Switchfoot's Christmas tour stopping at Santander Performing Arts Center
Sep. 11—Switchfoot is bringing its first-ever holiday tour to the Santander Performing Arts Center, Reading, on Dec. 6. The show will feature popular Christmas classics along with a set of the band's greatest hits. Tickets are on sale at Ticketmaster.com.
The Southern California-based Christian rock band never thought their music would reach tens of thousands of fans worldwide — or that it would propel them to fame. It just worked out that way.
Wanting to express his feelings and spirituality, singer-songwriter Jonathan Foreman formed Switchfoot with his brother, bassist Tim Foreman, in 1996 while the two were attending the University of California, San Diego. A year later, the pair was joined by their mutual friend, drummer Chad Butler. After playing only 20 gigs together, the trio signed with the Christian re:Think record label and released their debut album, "Legend of Chin." Their alternative rock/pop blend and insightful, Christian-inflected lyrics have catapulted the band to the top of the charts and earned them a place among top rock acts of the early millennium.
The band's sophomore effort, "New Way To Be Human," broke musical barriers and won fans for the band across the musical spectrum. The title track won a Dove Award for Song of the Year in 1999 and other songs from the album were featured on teenage dramas such as "Dawson's Creek," "Popular," "Jack and Jill," "Felicity," "Party of Five" and "Time of Your Life."
Switchfoot released their best- and fastest-selling album to date, "Beautiful Letdown," in 2003 on Columbia/RED Ink. It entered the Billboard top 200 albums chart at No. 85, while the single "Meant To Live" (inspired by T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men") helped break the band into the mainstream, peaking at No. 5 on the Billboard modern rock chart and No. 2 on the top contemporary Christian chart.
----"My Politic," a musical duo based in Nashville, Tenn., will perform live at a house concert at the Wyomissing Public Library today. Doors open at 3 p.m.
Reminiscent of the late John Prine, and inspired by Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel among others, Missouri natives Kaston Guffey and Nick Pankey have recorded nine albums to date; their latest, "Short-Sighted People in Power," gives voice to many of the emotions the nation has felt during the past several years.
The duo has toured the country many times, performing at intimate settings including house concerts, which are intimate concert experiences combined with a shared pot luck-style meal. Attendees are asked to bring an appetizer, finger food, dessert or drinks to share.
A donation of $15 per person or $35 for a family is requested; all donations go directly to the musicians.
Masks and vaccinations are highly recommended; to reserve a seat contact ann@wyopublib.org, or didyoupractice@aol.com.
----This season's first installment of the Know Your Symphony Lecture Series will be held Sept. 24 at 7:30 p.m. at The Highlands, 2000 Cambridge Ave., Wyomissing. The lecture by Dr. Douglas Bomberger, professor of music at Elizabethtown College, will preview the Reading Symphony Orchestra's season-opening concert scheduled for Sept. 24 at the Santander Performing Arts Center.
The lecture series is a continuing education service of The Penn State College of Arts and Architecture in cooperation with the Reading Symphony Orchestra League.
Theater
Reading Community Players will stage the local premiere of "Calendar Girls" on Sept. 30, Oct. 1 and Oct. 2 at the George Baer Chapel, Sixth and Cherry streets, Reading. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 and 3 p.m. Oct. 2. Tickets are $18.
"Calendar Girls" was written by Juliette Towhidi and Tim Firth, and is based on a true story of a group of Yorkshire women who produced a calendar to raise money for leukemia research in April 1999.
After the death of her best friend's husband from cancer, spirited housewife Chris Harper hatches a scheme to raise money for a memorial to him. Utilizing a tradition from the hidebound Woman's Institute association, Chris encourages Annie and their friends to create a calendar — with the novel detail of using the middle-aged women of their village as nude models. The idea stuns the husbands and a wary young photographer, and the calendar becomes a media sensation.
Tara Lutz directs a cast that includes Amy Hudak, Megan Martin, Susan Behm, Debbi Silas, Laura Jones, Laura Stewart, John Fielding, Steve Reazor, Bill Eschbach, Mackenzie Buchter, Sean C. Hafer, Jeanie Malarkey, Ivy Martin and Veronica Julian.
For more information, see readingcommplayers.com.
Art
Marilyn J. Fox, former director of the Freyberger Gallery at Penn State Berks, will open her Kutztown studio for visitors beginning next Sunday with an open studio sale from 2 to 8 p.m., and continuing throughout the fall on Thursday and Sunday evenings from 5 to 7 p.m., or by appointment. The studio is located at 447 Normal Ave.
Throughout the season, guest artists will join Fox to show and sell their work. Scheduled are Delores Kirshner, founder and director of Clay on Main, Oley, presenting mixed media ceramic sculptures; JoAnn Morell, a fabric artist and musician, offering upcycled wearables; and ceramic artist Bev LeViener, owner of HillTop Studio, displaying unique vases and other objects.
----Clay on Main Gallery, 313 Main St., Oley, will present the exhibition "Rhonda Counts & Bob Hakun: Bold Textures/Embracing Color," with an opening reception next Sunday from 4 to 6 p.m.
Hakun and Counts are exhibiting their own work as well as displaying collaborations.
As Counts stated: "I create a textured canvas, then I paint. My works are instantly recognizable for their unique textures. I apply various acrylic mediums onto wood panels and impress organic and inorganic elements into the mediums to mimic textures found in nature. I enjoy the mindfulness of applying color over texture."
This is a perfect match for Hakun's assemblages, where bits of anything and everything are reimagined into intriguing sculptural works.
Hakun describes his work as "industrial primitive," incorporating discarded items such bones, wood, wheels or gears that show the effects of aging.
"I want the art to have a strong emotional presence," he said, "but aesthetics are secondary to the context."
Gallery hours are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.; Thursdays from 3:30 to 7 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. Walk-ins are welcome, or call 610-987-0273 for an appointment.
Books
"The Net Beneath Us," the debut novel by Gov. Mifflin High School graduate Carol (Butler) Dunbar, will be released Tuesday by Forge Books, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing Group.
The author, the daughter of Lorraine and Richard Butler, writes from her experiences living off the grid.
In the summer of 2002, Dunbar moved to the woods of northern Wisconsin with her husband and their 15-month-old daughter. They set up a woodshop powered by a diesel generator and sold custom furniture, using wood from the trees they slabbed and air-dried on their land.
In the fall of 2006, her husband had an accident with a table saw that became the springboard for "The Net Beneath Us." Told over the course of a year, it is a lyrical exploration of loss, marriage, parenthood and self-reliance; a tale of how the natural world — without and within us — offers us healing, if we can learn where to look.
Dunbar has been writing books since kindergarten and worked freelance as a ghostwriter on her path to becoming a novelist. In 2018, she won the Hal Prize for fiction, and her stories have appeared in The New York Times, The South Carolina Review, Midwest Review and others. Her essays about living off the grid can be heard on Wisconsin Public Radio; one essay, involving her encounter with a mother bear, was televised as an animated short.
Before devoting herself to writing, Dunbar earned her BFA in theater and worked as a professional actor based out of Minneapolis. She trained as a coloratura soprano, co-founded The Huldufolk Theatre Company and served as director for various summer youth camps.
