NOVEMBER 19-25, 2015 ------Cover Story • Festival of Trees
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NOVEMBER 19-25, 2015 ------------------Cover Story • Festival of Trees ---------------- DEC. 4 thru 13, 2015 More and Merrier Arts United Center By Mark Hunter Trees before, after and during the concert if they Delicious family fun and a like. It’s just very exciting to hear these young voices Warm Winter Wishes await you at the Festival of throughout the Embassy Theatre.” Fort Wayne holiday tradition! Trees. What are warm winter wishes? What is the fes- Also on December 2 is Festival of Trees Tots Tchaikovsky’s glorious, gorgeous tival of trees? If either of these questions popped into and Trees Day, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. with Holiday holiday tale of Good’s triumph your head when reading this, you’ve either had your Photo Fun on Stage featuring Anna and Elsa, the Jedi head in an igloo the past 31 years or your house over- Knights. over Evil and a spectacular trip looks Whoville. “Icy and the to the Kingdom of Sweets! Warm Winter Wishes is the theme FESTIVAL OF TREES Mad Ant will be Opening weekend with of the 31st Annual Festival of Trees. The here as well,” Festival of Trees is the flagship event November 25-December 2 Richards said. Fort Wayne Philharmonic. of the Embassy Theatre during which Times vary “And we’ve people from all walks of life ooh and got a Peppa Pig TIX: 260.422.4226 aah at the amazingly creative and beau- Embassy Theatre stand-up so kids Limited premium seating; order early! tifully decorated Christmas trees that fill 125 W. Jefferson Blvd., Fort Wayne can put their the lobbies of the theater Tix: $3-$7 thru Ticketmaster and faces through and the adjacent Indiana get their pic- Hotel. box office, 260-424-5665 tures taken. We Along with the Night encourage lots of Lights, the Festival of of picture taking. It’s a Trees is the most popu- spectacular time for the lar holiday season event Embassy to shine.” Fort Wayne has. Last The Festival of Trees year more than 19,000 exists thanks to serendip- people strolled past the ity and hard work. Back 59 trees in the two lob- in 1984 a board member bies and took part in the was talking with her many events the festival neighbor about ways to has to offer. utilize the theater. This year there’s “A board member even more to love. In named Maryellen Rice FWB-Whatzup3.5x5.125.indd 1 10/28/15 11:30 AMaddition to Santa and was looking around the wreaths and singing and theater and thinking wassailing, there is a we’ve got to find some special night for families way to come up with wanting to preserve their some money because this Festival of Trees memo- theater’s a pit,” Rich- ries in the form of an ards said. “And it was. 8-by-10 photo. Accord- It took a lot of repair to ing to marketing director get it back and going. Barb Richards, Family This was in ’84. So she Photo Night makes get- talked to her neighbor, ting that perfect group Barb Wigum. Barb was shot a snap. the general manager at “People really want channel 21. And she had to get pictures but it’s re- just come back from ally hard to do during the a festival of trees in festival,” Richards said. Erie, Pennsylvania. She “For a variety of reasons you can’t really stop the line thought it would work really well for the Embassy.” to get a great shot, so we decided to dedicate a night. So board members visited similar festivals and We will have a photographer set up on the stage, and decided to go for it. Thirty-one years later Festival of when they come in, each family wanting a photo will Trees is the Embassy’s biggest fundraiser of the year, be given a time ticket. When it’s their time they will WPTA 21-Alive is still a sponsor and the theater is report to the stage to have their photo taken. We’re anything but a pit. It’s not too much of a stretch to say limiting it to 100 families, and they’ll get their photo that a love of tradition at Christmas time has helped that night.” make the Embassy the jewel that it is. Family Photo Night is Monday, November 30 Special events director Kyle Snare said the format from 5 to 9 p.m. Tickets for Family Photo Night are of the festival has changed over the years to include $50 per family and can be purchased from the Embas- more corporate sponsorship to help support the cost of sy box office. November 30 is also Senior day, which the event. But the holiday spirit of regular people has runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. not diminished. The other new thing this year happens Wednes- “For a while the decorators would auction trees, day, December 2. It’s a community sing-along with and that was how they funded it,” Snare said. “Now the seven ensembles of the Fort Wayne Children’s we look for corporate sponsors to come in and offset Choir. The different groups from the choir will lead the cost. Some of those sponsors have people within the audience in rousing renditions of favorite holiday their organizations that decorate the trees. Then there tunes. are separate Christmas-loving folk that just love to “People coming that night are going to get a 90- decorate trees, so we connect them with a sponsor. minute performance with the Fort Wayne Children’s Choir,” Richards said. “They can do the Festival of Continued on page 7 2 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.whatzup.com ----------------------------------------------------------November 19, 2015 whatzup Volume 20, Number 16 ith the holiday season in full swing, there’s a lot crammed into this issue of whatzup. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas whether you’re W ready for it or not. And at this time of year there is much for us to talk about besides what you’ll find inside any given issue of your favorite arts and entertainment publication. Here at World Headquarters, for instance, we’re gearing up for the Best of 2015 whatzup Readers Poll, and we encourage all of our readers to head over to whatzup.com and fill out the nominating ballot if you haven’t done so already. We’ve also been making some decisions about the H. Stanley Liddell Award which we present semi-annually to a person who has made an extraordinary con- tribution to the arts and culture of northeast Indiana. We were pleased that seven prior winners (pictured above: Harvey Cocks, Bob Roets, Richard Reprogle, Tish Liddell [representing the Liddell family], Doc West, Julia Meek, some old geezer, Brad Etter and Matt Kelley) agreed to meet at Sweetwater last week to decide who should be honored this year. Thanks to all of them; the rest of you, stay tuned for more. Well, well, we’re outta space. Read on, enjoy your week and tell ’em whatzup sent you. inside the issue • features ROAD NOTEZ ................................. 14 FLIX ................................................ 13 Spectre FESTIVAL OF TREES .................................2 More and Merrier SCREEN TIME ...............................13 Spectre Continues to Ride High HOLIDAYFEST ............................................4 Making the Season Brighter CURTAIN CALL ............................... 18 God’s Ear STEPHANIE LONGBRAKE ........................5 Big Voice in Supporting Roles CURTAIN CALL ............................... 18 The Just So Stories FRANK ALLEN .............................................6 Lines of Expression • calendars • columns & reviews LIVE MUSIC & COMEDY ...................9 MUSIC/ON THE ROAD ...................14 SPINS ...............................................8 Catbox, Martin Courtney ROAD TRIPZ ..................................15 BACKTRACKS ..................................8 THINGS TO DO ..............................17 Sniff ’n’ the Tears, Fickle Heart (1979) ART & ARTIFACTS .........................18 OUT & ABOUT ...................................9 STAGE & DANCE ...........................19 Black Friday at Local Record Stores Cover by Greg Locke On Sale Now! December 3 • 7:30pm Embassy Theatre | 800-745-3000 Tickets also available at the Embassy Box Office, All outlets, and at www.ticketmaster.com EMBASSY November 19, 2015 ------------------------------------------------------------ www.whatzup.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------3 BROUGHT TO YOU BY: ------------------------------- Feature • HolidayFest ------------------------------ 20 Past 4 and More ................................................................13 The Alley Sports Bar/Pro Bowl West ...................................15 all for One Productions/Just So Stories ..............................19 Arena Dinner Theatre/Exit Laughing ......................................19 B96.9/J Anthony .......................................................................2 Bar 145 .......................................................................................9 Beamer’s Sports Grill ................................................................9 Making the Season Brighter Blue Jacket Clothing/Fantasy of Lights ................................7 By Mark Hunter We are going to make a Fort Wayne Vil- But wait, there’s more. At 7:15 the Bo- Kat Bowser ...............................................................................15 lage using holiday houses from Habitat for tanical Conservatory and Embassy Theatre C2G Live/The TV Show ............................................................17 If making memories and sharing tradi- Humanity,” she said. “It will be like more Window Lighting on Jefferson fire up. And if C2G Music Hall............................................................................5 tions with loved ones this time of year makes like a traditional storefront. And since our it’s bells