Welcome to the SECOND week of
Masquers on Demand
We hope you are enjoying Masquers On Demand so far! This week, we bring you more exciting music from Birches Bend and a special performance from Bruce Kaplan, a frequent on our Masquers stage. We also have an online art gallery from Linda Ellinwood. Buffy Baggot shares the moving “Flower Duet” from French opera Lakmé. Enjoy a poetic and refreshing podcast from Kit Lanthier and read a silly short play from John Hull. After you read the play, we invite you to get creative also! Scroll on and enjoy!
Music
All About You – Lucy Khadder (fiddle) & Sophia Sparks (mandolin) of Birches Bend
Ranging in age from 11 – 14, these youth are the future of Bluegrass. The band features Lucy Khadder (fiddle), Jasper Manning (mandolin), Sophia Sparks (mandolin) with Chad Manning (guitar). Expect to be delighted by their artful new interpretations of both traditional and contemporary bluegrass tunes and songs with a sprinkling of originals thrown in. The band all met through a common love of bluegrass music, and through studying at the venerable Manning Music studios in Berkeley, CA. They have performed together for just a year, bringing their talents to farmer’s markets and a variety of public venues as well as house concerts in the East Bay. They recently participated at the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Kids on Bluegrass program in Raleigh, NC as well as showcasing at the California Bluegrass Association showcase there. They performed for Masquers Playhouse in 2018 for our holiday production Appalachian Christmas and also provided entertainment at last year’s film screening of White Christmas. They have become Masquers patron favorites! Learn more and support Manning Music Studios and Birches Bend.
Buffy Baggott & Morgan Harrington – Sous le dôme épais
Watch Buffy Baggot sing “Sous le dôme épais” for the 2016 Sing for America Benefit Concert at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco on April 17, 2016. The Sing for America Foundation of San Francisco combines your love of the arts with social media skills to help you fund your charitable interests – arts, health, welfare – whatever social good you serve. For several years now, Buffy Baggot and her husband Bill Pickersgill have participated in Sing for America on behalf of Masquers, raising over $5,000 for our revitalization project. Learn more about Sing for America.
PERFORMANCE
Bruce Kaplan performs Yma Dream
Bruce Kaplan performs Yma Dream written by Thomas Meehan. This piece was originally published in The New Yorker in February 1962. Bruce Kaplan is no stranger to the Masquers stage. He was last seen in The Last Romance (2018). We can’t wait to see him on stage again. Enjoy this performance, recorded live from his “kitchen studio.”
WRITING
Click to read The Giant Booger from Outer Space by John Hull
“I first performed this at McGucken with Jerry Teller, and again, more recently, with Paul Seliga. We dressed up like hillbilly hayseeds. Paul had his shirttail sticking out of his open fly, just like Masquers stalwart Don Waight when the curtain opened on him, opening night of Most Happy Fellow in 1986. Fond memories! I hope you like it.” — John (Jack) Hull
Feeling creative? We invite you to take this script and video your own home performance of it. The two best video home performances will get a pair of tickets to an upcoming production! Send your submissions to secretary@masquers.org or submit to us on Facebook.
