Art
The Massachusetts Nurses Association regional council kicked off the automatic external defibrillators for life program with a $500 donation to Martha’s Vineyard VFW Post 9261.
The new program was started to help purchase AEDs for nonprofit organizations that have 25 or more members. At an event at the VFW last summer, a patron suffered a non -fatal cardiac arrest at the post. The post leadership felt that since they have had two previous such events, that they wanted to have an AED on premises. They purchased an AED and started a drive to offset the cost.
Want to Direct?
Island Theatre Workshop, Inc. is searching for new stage directors join the company for its third annual Short Play Festival to be performed in March, 2009. Anyone who has a short play, either classic or contemporary, that she or he would like to direct should contact artistic director Lee Fierro to discuss possibilities. Please call 508-693-5290 by Jan. 6.
First-time directors will be considered. Material can be between 5 and 30 minutes in length. Both dramatic and musical submissions are welcomed.
Here’s how to prepare for It’s A Wonderful Life: The Radio Play (by Phil Grecian), based on the 1946 movie by Frank Capra, now showcasing at the Vineyard Playhouse: Bring tissues because you’re bound to cry at the end (happy tears), even if you don’t normally well up at theatre events. The second piece of advice is to view the production twice. That’s right, you’ll want to sit through two performances.
In this year-long serialized novel set on the Vineyard in real time, a native islander (“Call me Becca”) returns home after two decades to help her eccentric Uncle Abe keep his landscaping business, Pequot, afloat. His staff includes Mott, the big-brotherly general manager, and Quincas, a cute Brazilian. Abe has a paranoid hatred of Richard Moby, the CEO of an off-Island wholesale nursery, Broadway.
Guest chef Robert Lionette is helping the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School to continue its tradition of organizing five-course international dinners in January. Partnering with Zephrus, chef Lionette will prepare foods from two countries for elegant evenings of exquisite, locally grown international menus. Food from Italy features on Saturday, Jan. 17, and food from Mexico will be on Saturday, Jan. 31.
Elderly Art Show
Island Elderly Housing held its first artists and craftsmen show last week at the Woodside Village II Community Room in Oak Bluffs. The show featured painting, sculpture, photography, ceramics, needlepoint, books and cards and other crafts — all work of residents in Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs.