This Spring, the members of the Arts Council of Livingston are planning 3 exciting events for community participation.
CORK & CANVAS
a creative painting event
WHEN: Thursday, May 7, 7–10 PM
WHERE: 1160A Town Center Way, (next to Silverman’s).
ADMISSION: $35.00
Participants will be provided with a canvas, brushes & paints and professional instruction, to create an individual work of art. The event is BYOB.
This craze of walking away with a finished piece of art is taking the country like storm. Come out, grab your friends and learn from Livingston’s own, Hugh Mahon!
GROUNDS FOR SCULPTURE TRIP
WHEN: Wednesday, May 13, 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM
WHERE: bus leaves from from Senior/Community Center, on Hillside Avenue, Livingston
TICKETS: $50.00
Participants will enjoy a delightful bus trip, starting, including admission to “Grounds for Sculpture” in Hamilton, NJ. This facility is one of the premier locations to view sculpture in the metropolitan area and the best in NJ. Lunch can be purchased or participants can brown-bag it.
LIVINGSTON HOUSE & GARDEN TOUR
WHEN: Wednesday, June 10, 9:30 AM – 1:00 PM
WHERE: Livingston’s prestigious and historic homes
The third event will be a Livingston House & Garden Tour, which will be devoted to showcasing , while highlighting architecture, art, history and the beauty of local gardens. Please mark this date on your calendar and watch for further details.
For information, please contact Vivian Olshen, (973)992-1950, vivolshen@aol.com
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REAL-LIFE SERIES
Lovey Bunny: Montclair Author Kristine A. Lombardi 
CHAMBER MUSIC with Flutist Soo-Kyung Park and cellist Sean Katsuyama 
By Ruth Ross
A sleep-deprived composer of musical soundtracks for video games, Kat suddenly finds herself out of a job. "Why does everyone leave," she wails, feeling abandoned, most notably by Bruce, her infant son Zach's father, who has decamped to join a Journey cover band out on the road. Alone, overwhelmed by motherhood, and unsure of her financial and romantic future, Kat is suddenly contacted—across decades and continents—by the famous polar explorer Ernest Shackleton, one of the heroes cited in Star Blazer, the video game she has most recently been scoring. Drawn to her music, the explorer asks her to provide a soundtrack for his journey to Antarctica where, in 1914, he lost his ship Endurance in the crushing ice and traveled 800 miles over sea and mountains to get help at a whaling station and rescue the men he left behind. 
Kat and Shackleton communicate at first by Skype, but when he suddenly appears in her apartment, things really heat up, romantically and dramatically. This seems part hallucination (after all, Kat has been awake for 36 hours straight) and part cold-numbing reality as she joins him on this trek, all to a soundtrack of electronic music, country-style hootenannies, rousing sea chanties and a ballad or two. There's even a duel between Shackleton and Ponce de Léon over which man has Kat's affection! 
Making these wacky goings on feel (almost) normal are two very talented and endearingly charming actors, Valerie Vigoda as Kat and Wade McCollum as Shackleton (and the other men in Kat's life). Vigoda is proficient at keyboard and drums, as well as playing a mean electronic fiddle. Her fingers really fly on the latter in the hootenannies and sea chanties! She holds her own vocally, too, in the many tunes she warbles with McCollum; the two are well matched so that one does not overpower the other. Easy on the eyes and ears, McCollum is deliciously attractive as the Scots-Irishman Shackleton, unfamiliar with all this technological stuff, but so enamored of Kat that he gladly takes her with him on his dangerous journey. He is especially terrific singing "The Eye of the Storm," fully expressing the explorer's optimism that he will complete his task successfully! 
Despite its idiosyncratic plot, I think you'll fall in love with Ernest Shackleton Loves Me. Be prepared to be won over by this gentle, albeit zany, romance. Its warmth and charm are a true testament to the magical power of the theater! 
In response to her mother Alice's recent heart attack and facing being alone should her mother die, Catherine has taken a leave of absence from her professorship in New York City to spend the summer in her rural home town. Once there, she re-establishes her relationship with Gwen and Gwen's husband Don, who was Catherine's beau until Gwen "stole" him away. When Don gets her a position teaching a course in summer school, the trio cooks up a scheme whereby Gwen and older son Julian will go to New York so she can pursue her unfinished graduate degree and her son will study acting, while Catherine and Don will move in together and look after the Harper's three-year-old son Devin. This harebrained arrangement will allow each woman to experience what she gave up when she chose the path for her adult life. The wrench in the gear is pot-smoking, hard-drinking, Internet porn-addicted Don, whom Catherine thinks she can get to "aspire" to the life she thinks he should be leading (and wants to lead). The results are both hilarious and sobering. 
Laura Ekstrand (left) is marvelous as Catherine, spouting opinions about women and pornography with élan but not too invested in them to be attracted to Don and the family life she imagines with him. She is clearly a woman who knows her academic field, but not her self. Nicolle Callender's Gwen (top photo, right) is all suppressed rage, rage at having to push her husband to succeed, dismay that, despite choosing motherhood and family, she finds herself envying Catherine. When she boils over during a seminar she has signed up to take with Catherine (and Avery) and spills secrets of her marriage, she really gains our sympathy. And Harry Patrick Christian's college dean Don (above, right) is a slacker, par excellence. With his easy-going ways and slow speech, Christian telegraphs the man's lack of ambition, which is far more evident to the audience than to Catherine who thinks he just needs someone to encourage him. Christian's interactions with Callender and Ekstrand are totally believable; we may even feel sorry for him as Catherine tries to work her magic at making him over. 
Stealing the show are Jessica O'Hara-Baker (Far right) as outspoken Avery and Noreen Farley (center, with Ekstrand) as the more reserved Alice. O’Hara-Baker is the quintessential "liberated" woman of the 21st century—empowered, candid, bluntly stating her opinions and not really afraid of men (for the most part). Dressed in a variety of outfits totally appropriate for her age, O'Hara-Baker's delivery is natural and hilarious. She's one chick to be reckoned with! Farley's Alice is more Phyllis Schlafly-like, spouting a more conservative view of femininity (to the audience's delight), but proud of her daughter and intrigued by Avery. Alice's insistence on martinis at five is quite droll, even as the enormous amount of alcohol consumption by Catherine and Don is a troubling red flag of ensuing disaster. 
Superior production values are evident in Bridget Santiello's set (love Alice's old-fashioned living room), Zach Pizza's atmospheric lighting, Laura Ekstrand's choice of attire for each character, and Jeff Knapp's savvy selection of songs reminiscent of the feminist "revolution." It is a joy to hear them once again. (L-R: Ekstrand, Christian, Farley)