From one weekend to the next, this reporter experienced an incredible array of cultural events. The wonderful week began with March 7’s opening of Arms and the Man, a George Bernard Shaw play produced by Oak Park Festival Theatre at Pleasant Home.
I invited my youngest son, Jordan, because he said he was reading Pygmalion in his English class and was curious about other Shaw works. He was “thrilled” by the intimate setting that put the audience a few feet from the actors. He said he was also delighted to hear “great funny lines from all the characters.” The play takes place in Major Petkoff’s house in a small Bulgarian town near the Draogoman Pass, 1885-1886. He giggled over one audience member’s cartoonish laugh at the crisp, comedic lines delivered by Sienna Harris who brilliantly played the major’s daughter, Raina. During intermission, a curious man, who drove all the way from Virginia to see his daughter, Eva Breneman, play Raina’s mom, Catherine, asked why I brought my son to the play. I told him the previous night I took his brother, Amman, to see Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude at the Goodman Theatre.
On March 12, I attended the 25th anniversary celebration of the Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park at the Hemingway Museum, 200 N. Oak Park. For the past year, I’ve served on its board. Current and previous board members and founders told riveting tales about the process of bringing national and international attention to Oak Park’s influence on the famous author. Perhaps the most moving account came from longtime Wednesday Journal architecture columnist Jeannette Fields, who discussed how after helping to create what is today the Wright Preservation Trust, she and others overcame the naysayers 25 years ago “because we knew we could.” These visionaries, “devoid of funds and a place,” found a way to press forward and for a quarter of a century have explained the local connection to a wider community. They helped create a museum, renovate his birth home and purchase his boyhood home. Maybe they can inspire others to do the same for famed inventor, Dr. Percy Julian, another local luminary who deserves the identical kind of heroic attention.
On March 14, I attended a standing-room-only booksigning by legendary radio personality and author Herb Kent at AfriWare Bookstore, 266 W. Lake. Wearing his trademark black 10-gallon Texas hat, the towering V103 FM “oldies” disc jockey, spun stories woven into the pages of his new Herb Kent: The Cool Gent (Lawrence Hills Books), co-authored with David Smallwood and with an introduction by Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. Kent’s talk focused on the history of civil rights and R&B music, covering five decades of struggle, strife, progress, and change.
One of the male visitors said, “You were the first celebrity I met; it was over at my high school on the West Side in the late ’60s. I was in the riots.”
“What did you steal?” Kent asked as the crowd erupted in laughter.
“I helped other students curb the violence after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. I took cues from you and other WVON jocks who cautioned us not to hurt our own communities,” the man replied.
“You did the right thing,” Kent said.
Lastly, On March 15, I attended, with my lovely wife, Earlene, Dominican University’s 29th Annual Gala concert featuring jazz vocalist Dianne Reeves. She sang standard ballads, such as “Windmills of Your Mind” and “Misty,” as well as lively Brazilian tunes that showcased her vocal gymnastics.
All in all, quite a week.