The next session of Intro to Improv with Dan Brown of Reflex Improv begins on Tuesday, January 14, 7:30 to 9:30pm. The group will meet at the Unitarian Univeralist Fellowship at Easton, 7401 Ocean Gateway. No acting experience is required.

The first class in this six-week program, which runs from January 14 to February 25, is open to anyone who would like to experience the improv process. The discounted fee for this opening night is $20. The fee for the full six weeks is $225.

In Intro to Improv participants learn and practice the building blocks for creating improvisation scenes. The fun includes warm-ups to break down barriers and build camaraderie, and exercises to inspire top-of-the-head thinking and creativity. Expect lots of laughter and lessons that can be applied to everyday situations at work and in other areas of life.

Dan Brown of Reflex Improv (back, center). Easton improv students are Jeremy Hillyard, Linda Mastro Nancy Andrew, Anne Altvater, and Dan Van Skiver.

Brown, who teaches in Virginia and Maryland, caught the improv bug while in college, performing in the school’s short-form and sketch program, acting in school and community plays, as well as writing, directing, and starring in many comedy short films. After moving to the Washington, DC area, he took a free workshop at Washington Improv Theater and fell in love with the joy and freedom of long-form improv. His approach to teaching is positive, encouraging, joyful, fast-paced, and, most of all, fun.

Improv student Nancy Andrew says, “I’d been curious about trying improv for years. In 2018, I signed up for two of Dan’s Annapolis classes. He’s a great teacher! Improv, for me, is pure fun. As a bonus improv has helped me be more creative, develop my listening skills, meet new people, and be more fully present.”

Andrew adds, “You don’t have to be funny to have fun with improv. Dan teaches us the process and gives us lots of encouragement. The fundamentals of improv include the concept of ‘Yes – And,’ which encourages us to listen to one another and find agreement. Two other improv fundamentals – ‘I’ve got your back’ and making each other look good – encourage team work. When we all follow the process, funny happens.”

Register for the six-week Intro to Improv at www.refleximprov.com. Email Dan Brown at refleximprovforfun@gmail.com to sign up for the January 14 class.

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Stephen Haynes painting in Plein Air Easton 2019

On January 17, following on the success of “Coffee and Conversation” which launched at last July’s Plein Air Easton event, The Trippe Gallery will be collaborating with Plein Air Easton to host a reception and exhibit after the presentation of “Cocktails And Conversation” at the Avalon Theater. The participating artists are Stephen Haynes, Mary Veiga and Thomas Bucci. Both Haynes and Veiga participated in their first PAE in 2019, and Bucci his first in 2018. Both Haynes and Veiga are regular exhibitors at The Trippe. The artwork of all three artists will be a special exhibit for the weekend. “Cocktails and Conversation” begins at 7(doors open at 6) followed by a reception at The Trippe Gallery at 8.

2020 is The Year of the Woman and at The Trippe Gallery a year full of exhibits featuring the gallery’s women artists is planned. Of the 41 artists represented, nearly half are women and all mediums are exhibited from oil paintings to etchings, watercolors, mixed media, fine art photography, sculpture and printmaking. There will be shows featuring Women in Sculpture in April, Botanicals in “The Art of the Garden” for May, fine art photography and oil paintings centered on the art of trees in June, July will feature our women Plein Air painters, September will exhibit women contemporary artists in all mediums followed in November by birds and natural landscapes to celebrate the 50th Waterfowl Festival, and the year will end with the ever popular small jewels show. There will be other events planned and some surprises along the way as well so stay tuned! To subscribe to the gallery newsletter, please email tripphilder@icloud.com.

First Friday Gallery Walk will return on April 3!

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The Bay Country Chorus invites men who like to sing — in the car or shower or who have sung in a school chorus — to a free, six-week series of singing classes starting Feb. 3.

“Give us six Monday evenings,” said Director Roni Gapetz, “and we’ll have you enjoying group singing.”

The course, called “Ready, Set, Sing!” is taught by Ms. Gapetz. Beginning and experienced singers are welcome, and the course and all learning materials are free. Advance registration is recommended.

The next series of “Ready, Set, Sing!” classes will take place on Monday evenings from Feb. 3 to March 9 starting at 7 pm at Brookletts Place Talbot Senior Center, 400 Brookletts Ave., Easton.

The course will teach how to sing richly and resonantly and produce ear-pleasing harmony.

Bay Country Chorus members, from left, Herb Branch, John Crovo, Scott Haddock, and Gerry Hopkins.

She holds a bachelors degree in music from Bethany College and a masters degree in education from Salisbury University. She is a certified director through Sweet Adelines International.

The chorus has brought a cappella music to Mid-Shore senior centers, baseball stadiums, corporate events, and private parties since 1995. It performed before about 3,400 people in 19 Mid- and Lower Shore events in 2019.

The chorus is a chapter of the 20,000-member Barbershop Harmony Society. Rehearsals are held Mondays at 7 pm at Brookletts Place – Talbot Senior Center, and new singers are always welcome.

New songs being added to the chorus’ repertoire include barbershop arrangements of “God Bless the U.S.A.” by Lee Greenwood and “The Longest Time” by Billy Joel.

Registrations are being accepted now. To register, visit www.baycountrychorus.com or email jim@baycountrychorus.com or call Jim Ritch at (443) 944-7430.

Ms. Gapetz assumed the directorship of the Bay Country Chorus in 2015.

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The Garfield Center for the Arts in Chestertown is proud to announce its 2020 season of theatrical productions. Presented by the Garfield and directed by a group of talented local directors, this season offers a variety of shows – sensational drama, romantic musical, moral examination and a madcap comedy. MUSICAMP runs from from July 6-10 followed by Playmakers summer theatre camp from July 13 – August 9 culminating in a production of the children’s classic The Wizard of Oz.

The season opens February 7 with The Farnsworth Invention written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Lyle Pinder. It’s 1929. Two ambitious visionaries race against each other to invent a device called “television.” Separated by two thousand miles, each knows that if he stops working, even for a moment, the other will gain the edge. Who will unlock the key to the greatest innovation of the 20th century: the ruthless media mogul, or the self-taught Idaho farm boy?

In April, director Jennifer Kafka Smith will present The Fantasticks written by Tom Jones with  music by Harvey Schmidt. The Fantasticks is a funny and romantic musical about a boy, a girl, and their two fathers who try to keep them apart. The narrator, El Gallo, asks the audience to use their imagination and follow him into a world of moonlight and magic. The boy and the girl fall in love, grow apart and finally find their way back to each other after realizing the truth in El Gallo’s words that, “without a hurt, the heart is hollow.”

Short Attention Span Theatre, the Garfield’s own ten-minute play festival, opens its sixteenth year in June. Produced by Mark Sullivan and Diane Landskroener, “SAST” runs from June 19 – July 5. An audience favorite, SAST features the local talents of dozens of directors, writers and actors, and is designed to hold your attention for Just. Long. Enough.

In one of the clearest and most urgently moral plays by the greatest American moral dramatist, Incident at Vichy is a tense, incisive examination of the choices each of us can make—and how we assuage our consciences—when our own society asserts domination over those considered “other.” Set in 1942. The detention room of a police station in the occupied Vichy Zone. Eight men have been picked up for questioning, for the reason everyone knows but can’t begin to consider. As details of the consequences of the occupation, and of the Nazis’ Racial Program, begin to emerge, each man must consider for himself how he responds. Director Bob Chauncey brings this Arthur Miller play on stage in August.

Closing the 2020 season, first time director Brad Chaires will bring the madcap comedy, Clue, to the Garfield stage from November 20 – December 6. Written by Jonathan Lynn, Hunter Foster, Eric Price, Sandy Rustin. It’s a dark and stormy night, and you’ve been invited to a very unusual dinner party. Each of the guests has an alias, the butler offers a variety of weapons, and the host is, well . . . dead. So whodunnit? Join the iconic oddballs known as Scarlet, Plum, White, Green, Peacock, and Mustard as they race to find the murderer in Boddy Manor before the body count stacks up. Based on the cult classic film and the popular board game.

The Garfield Center for the Arts is a non-profit organization whose mission is to invigorate the cultural life of our community by nurturing, celebrating and supporting arts and artists through performance and education. For more information on happenings at the theatre, sponsorship opportunities or tickets, please visit www.GarfieldCenter.org, or call the box office at 410 810 2060. The Garfield Center for the Arts at the Prince Theatre is located at 210 High Street, Chestertown, MD, 21620.

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On Sunday, January 12, the Maryland State Boychoir will present a concert at Christ Church Easton beginning at 4 pm.  This concert marks the third appearance of this distinguished choir since the beginning of the Christ Church Concert Series.

Maryland State Boychoir

Now celebrating its 33^rd season, The Maryland State Boychoir, under the direction of Stephen A. Holmes, serves the State of Maryland as its “Official Goodwill Ambassadors.”  The Boychoir performs 100 times annually throughout Maryland and on national/international tours that have taken them to thirty-five states and fourteen countries. The choristers have sung at many distinguished venues, including The White House, National Cathedral, St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. Recent Boychoir musical programs have included performances at the American Choral Directors Association’s national conference  in Salt Lake City, UT, The Polar Express with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Puccini’s Tosca at the Modell Lyric Opera House, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Bach Concert Series, Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish at both The Meyerhoff Symphony Hall and Strathmore Center for the Performing Arts with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Mahler’s 3^rd Symphony with the National Orchestral Institute at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in College Park, MD; performances of Howard Shore’s Fellowship of the Rings Symphony with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Andrew Earle Simpson’s A Crown of Stars with the Cantate Chamber Singers. Its annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols sells out three performances each December. Other memorable performances include a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King with the Washington Choral Arts Society at the Kennedy Center, the Twentieth Annual Baltimore Boychoir Festival directed by Dr. Sandra Snow, and singing for the Opening Ceremony at the PGA Presidents Cup with Presidents George H. W. Bush and William Clinton in attendance. The Boychoir has also collaborated with renowned international ensembles, including Bonifantes from the Czech Republic and the Drakensberg Boy’s Choir of South Africa.

Door will open at 3:30 pm and a freewill offering will be received.  For more information, please call 410-822-2677 or visit www.ChristChurchEaston.org.  This concert is supported in part by a grant from the Talbot County Arts Council with funds provided by the Maryland State Arts Council.

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