at times, it’s peculiar! The scenes run in a sequence spaced oddly, and that, in part, is what makes it work so well. You are interested to know what combination of characters will pop up in the next vignette. And it keeps the show moving…and it moves…at times straight-forward, at others, with an awkward twist and revelation. You will see yourself in the uncomfortable, yet relatable, scene with Molly and Nate, as they imbibe and connect with their ‘inner-selves.’ You will recognize the people in your lives, who like Kevin, never meant to bend the truth in a malicious way. You will connect with Lil in her pursuit of self, of creativity, of fulfillment without fear. You ARE these people.
When the story, which is really more of an eavesdrop on friends’ conversations, gets to the gritty discussion about ‘what is love’ and ‘what is fidelity’ and ‘what difference does it ultimately make’ we see a cast so convincing that no matter your opinion of the answer, you can defend them all! That’s probably the biggest win in Friend Art, it leaves us open to the fact that we don’t have all the answers, never have, and never will. What we really have are those folk in our lives willing tom tell us how beautiful we are, even when the truth says otherwise.
There is a lot to love about Friend Art. It reminds you that friendships are vital relationships in our loves….that honesty rarely is honest, and maybe that’s ok….that our attitudes about work and life haven’t really changed that much in 40 years….and that we are all, no matter the city, the time, the space, hoping to find that simple circle that says, ‘You’re a Mess and I Love you For That!’
The play is directed by Jenna Valyn and Kaleigh-Brooke Scheiding. Performances are at the PNC Annex May 19th – May 29th.
For tickets go to: https://nerve.link/friend-art-dyt
XACT presents “May 4th Voices”
THESE SHINING LIVES chronicles the strength and determination of women considered expendable in their day, exploring their true story and its continued resonance. Catherine and her friends are dying, it’s true; but theirs is a story of survival in its most transcendent sense, as they refuse to allow the company that stole their health to kill their spirits—or endanger the lives of those who come after them.
Catch “Into the Woods” This Weekend
“Be careful what you wish for” seems to be the ongoing theme in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Brothers Grimm inspired musical, Into the Woods. The story follows The Baker and his wife who wish to have a child, Cinderella who wishes to go the King’s Festival, and Jack who wishes his cow would give some milk. When the Baker and his wife are visited by the neighborhood witch, who reveals to them that she placed a curse on their family, the two set off on a journey into the woods to reverse the curse. Also in the woods, we meet Little Red, who is trying to visit her grandmother, the Wolf who loves tasty little girls, the Witch’s daughter Rapunzel, and the Princes chasing after their loves. Everyone gets their wish and seemingly lives happily ever after. Until Jack’s beanstalk brings them a visit from an angry Giant and we see how the consequences of their actions haunt them in disastrous ways. The community must come together to save each other and their kingdom, but sacrifices must be made.
The Drowsy Chaperone Opens This Weekend in Springboro
With the houselights down, a man in a chair appears on stage and puts on his favorite record: the cast recording of a fictitious 1928 musical. The recording comes to life and The Drowsy Chaperone begins as the man in the chair looks on. Mix in two lovers on the eve of their wedding, a bumbling best man, a desperate theatre producer, a not-so-bright hostess, two gangsters posing as pastry chefs, a misguided Don Juan and an intoxicated chaperone, and you have the ingredients for an evening of madcap delight.
Ronan Donovan: Social By Nature
Chimpanzees, wolves, and gorillas are among the most charismatic of the mammals we know. We identify with them as species, groups, and even as named individuals. They’re also under threat. Join biologist-turned-photographer RONAN DONOVAN as he talks about his work in documenting these animals and what we, as fellow social mammals, can learn from them.
Auditions For Epiphany Lutheran Church’s 31st Summer Production
Auditions are open to the community. Continuing our tradition of inter-generational experiences, adults, teenagers and children of all theater experience levels are encouraged to audition. Children must be completing first grade and at least seven years old to audition.
Friday, April 22: 6-8 p.m.
DAI Offers Free Museum Admission April 22nd
‘Free Friday’ includes access to Van Gogh & European Landscapes and Black Heritage Through Visual Rhythms, as well as a panel discussion and presentations by African American Visual Artists Guild
The Dayton Art Institute (DAI) will welcome the community to the museum with a special Free Friday, this Friday, April 22, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
The museum will offer free admission to its collection galleries and the exhibitions Black Heritage Through Visual Rhythms, Van Gogh & European Landscapes, Fired Imagination: Ancient Chinese Ceramics from the Nancy and Ed Rosenthal Family Collection and The Flower Prints of Katsuhira Tokushi.
In addition, the African American Visual Artists Guild (AAVAG) will present the program Harlem Renaissance to Now: Relevance of African American Art in the museum’s Mimi and Stuart Rose Auditorium from 1 to 4 p.m. It includes presentations by Siera Leone, award-winning writer and poet, Karen D. Brame, the founder of BlackListed Culture, and Andrew Scott, artist and professor, as well as a panel discussion and live painting demonstration by Erin Smith-Glenn, Associate Professor of Art at Central State University. AAVAG collaborated with the DAI to present the exhibition Black Heritage Through Visual Rhythms.
“We greatly appreciate the community’s support through these past two years, especially as we begin to finally emerge from the pandemic and return to regular operations,” said DAI Director & CEO Michael R. Roediger. “As a way of saying thank you, we’re offering the opportunity to experience the museum and its current exhibitions, as well as an uplifting presentation by the African American Visual Artists Guild, for free.”
Black Heritage Through Visual Rhythms, on view through May 22, is a juried exhibition featuring more than 80 works by 44 nationally recognized and emerging African American artists from across the United States. The exhibition reflects the diverse backgrounds and different interests of the artists and includes art in a variety of styles and media.
Van Gogh & European Landscapes, on view through September 4, offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a remarkable pair of Van Gogh paintings, on loan to the museum from Switzerland, made during the final month of Van Gogh’s life. This intimate Focus Exhibition also includes works byCharles-François Daubigny, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Joseph Mallord William Turner, John Constable and others.
Fired Imagination: Ancient Chinese Ceramics from the Nancy and Ed Rosenthal Family Collection, on view through July 24, presents a private collection of ceramics, ranging from figures to vessels and spanning more than 3,000 years of Chinese history.
The Flower Prints of Katsuhira Tokushi, on view through September 18, introduces the work of Japanese artist Katsuhira Tokushi through a complete set of his series Twelve Works on Flower Selling Customs (1959–1961).
For more information about planning a visit, including current museum hours, updates and COVID-19 safety protocols, go to www.daytonartinstitute.org/visit or call 937-223-4ART (4278).
Script Reading of An Appalachian Version Of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Here’s your chance to witness a piece of showbiz, right here in Dayton. FilmDayton filmmaker Shaunn Baker is staging a public reading for a new screen adaptation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream on Monday April 25th at 7pm at The Loft Theatre in downtown Dayton. The reading is open to the public and free to attend. Make your free reservation here.
The adaptation is set in Appalachia during the 1800s, and uses Appalachian dialect with the original Shakespearean verse.
Shaunn Baker
“Shakespeare’s words performed with this dialect are really beautiful, as it turns out,” said local filmmaker Shaunn Baker who adapted the screenplay and is working to get the script produced as a feature film. “It’s a rougher sound, closer to the Old English the play would have been performed in originally. It’s a very different experience from hearing the story in the more traditional ‘heightened’ dialect we typically associate with Shakespeare. My hope is that the roughness of the Appalachian culture and accent will make this adaptation much more accessible to contemporary audiences.”
This project is generously supported (in part) through an Artist Opportunity Grant funded by the Montgomery County Arts & Cultural District and administered by Culture Works.
