Golden Oldies Players
Island author Jeanie Okimoto has penned a new play, “Walter’s Muse,” based on her 2012 novel of the same name, that will have a free staged reading at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 10, at the Bethel Church.
Okimoto described the play, set on Vashon, as “an old people’s romantic comedy,” while adding that she guessed “seniors” might sound better.
The play — complete with ukulele-playing parts claimed by Joe Okimoto and Bill Kirschner — has a cast made up entirely of Vashon actors and musicians in their 70s and 80s, an ensemble Okimoto (who is 81) has dubbed “The Golden Oldies Players.”
The company also includes Patricia Kelly, who helped Okimoto develop the play, Rich Wiley, Gretchen Neffenger, Marjon McDermott, and Peter Kreitner.
Okimoto’s novel, “Walter’s Muse,” is now on sale at Vashon Bookshop, with proceeds benefitting the Vashon Senior Center.
Hank and Audrey
“Still In Love With You,” a play about the tumultuous marriage of county music legend Hank Williams and Audrey Williams, will be presented by Vashon Repertory Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 9 and 10, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 11, at the Grange Hall, located at 10365 Cowan Road.
Filled with 16 songs from Hank’s incomparable songbook, the show stars Jon Whalen as Hank, Jennifer Potter as Audrey, and Tami Brockway Joyce as Audrey’s daughter, Lucrecia. The play, by Randy Noojin, is an adaptation of Lucrecia’s book by the same name, recounting her memories of her mother’s life with Hank.
A post-performance discussion, facilitated by the DOVE Project’s director, Heidi Jackson, will take place after the show on Sunday.
Purchase tickets here.
Over the Edge
Islanders can indulge in their love of cosplay and beat back the winter blues at “Over the Edge: Vashon’s Wearable Art Party” — a night of revelry to take place from 7-11 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 10, at Open Space for Arts & Community.
For the event, attendees are encouraged to come costumed as art, with an “anything goes” approach to dressing up, in attire that might include sculptural elements, textile arts, multi-media, found objects, inflatables, or body paint.
“We’re inviting everyone to be their boldest selves — bending boundaries, raising eyebrows and boldly going over the edge,” said Open Space founder and current board member David Godsey. “It will be a night of seeing and being seen.”
Godsey said that some costumes may be revealing and include elements of burlesque, so the event is intended for mature audiences.
A guest DJ will mix the music for a night of dancing, revelry and taking in the pageantry, Godsey said. To get tickets to the event, and find inspiration for possible attire, visit openspacevashon.com.
Early music concert
The trio Simphonie Nouvelle will present a concert, “Louis XIV and J.S. Bach” at 12 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 13, at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit, at 15420 Vashon Hwy SW.
Trio members are baroque guitarist and 2015 Grammy-winning conductor Stephen Stubbs, co-director of the Boston Early Music Festival and Pacific Music Works; renowned viola da gambist Susie Napper, founder and director emeritus of the Montreal Baroque Festival; and flutist and Salish Sea Early Music director Jeffrey Cohan.
The concert — the second of the season by the Salish Sea Early Music Festival on Vashon — will feature the work of 17th and early 18th-century superstars of Louis XIV’s musical establishment, alongside the compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach.
House Concert
Joanna Sternberg, a New York-based visual artist, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, will play a house concert on Vashon at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 23.
Sternberg’s latest album, “I’ve Got Me,” tackles themes of isolation, loneliness, and self-care struggles with honesty and optimism. Over singsong melodies and stripped-back arrangements, Sternberg — while playing all the instruments on the album — reveals the complexities of what it means to be alive.
Sternberg, who grew up in Manhattan Plaza — a middle-income artists-only residence established in the 1970s — has a family legacy that provided a wealth of inspiration — their “Yiddish theater gods” grandmother Fraydele Oysher and great uncle Moishe Oysher, opera singer grandpa Harold Sternberg, their aunt comedian Marilyn Michaels, and, most of all, their father, painter, guitarist and songwriter Michael Sternberg.
Find out more about Sternberg’s Vashon house concert, presented by islander Tyrel Stendahl, and get tickets here.
