August 24 - August 30, 1995
Thursday 24
JUST FOR THE RECORD. Wean yourself off that radio talk
show crap and decide for yourself what it means to be an American
by taking part in the "National Conversation," a nationwide
effort to foster community discussion about "our nation's
identity, direction and the values that unite and separate us."
The Arizona Humanities Council is sponsoring a series of community
forums in Tucson regarding Immigrant Culture, Values and Identity
in Arizona. Program includes monthly conversations, a community
survey, conversations via interactive television and a state-wide
discussion with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frances FitzGerald.
An orientation meeting for those interested in participating
in the six-month program will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. at the
Arizona Historical Society, 949 E. Second St. For additional information
call The Maverick Institute at 622-2279.
Friday 25
BORDERLANDS THEATRE. Lonely Planet, by Steven Dietz,
won the 1993 PEN Center West Playwrights Award and was named "Best
Play of the Season" by the Seattle Times. This touching
portrait of two men dealing with the ravages of AIDS departs from
the majority of gay-themed and AIDS plays by concentrating on
two platonic friends: Jody, a map shop owner "on the oldest
street in an American city;" and Carl, his hyperactive friend.
Dietz examines "the emotional perils of a society defined
by alienation rather than community and celebrates the mysteries
of coming together when the world is falling apart." A set
design utilizing an array of donated, empty chairs symbolizes
the legacy of those who have died prematurely of AIDS complications.
A portion of the donated chairs will highlight a silent auction,
continuing through the run of the play, to benefit PACT for Life,
Shanti and TAP.
Lonely Planet continues through September 3 with performances
at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday,
at PCC Center for the Arts Black Box Theater, 2202 W. Anklam Road.
Advance tickets range from $6 to $10 and are available at the
PCC West cashier's office, Antigone Books and Jeff's Classical
Records. Call 882-7406 for reservations and information.
Saturday 26
WHO'S NELLIE CASHMAN? Only in the historic mining town
of Tombstone will you find a spectacle like Nellie Cashman Day,
which sounds like the set of Little House on the Prairie
come to life. But it just so happens that the birthday of this
"heroic and liberated woman of the 1880s" falls on the
eve of Women's Equality Day, which this year marks the 75th anniversary
of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the
right to vote. So pick the best reason of three to head out on
Highway 80 south to Tombstone City Park for a full day of eating,
dancing and general revelry. The day opens with cake judging at
10 a.m. with live music by "Simple Gifts." A pancake
race follows at 11:30 a.m. at the Visitor's Center on Allen Street,
with local restaurateurs dressed 1880s style and flipping pancakes
as they run toward the finish line at the historic Nellie Cashman
Restaurant on the corner of Fifth and Toughnut streets.
Other events include a tribute, "Stalwart of the Last Frontier--Nellie
Cashman," an auction for a box social luncheon (hey, just
like in Oklahoma!), a cake walk from the morning's contest
(at 10 cents per taste), a Women's Suffrage Parade, 1880s fashion
show by Tombstone's Vigilettes, a trolley-tour of historic homes
and 1880s-style children's games "for willing participants."
We don't think that includes sending them down a mine shaft. Top
off the day with a "traditional roast pork dinner" from
5 to 8 p.m. at the Nellie Cashman Restaurant, or a "hiss
and boo" action play called Treachery at Cartilage Creek
or Our Hero Has a Bone to Pick, presented by the Repertory
Theatre Group at 8 p.m. at Schieffelin Hall. Proceeds from all
events provide scholarships for women. Call (520) 457-3929 for
information.
POETIC JUSTICE. What can you say about a production that
starts out with a quote by William Faulkner: "The only thing
worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself"?
Dreamtime/Dreamwalker, by Virginia Ikeda, is part poetry
reading as well as dramatic production. The two-character play
revolves around women poets, a generation apart, who fall in love.
Ikeda describes her characters as "poetesses...one a manipulative,
moody Gen-Xer and the other a stable, academic Baby Boomer...renewed
through poetry." Staged readings of Dreamtime/Dreamwalker
are at 1 and 8 p.m. in the Cabaret Room of the Temple of Music
and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave. A $5 donation at the door is requested.
Call 884-4875 for information.
RHYTHM IN YOUR SOUL. "Drums Around the World,"
an unprecedented evening of percussive entertainment by three
unique music groups, marks time from 9:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. at
Café Sweetwater, 340 E. Sixth St. Mama Ritmo, a women's
drumming group under the direction of Barbara Bird, will lead
off the evening with an eclectic set of West African, Caribbean
and original drum songs accompanied by singing and dancing. Next,
Aché Pa'Ti blends folkloric vocal harmonies with the sensuous
and exciting rhythms of Afro-Cuban rumba; and rounding out the
evening is the popular Bahia and northwestern Brazilian music
of Sounds of Brazil. Best of all, admission to this global sampling
of ensemble drumming is free.
Sunday 27
MESSAGE OF HOPE. Some describe Anne Frank as "an ordinary
girl who lived during extraordinary times." But she has since
become the poster child for combating prejudice and intolerance
throughout the world; and, in the spirit of the exhibit, of the
triumph of mankind's goodness over its cruelty. Anne Frank
in the World, 1929-1945, is a traveling international exhibit
including more than 600 photographs and documents. The exhibit
was created in 1985 by the Anne Frank Center in Amsterdam and
makes its first Arizona appearance in Tucson on a tour including
Europe, Asia and the Americas. The exhibit, which is in both English
and Spanish, will also include materials from the Arizona Historical
Society and Bloom Archives documenting the life and times of folks
in Southern Arizona. Exhibit co-chair Ruthann Pozez says it "will
juxtapose Anne Frank's experience with the experience of people
in our state during the same time." The award-winning videotapes
Just A Diary and Dear Kitty will also be shown.
This expanded exhibit, entitled A Message of Hope: Anne Frank
in the World, continues through September 22 at the Jewish
Community Center, 3800 E. River Road. Says co-chair Essie Nadler,
"It brings the message that within each person there is the
capacity for tolerance, understanding and trust." Gallery
hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 8 a.m.
to 6 p.m. Friday. Admission and parking are free.
Monday 28
YOU CAN TOO. We don't mean to sound like your mother,
but it's time to clean out your closet. Goodwill Industries and
the Community Food Bank are entering into the final week of the
fourth annual Cans and Clothes for Our Community project, and
since--we assure you--it's an unusually quiet night in the Old
Pueblo, now's as good a time as any to weed out those forgotten
clothes or part with that family-sized can of baked beans in the
back of the pantry. No matter how humble your budget, you undoubtedly
have some article better employed by one of our less fortunate
community members. Clothing and non-perishable food donations
will be collected through August 31 at all SUBWAY sandwich shops
in Tucson.
Tuesday 29
QUNTRON AND FLOSSIE. "I hope it fits," says Luna
Loca Café booking manager Nadia Hagen. She's referring
to her latest engagement on the café's increasingly bizarre
and wonderful entertainment calendar, Quntron and Flossie and
the Unicorns' Puppet Show, featuring a one-man band, puppet show
and exotic organ music. "It's huge. Really monstrous,"
says Hagen of the full-size church organ Quntron has hauled from
his Louisiana home to clubs all over the country. "There's
definitely a New Orleans influence," she muses. You mean
the music, we ask? "No," she says, "the puppets."
Flossie is a puppet, the "right-hand man," so to speak,
in a host of what Hagen calls "small, cute-but-frightening
hand puppets." Viewer discretion is advised. While the bulk
of the show, organ notwithstanding, remains a mystery, Quntron
clearly has some extraordinary events in mind. Seattle-based Bare
Minimum opens the show at 9 p.m. with a jazzy grunge that's "hard,
loud and melodiously lyrical." Cover is $4 at the door. Call
882-4488 for information.
Wednesday 30
PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY. Tucsonan Cy Lehrer has been photographing
since 1959, and has a host of one-man exhibits to his credit at
museums, universities and galleries nationwide. His latest show,
Places of Ha'Shoah ("Holocaust"), is a stark,
dramatic journey through sites in Prague, Theresienstadt, Cracow,
Auschwitz/Birkenau and Budapest "devoid of human imagery"
to convey the "dark, incomprehensible crimes perpetuated
in these places." Three works, made in 1983 in Berlin and
Dachau, will be presented for the first time in this 44-piece
show accompanying the Anne Frank Message of Hope exhibit.
Lehrer's works will be featured tonight in an artist's reception
from 5 to 7 p.m. at the JCC Gallery, 3800 E. River Road. Exhibit
continues through September 22. Call 299-3000 for information.
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August 24 - August 30, 1995
