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Today’s Email Announcements

1) Hayes School of Music Scholarship Concert Set for Friday

The Hayes School of Music presents its annual Holiday Scholarship Concert Dec. 4 at 7:30 p.m. in the Schaefer Center for the Performing Arts at Appalachian State University. Admission is $10. Tickets are available at the Schaefer Center or by calling 800-841-2787 or 828-262-4046.

The scholarship concert is coordinated by Dr. Stephen M. Hopkins, a professor in the Hayes School of Music. It features “surround sound” as ensembles from the music school perform along the aisles, the balcony and on stage.

Groups to perform are the University Singers, Appalachian Brass Ensemble, Steely Pan Steel Band, Appalachian Woodwind Quintet, Appalachian Treble Choir, Appalachian Trombone Choir, a saxophone quartet, Appalachian Flute Ensemble, Appalachian Trumpet Choir, Chamber Singers and Symphony Orchestra.

Compositions on the program include “Personent hodie,” “Fanfare for Christmas,” a medley of French carols, “Jingle Bells, “Pat-a-Pan,” “Nutcracker Suite,” “Sleigh Ride” and “Hallelujah” from the “Messiah.”

2) Advent Retreat in Valle Crucis with Author Katerina Whitley Slated for Dec. 11

Come Thou Long Expected: A Short Advent Retreat

Friday, December 11. From 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., join renowned author Katerina Whitley in an exploration of this holy season. The cost for the event is $40, which includes a delicious lunch, program materials, and a day in this beautiful place.

The retreat will take place in Johnson Hall. If you would like to arrange for an overnight stay, we do have rooms available for those not wishing to travel early in the morning. Room is $40 per night; dinner and breakfast would be on your own.

To register for the short Advent retreat, visit www.vcconferences.org/programs and sign up! It’s quick and painless, and you can bring cash or check with you. For more information or to register by phone, call (828) 963-4453.

3) Author Visit and Book Signing with Cynthia Gaw on Dec. 12

Saturday, December 12, 10 a.m.

Meeting Room, Watauga County Public Library, 140 Queen Street, Boone

The Watauga County Public Library in Downtown Boone welcomes author Cynthia Gaw, author of ”Bone of My Bones,” for a Special Visit and Book-Signing Event!

According to the publisher’s web page for the author:

“‘Bone of My Bones’ fictionalizes a Biblical equality and mutuality. The ‘complementarian’ debate usually focuses on the realm of theory, and stereotypes the lived experience and the people who suffer from the contemporary Church’s brand of sexism. This novel fleshes out many popular gender ideas, and explores how and why these conflict with Biblical truth.

Cynthia Gaw teaches literature at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. She has authored criticism on the poetry of George Herbert and young adult novels for East Africa. She has been married forty years and has five children and three grandchildren.”

Learn more at http://wipfandstock.com/bone-of-my-bones.html

4) Watauga Community Band to Play at ASU Dec. 4, 8

The Watauga Community Band will be performing two holiday concerts this December. The first concert will be Friday, December 4, at Blowing Rock School. The second will be held Tuesday, December 8, at Rosen Concert Hall, on the campus of Appalachian State University. Both concerts start at 7:30pm. Director Bill Winkler will lead the band in a series of holiday favorites, including Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, the English folk tune Greensleeves, Percy Grainger’s The Sussex Mummers Christmas Carol, and Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride. Both events are free and all are invited to celebrate the Christmas season with the Watauga Community Band.

5) See “Five Women Wearing the Same Dress” at ASU Dec. 5-6

The Appalachian Women’s Theatre Troupe (AWTT) at Appalachian State University presents the 1993 comedy “Five Women Wearing The Same Dress” by playwright Alan Ball about five bridesmaids hiding in a bedroom during a wedding reception.

Three performances will be presented: 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 6. The production will be staged in the Great Hall of the Living Learning Center (LLC), located on campus at 301 Bodenheimer Dr. Tickets are $5 for students and $8 for adults and may be purchased Monday through Friday in Plemmons Student Union from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. or in the lobby of the LLC Great Hall one hour prior to each performance. For more information, visit Appalachian Women’s Theatre Troupe on Facebook or emailasuwomenstroupe@gmail.com.

First published and performed in 1993 at the Manhattan Class Company in New York City, “Five Women Wearing the Same Dress” explores themes ranging from insecurity and jealousy to lust and pride. The play’s setting is the home of a bride in Knoxville, Tennessee, during the newly married couple’s overdone wedding reception. The five bridesmaids referenced in the title of the play have found refuge in a? room above the fray and realize, among other things, that despite their differences, they have more in common with each other than any of them do with the bride.

Critics favorably reviewed this comedy as “a wonderfully entertaining play…” in The New York Post, while the New York Daily News opined that, “‘Five Women Wearing the Same Dress’ is a fresh-as-a-daisy comedy, funny as can be….” Theatre Week stated that, “Ball has the comic writer’s requisite talent for dialogue that ricochets snappily around the stage.”

Appalachian’s Women’s Theatre Troupe was founded only two years ago but has blossomed into a successful student interest group and campus arts organization. “Five Women Wearing the Same Dress” is the troupe’s fourth production, following the highly acclaimed spring 2015 show “Decision Height.” In order to encourage students in the arts, the troupe gives opportunities to first-year and second-year students, including non-theatre majors. Effective in spring 2016, the organization will use the new name Women and Inclusive Theatre Troupe in order to promote a more diverse environment for theater.

Karen Sabo, executive director of the Women’s Fund of the High Country, is guest director for this production. She explained, “‘Five Women Wearing the Same Dress’ is, I think, usually performed as a broad Southern frothy comedy, but we’re not interpreting it like that. There are some really serious subjects that are broached, so we’re embracing the play as written, which means it is pretty serious but has a lot of very funny parts.”

Sabo said that many of the characters and situations will be familiar to the audience, “but we are taking an approach of not just presenting these unexamined, but rather taking advantage of the best that theatre has to offer.” She explained that the reason the show is called “Five Women Wearing the Same Dress” is because, “They’re all bridesmaids in the wedding of a woman none of them really like, so they’re all wearing this ‘uniform of femininity.’”

“They all take a look at how the ideas out there about what it means for each of them to be women can sometimes hold them back and restrict them from being the humans they really are,” Sabo said. “I guess it is a feminist play, but it really is a humanist play. That’s what theWomen’s Theatre Troupe does – look at expanded descriptions of what it is to be human, and usually in a really engaging, entertaining way.”

Appalachian students featured in the show are Olivia Fitts, Alexxa Guerrero, Mary Elizabeth Myrick, Emma Siplon and Jenna Tonsor.

About the Living Learning Center

The Living Learning Center (LLC) is located on campus at 301 Bodenheimer Dr. Parking is available in lots near the building, as well as in Rivers Street and College Street parking decks and the Raley/Peacock parking lot off Rivers Street.

About the Women’s Theatre Troupe

The Appalachian Women’s Theatre Troupe is a student-run performing arts organization designed to promote theatre experience, to develop opportunities for women, and to advocate women’s rights in productions at Appalachian State University and throughout the High Country region. The group sponsors student-directed shows, programs and social events, such as group trips to see live productions at other theatres, bi-weekly meetings, and schedules projects and workshops of interest to the membership.