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Places To Go

[JAN. 3, 2002]  The Illinois Brassworks Jazz Combo will be performing this Friday evening from 7 to 10 at "Coffee with Einstein," at 604 Broadway on the Lincoln square. The group will play a set of tunes mostly from Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and John Coltrane.

The six-piece combo, consisting of a trumpet, two saxes, piano, bass and drums, is a professional jazz ensemble you can see for free in central Illinois. The group plays everything from classic jazz standards, swing and bebop to rock.

The band’s goal is to provide quality entertainment for the community. They love to play, but the experience triples when there is a large crowd in the audience.

The group plays at the coffee shop every other weekend without a cover charge.

[JAN. 9, 2002]  ^"The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" by Ann Brashares. Delacorte Press, c2001, 294 pages. Grade 9 and up.

Bridget, Lena, Tibby and Carmen were friends right from the beginning. The summer before the September they were born, their mothers had taken an aerobics class for pregnant women. The girls spent summers together even as toddlers at the baby pool. This summer of their fifteenth year would be the first one they had spent apart.

Bridget is going to soccer camp on the Baja Peninsula with white sand and palm trees. Lena and her fourteen-year-old sister are going to visit grandparents in Greece. Carmen’s dad usually came to visit her for a few days each summer but this year Carmen was flying to South Carolina to spend time with him. Tibby is staying home to work at Wallman’s.

On a whim Carmen had purchased a pair of jeans at a second-hand store for $3.49. She never intended to wear them, but as the girls were packing and getting ready to travel they each tried on the pants. Miraculously, the pants fit all of them even though they had different body builds.

“These are magic pants,” Carmen whispered. “…These pants belong to us equally…They will travel to all the places we’re going, and they will keep us together when we are apart.”

All of the girls took the vow of the Traveling Pants and agreed on ten rules. Never washing the pants, writing to each other, keeping track of the most important thing that happened while wearing the pants, and passing on the pants to the next person after a week were a few of the rules. That summer the pants came to mean more to each of them than they could have ever imagined. We discover that they had to deal with some big problems and personal flaws as the narrative moves back and forth between the four girls’ experiences.

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Tibby looked forward to each day’s work at Wallman’s so she could escape the antics of her younger siblings. While at work she unwittingly becomes involved in the life of Bailey, a twelve-year-old with leukemia.They become friends as Bailey insists on helping with her project of making documentary films of people around town. The pants arrive just in time to give Tibby courage to visit Bailey in the hospital.

Carmen was excited about visiting her dad and having him all to herself for the whole summer. When he picked her up at the airport he told her about his fiancee and her two children. As Carmen tries to come to terms with a seeming disintegrating relationship with her father and her out of control anger, she returns home early. It’s Bailey who helps her admit her anger with her father and it’s the pants that give her courage to admit her own faults and apologize for her actions.

The pants also come just at the right time for Lena and Bridget. As we read we realize that the magic in this story is not in the pants, but in the friendship of the girls and that they believe in each other in spite of personality differences. Traveling Pants is well written and complex, and deals with teenage problems. This book is recommended for age 14 and above.

For more information about this book or others, visit the library at 725 Pekin St. or call (217) 732-5732.

• Lincoln Community Theatre

• Logan County Arts Association

[JAN. 4, 2002]  Logan County Arts Association presents "The Adventures of Robin Hood," playing one night only on the big screen. The film will be shown at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 10, at the Lincoln Theater, 215 S. Kickapoo.

For more information, call Stu Wyneken at (217) 732-4298.

[Poster courtesy Moviegoods]

[JAN. 3, 2002]  Lincoln Community Theatre is looking for talented people to assume the paid positions of artistic director, technical director and musical accompanist for each production of the 2002 summer season.

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[DEC. 11, 2001]  The Logan County Arts Association executive board, meeting on Monday night, announced plans to show "It Happened One Night," "On the Waterfront" and "The Ten Commandments" at its Classic Film Nights in February, March and April 2002. The movie to be shown Jan. 10, however, is still unconfirmed.

Marshall Jacobs, president of the arts association, said he has requested "Gone With the Wind" for the January showing at Lincoln Cinemas but has not received confirmation that the 1939 classic is available. Backup possibilities are "The Adventures of Robin Hood" with Errol Flynn, "High Noon" with Gary Cooper and "Singin’ in the Rain" with Fred Astaire.

Scheduled for Feb. 14, "It Happened One Night" was produced in 1934, when it won best actor and actress Oscars for stars Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. "On the Waterfront" (1954), to be shown March 14, stars Marlon Brando, who also won an Oscar for that performance. Cecil B. De Mille’s 1956 blockbuster "The Ten Commandments" will be shown at Lincoln Cinemas on April 11.

The association’s first Classic Film Night was a sellout. Because people had to be turned away from "Casablanca" on Oct. 11, the board is investigating whether future films can be shown at 4 p.m. as well as 7 p.m.

Corporate sponsors for future Classic Film Nights and other arts events are being sought. Those interested should contact Marshall Jacobs, (217) 899-6243, or Stuart Wyneken, (217) 732-4298.

Wyneken, coordinator for the film nights and for the arts association’s project to restore the Lincoln Cinemas building, announced that he has blueprints from when the theater was "twinned," or divided for showing two movies. When Kerasotes Theatres builds its new theater complex, the corporation has indicated that it will transfer the Lincoln Cinemas building to Lincoln/Logan County Chamber of Commerce. Jacobs said plans are for the chamber of commerce to hold the theater as part of the downtown historic district and for the Logan County Arts Association to restore the interior of the building. Work will not begin until at least the fall of 2002.

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The arts association is looking for community members with photographs of either the interior or the exterior of the theater building at any point in its history. People with such photos are asked to contact Wyneken. Any photos located will be scanned and returned to their owners.

In more immediate business the board completed plans for the Dec. 16 classical guitar performance by Christian Culleton of Chicago. The concert will take place at 2 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church at 402 Pekin St. Tickets cost $5 and are available from Lincoln Public Library Annex, Gossett’s Design Studio, Serendipity Stitches, arts association board members and at the door. Jacobs announced that the local association will register Culleton with the Illinois Arts Council, which will include him in its next biennial listing of artists.

The regular meeting time of the Logan County Arts Association board was changed to the first Tuesday of each month at 6:30 p.m. The January 2002 meeting, however, will be on the second Tuesday. The meeting place is the lower level of Lincoln Public Library.

In other business the board authorized Jacobs to purchase $1 million in liability insurance from State Farm Insurance. The insurance is to be in effect before the Dec. 16 classical guitar concert.

[Lynn Shearer Spellman]

Lincoln Community Theatre’s website is at www.geocities.com/lincolncommunitytheatre/index.html. Pictures from past productions are included.  The LCT mailing address is Lincoln Community Theatre, P.O. Box 374, Lincoln, IL  62656.  E-mail: lincolncommunitytheatre@yahoo.com.

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