wcw APRIL 2022

out and about continued
Tickets: asolorep.org or call the Box
Office at 941-351-8000.
Florida Studio Theatre has
The Legend of Georgia McBridee’s
young, he’s broke, his landlord’s
knocking at the door, and he’s just
found out his wife is going to have
a baby. To make matters even more
desperate, Casey is struggling with
his gig as an Elvis impersonator in
a run-down, small-town Florida
bar. When the bar owner brings in
a B-level drag show to replace his
act, Casey finds that he has a whole
lot to learn about show business—
and himself. Starts April 6 in FST’s
Gompertz Theatre.
Tickets: FloridaStudioTheatre.org or
call the Box Office at (941) 366-9000.
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At Venice Theatre:
• Alter Eagles—April 24 at 7:30 p.m.
and April 25 at 2 and 7:30 p.m.
This tribute to The Eagles includes
all their greatest songs, from their
earliest classics like “Take It Easy,”
“Desperado,” and “One of These
Nights” to huge hits like “Heartache
Tonight” and “Hotel California.”
• Simply Streisand—May 1 at 7:30
p.m. and May 2 at 2 & 7:30 p.m.
Multiple award winning Tribute
Artist, Carla Del Villaggio, has entertained
across the country from
Miami to Las Vegas to New York
City. She has the look and sound of
the incomparable Barbra Streisand.
From the hair down to the trademark
nails, and wearing meticulously
detailed replicas of iconic
concert gowns, she is “Simply Streisand”
in every way.
Tickets: https://venicetheatre.org/
They’re located at 140 Tampa Ave.,
Venice.
Manatee Performing Arts
Center has:
• Tim Boyd Comedy Show on April
9 at 7:30 p.m. Tim has lived in
Bradenton for eight years, but was
born and raised on the prairies of
South Dakota. His squeaky clean
humor comes from real life. He just
wrapped up a Midwest tour though
South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa.
• TITANIC-The Musical (Musical)
opens April 28.
• Murder at the Juice Joint presented
by DraMature (Interactive Theater)
is on May 4 at 5 p.m.
Manatee Performing Arts Center,
502 Third Avenue West, Bradenton.
Ticket/Box Office: 941-748-5875.
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Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe
(WBTT) is honoring the significant
contributions of African Americans
over the years on the “Great White
Way” with “Broadway in Black.”
WBTT salutes that genre with an
original revue by Nate Jacobs that
was first presented in the summer of
2017. Sing along with your favorite
songs from award-winning shows
and breakthrough roles that helped
launch the careers of such African-American
artists as Melba Moore
in “Purlie,” Ben Vereen in “Pippin,”
Jennifer Holliday in “Dreamgirls,”
and Nell Carter in “Ain’t Misbehavin.”
Jacobs will direct; resident
choreographer Donald Frison will
take the production to the next level
with thrilling new choreography.
Show runs through April 24. Call
the Box Office at 941-366-1505 or
visit westcoastblacktheatre.org.
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At Urbanite Theatre:
A Skeptic and a Bruja
by Rosa Fernandez
and directed by Patrice
Amon running April
1 – May 1. A World Premiere
produced in collaboration
with freeFall
Theatre. Priscilla buys
a home in the middle
of nowhere with the
hopes of turning it into
a lucrative bed and
breakfast. When she
starts having paranormal
experiences, she
calls Sam and Jess from
the hit ghost-hunting
show “A Skeptic and a
Bruja” to help her. None
of the women are prepared
for the haunting
they encounter next.
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La Musica
International
Chamber
Music
Festival
La Musica International
Chamber Music Festival has
events through April 13. Four concerts
will be held at the Sarasota Opera
House. The season kick-off event, and
the first concert with special guest pianist
Wu Han, will celebrate the legacy
of co-founder and associate artistic
director Derek Han, who passed away
in April of 2021.
The Concerts:
• April 3 - Derek Han Memorial
Concert. Celebrate the legacy of
La Musica’s co-founder and associate
artistic director Derek
Han. His friends and colleagues,
including special guest pianist Wu
Han, perform the music he loved.
• April 6 - Innocence and Illicit Passion.
The 15-year-old Mozart celebrated
completion of his second set
of string quartets by composing his
sunny first viola quintet. One hundred
years later, Franck created his
piano quintet, secretly dedicated to
his young lover. Is passion audible?
• April 10 - Strut and Fret. Grammy
Award-winning guitarist Jason
Vieaux returns to perform in contemporary
and Classical quintets,
contrasted with the lush Dvořák
quintet for piano and strings.
• April 13 - From Darkness Into
Light. Mozart’s dark and stormy
piano quartet may have deterred
its publisher, but it showed the way
from the Classical to the Romantic
– so Tchaikovsky owes Mozart
(and Florence) for his inspiration.
This souvenir is beyond festive –
think 1812 without the cannons.
For the safety of guests and La
Musica musicians, the venue for the
Musical Chefs Dinner on April 11
has been changed from Michael’s
Wine Cellar to the outdoor atrium at
Michael’s On East.
Due to scheduling conflicts, open
rehearsals will now be held at both
the Bayfront Community Center at
the Sarasota Municipal Auditorium
and at the Sarasota Opera House.
Festival rehearsal passes are valid at
both locations. Rehearsal schedule
can be found at LaMusicaFestival.org
For more information: LaMusica
Festival.org
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Venice Symphony has Songs from the Screen and Stage with
Linda Eder May 6-7 at Venice Performing Arts Center. Tickets:
https://www.thevenicesymphony.org/
Sarasota
Contemporary
Dance
Next up is Cuban Project running
April 28-May 1, “Mi Historia, Tu Historia,
y Nuestra Historia” (My Story,
Your Story, Our Story). It was shortly
after 1959 when Fidel Castro began
nationalizing industries, closing
churches, and sending children to
study on collective farms in the Soviet
Union. Desperate parents, much
like my own maternal and paternal
grandparents, sent their unaccompanied
children to the United States
with the hope to protect them and
eventually reconnect in the near
future. Through movement and live
music, this production explores personal
stories, decision-making, displacement,
and the Cuban-American
experience. https://www.sarasotacontemporarydance.org/
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Sarasota Ballet
Program 7, “Serendipitous Movement”
will be performed April 29 –
30 at the Sarasota Opera House.
Program: Serenade—Choreography
by George Balanchine with music
by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky; The
Letter V (Company Premiere) with
Choreography by Mark Morris; music
by Joseph Haydn
And Elite Syncopations with Choreography
by Sir Kenneth MacMillan;
music by Scott Joplin et al.
Info at www.SarasotaBallet.org or
call 941-359-0099.
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Bookstore1Sarasota
On April 22 they’ll have Jarred
McGinnis, one of the UK’s 10 best
emerging writers, who will chat about
and sign his new novel The Coward.
McGinnis grew up on Siesta Key
and graduated from Riverview High
School. He currently lives in Marseille,
France. This in-person event is
at their new store at The Mark, 117 S.
Pineapple. Tickets are $8.
The Coward is a startling and intimate
debut novel which explores
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disability, masculinity,
family and love as
an estranged father
and son struggle to
reconcile.
More event info
at https://www.sarasotabooks.com/events
or
941-365-7900. More
info: 941-365-7900.
Book Banning to be
focus of Poetry
Life 2022 featuring
poets Carolyn Forché
and Pádraig Ó Tuama
with journalist Charlayne
Hunter-Gault.
Book banning and state
directives over what
materials teachers may
bring into the classroom
and what books
librarians may place
on the shelves is a fact
of life now in Florida,
Tennessee and Texas.
PoetryLife 2022
goes online at 8 pm on
April 21. Usually held
in front of in-person
audiences in Sarasota,
PoetryLife will be held
on Zoom this year in
order to open up the discussion to
the entire country.
The event is free. The Zoom link will
be sent to those who RSVP at https://
poetrylife2022.eventbrite.com
Meetings
The Venice Area Women’s College
Club invites you to a lunch/
speaker on April 12, 11:30 a.m. at
the Plantation Golf & Country Club,
500 Rockley Blvd, Venice. The speakers
are Cheryl Mendelson, CEO and
Sasha Housman of the Van Wezel
Foundation. They will give updates
on the new Performing Arts Center
on the Bayfront.
The club supports two college educational
scholarships and gives
non-perishable food to the South
County Food Pantry. To inquire
about club membership and/or lunch
reservations ($25), call 309-635-3058.
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Lectures
New College Foundation’s next
New Topics lecture is “The Many
Angles of Shark Conservation” and
will be on April 21 via Zoom. New
College professor Dr. Jayne Gardiner
and alum Melissa Cristina Márquez
explore how both research and outreach
are vital when determining
the fate of one of our planet’s oldest
predators: sharks. Gardiner and her
students use advanced tagging techniques
to identify local nursery areas
and study how young sharks use
these habitats, which are thought to
be critically important for management
and conservation, especially for
threatened and endangered species.
This work informs the selection of
future marine preserves and protected
areas for imperiled species. Across
the world in Australia, PhD candidate
Márquez also uses marine technology
to understand shark habitat
use (such as underwater video cameras
and drones). Once she pinpoints
the most critical environments for
sharks here, she figures out how the
local community feels about sharks
by analyzing ongoing media coverage
and how their attitude can lead to
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conservation success or failure in the
area. Is there hope for these rapidly
disappearing animals?
Tickets are $10. Registration required
and can be made at ncf.edu/
new-topics or by calling 941-487-4888.
Reservations must be made at least 48
hours in advance to allow for processing
and receipt email for Zoom link.
Farmer’s Markets
The Sarasota Farmers Market
is open on Saturdays with normal
hours of 7 am-1 pm, rain or shine.
http://www.sarasotafarmersmarket.
org/ (941) 225-9256
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Venice Farmers Market has more
than 40 vendors on Saturdays, many
based during the week in Venice,
Englewood and other areas of Sarasota
County. Held at Venice City Hall, 401
W. Venice Avenue, Venice. Call (941)
445-9209 or visit https://www.thevenicefarmersmarket.org/site/
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The Newtown Farmer’s Market is
open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every Friday
and Saturday. The market is located
at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park,
at the corner of Cocoanut Avenue and
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way.
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Bradenton Farmer’s Market
offers fresh produce, local art, music,
demos by local chefs, and family
activities. Parking is free on weekends,
and dogs on leashes are welcome.
Held every Saturday through
May, from 9am – 2pm, on Old Main
Street in downtown Bradenton, 400
12th St. W. Bradenton. Old Main
Street is a tree-lined retail district of
cafes and restaurants running three
blocks north from Manatee Avenue to
the Manatee River, where it meets the
Bradenton Riverwalk.
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The Phillippi Farmhouse Market
is Sarasota’s mid-week farmers
market. The Farmhouse Market is
open from 9-2 every Wednesday
through April at Phillippi Estate Park,
just a little south of Sarasota on 41.
Over 50 vendors offer produce
and plants from local growers and
producers, as well as prepared
foods, specialty and sustainable
items, and Florida agriculturally-related
products. Food and
produce vendors at the Phillippi
Farmhouse Market are required to
be growers to support the market’s
mission of promoting local agriculture.
The market is easily accessible
from US 41 and has plenty of free
parking and live entertainment.
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The Farmers Market at Lakewood
Ranch is now at Waterside
Place. Their Farmers Market currently
has about 60 vendors and
went this past summer from a
seasonal market to a year-round
event.When the market transfers to
Waterside Place, taking up space
all along Lakefront Boulevard and
Kingfisher Lake, more than 80 vendors
will line the street.The Farmers
Market will stick to a 10 a.m. to 2
p.m. time slot on Sundays. Update
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Note:
Be sure to send season
schedules for 2022 to
westcoastwoman@comcast.net
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APRIL 2022 WEST COAST WOMAN 13