Friday Freebies
Gladstone’s Theatre In the Park presents the musical comedy Once Upon A Mattress. Performances are Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and begin at 8:30pm. You can claim a space with chairs and blankets after 3pm. The whole thing goes down at the Gladstone Amphitheatre, 76th and N. Troost.
Crown Center has Men in Black as part of their Friday Night Flicks series, and it starts at 9pm. This movie has remained surprisingly entertaining. Every time it pops up on TBS or something, I feel it absolutely necessary to sit and watch the whole thing. It’s held up far better than other early Will Smith flicks (I’m looking at you, Independence Day), and it’s probably the last thing Linda Fiorentino did before she got a reputation as a severely difficult actress to work with.
Also Friday night is the second Summer in the Park, presented by the Eudora Chamber of Commerce in CPA Park at 6pm. There will be an homemade ice cream making contest, live entertainment, food vendors and activities for children.
Power-pop-punkers Eve 6 play the Power and Light District at 8pm. The band’s on a reunion tour right now (although who isn’t these days?). I saw the band’s Matt Bair speak on a panel at CMJ last year, and was consistently amazed at his stories of how screwed over Eve 6 seemed to have been, and how compromised their sound was by their label.
Saturday, you’ve three chances to see some art in downtown Lawrence. Lawrence’s Wonder Fair Art Gallery and How presents Zaguar Collages, featuring the work of Range Life Records’ head honcho Zach Hangauer. Read this piece on the man and see if you’re not tempted. Wonder Fair’s openings are great chance to hobnob with the Lawrence hipster community, and the gallery is in the basement of a grocery store. Seriously.
You can also pop over just half a block on 8th Street and hit up the opening reception for “Good Vibe Mountains” at Henry’s coffee shop from 6-9pm. The opening features new mixed media and serigraph artworks by Sam Owen and Kelly Kearn.
The 1109 Gallery, at 1109 Massachusetts, has the final opening reception of the evening, also from 6-9pm. “WALLPAPER” is a juried show of works on paper and with paper by area artists. The gallery is also featuring “Fundamental Images,” prints by Michael Hager in the “garage gallery” and artwork by Charles B. Rogers in the small gallery. This will be the first showing of the Rogers works, which were given by an anonymous donor to support the Lawrence Art Guild Gallery.
