| Issue #28, October 6, 2006 |
BIG CHANGES AT WESTHAMPTON PERFORMING ARTS
By Dan Rattiner
The Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center announced this past week that they will be expanding their facilities. Sometime in late October, they will be purchasing a commercial property directly behind the theatre building that up until now has housed a barber shop and residence. This property has its own access from Sunset Avenue, separate from the main entrance of the WBPAC on Main Street in Westhampton Beach. This “back entrance,” once the renovations are completed, will be for members of the staff and also for an expanded Children’s Arts program. Basically, children from the nearby schools, and almost a quarter million of them have already come to enjoy the educational programs at WHBPAC since the place was founded in 1997, will be entering the theatre from this entrance to enable them to pass through all the backstage and support facilities before coming upon the stage, dressing room, theatre seating and lobbies where they will be going to or performing in the shows.
WHBPAC was founded by some civic minded citizens in the mid 1990s, after the local movie theatre chain pulled out of what was truly a classic, 1930s era movie theatre of 300 seats. The facility was vacant for a while, but then the purchase took place and WHBPAC opened its doors nine years ago. They had a huge mortgage, lots of hopes and dreams and a big theatre. Let’s put on a show, was the rallying cry.
Since that time, the programs at the theatre, both in number and quality, have grown dramatically. The biggest audiences ever came to their nearly one hundred programs offered on stage during the year. The mortgage is burned. And the purchase of the million dollar downtown barber shop property in the back was done with cash. The business office and support group for WHBPAC will move from the main theatre on Main Street into the building in the back. And this will open up the main theatre this autumn and winter to some of the education programs, many of which will expand, particularly those for children.
The program for this fall for children includes School Day Performances, a program called KidStage, and live performances for the entire family. School children from the entire East End region will be attending these programs, either to watch them or participate. They include poetry, musicals and dance performances — with troupes traveling in from Ghana, Mexico, China and everywhere in-between. Ticket prices will remain $8 per person. The stage is often the venue for school plays and musicals brought over for the big stage. There are workshops for both students and teachers. And there are numerous shows, both professional and not.
This weekend, for example, after Grammy Award-winning musician Jimmy Webb performs on stage on Saturday night October 7, there is the next day a performance called “Thwak” for children performed by a group called the Umbilical Brothers. The show involves vocal ingenuity, physical skill, mayhem, mime and live audio-acrobatics. Shows are at 3 p.m. and 7.
There is Jam-a-Rama on November 4, which is billed basically as a rock and roll show for 2 year olds and up.
A group from the Netherlands who call themselves Theater Terra will perform Little Donkey on November 9 at 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.
The curtain goes up on A Garfield Christmas at 3 p.m. and then again at 7 p.m. on Friday, November 24, with Garfield singing, dancing and wisecracking his way through numerous Christmas entertainments.
The Snow Dragon, which is performed by the Tall Stories Theatre Company from the United Kingdom comes on stage on Friday December 1 at 10 a.m and 12:30 p.m. It’s about a Billy goat named, of course, Billy, and his quest for more presents for Christmas courtesy of the mythical Snow Dragon.
Other programs this fall include Aaron Neville of the Neville Brothers on October 14, Taj Mahal on October 24, and the legendary Broadway musical singer Barbara Cook on November 25.
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