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Art Beat: A swarm of weekend Halloween bashes

The haunting hordes won’t be at your doors until next Wednesday, the 31st, but this weekend will be costume party time.
halloween

The haunting hordes won’t be at your doors until next Wednesday, the 31st, but this weekend will be costume party time. There are ghoulish gatherings everywhere, too many to mention in a comprehensive list, but here are a few suggestions, all on Saturday Oct. 27.

• Beloved Sunshine Coast dance-rockers Playback will be at the Gibsons Legion Lounge starting at 8 p.m., while Half Cut and the Slackers play the Legion Hall. $10 for members, $15 for non-members. 

• The 101 Brewhouse at 1009 Gibsons Way are putting on their second annual Scareoke Halloween Party, with prizes for best costume and performance, 9 p.m. Tickets are $10 at eventbrite.ca. 

• It’s the 10th Annual Halloween Howl Dance and Costume Extravaganza at the Pender Harbour Community Hall in Madeira Park from 8 p.m. to midnight. A number of live music acts will entertain. Best-costume prizes, $25. 

• They’re calling it the Egmonster Mash Halloween Party at Egmont’s Backeddy Pub, which is being transformed into “a tavern of horrors” starting at 6 p.m. Best costume contest with a prize of one night’s free stay, with dinner for two. 

• Spooky celebrations also at Tapworks in Gibsons; the Roberts Creek Legion on Lower Road at 8 p.m.; at The Lighthouse Pub in Sechelt at 9 p.m.; and at Egmont Community Hall, 7 p.m. for $10, kids under 12 free. 

• Gibsons is having a kid-friendly block party from 5 to 8 p.m. involving the Public Library, Arts Building, Sunshine Coast Museum, and some outdoor locations in the area. More information is available at Halloween Block Party! Lower Gibsons, on Facebook.

Off the Page 

Call it theatre-lite, or theatre-alt. It’s Off the Page, where stage productions are presented less formally, as actors read through a script in theatrical style but without costumes or sets. 

The play Drive Me Crazy will get the Off-The-Page treatment at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons on Sunday, Oct. 28 at 1 p.m. Written by veteran theatre artists Linda A. Carson and Suzanne Ristic, the play is “about a family and their relationship with themselves, each other and the vehicles that move them around,” according to a release from the producers. 

Featured readers include Colleen Elson, Karen Webb, Kevin Crofton, Pat Dorval, Varya Rubin and Nathan Barrett. Admission is by donation. 

A struggle for culture 

Just about any film featuring actor Bill Nighy is worth a look, it is said. That would include The Bookshop, based on a Booker-nominated 1978 novel by Penelope Fitzgerald. The story is about a young widow’s struggle to bring a bit of culture to a 1950s English village by establishing a bookshop in a fine old house. Or not, perhaps. It seems the local Grande Dame has other ideas. 

This 2017 UK production is directed by Isabel Coixet, and also stars Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson. It’s being screened at Raven’s Cry Theatre in Sechelt on Saturday, Oct. 27 at 2 p.m., and at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons Monday, Oct. 29 at 7:30 p.m. Sunshine Coast Film Society members $5; non-members $9. 

For Dear Life 

We each will face our own death in our own way, but theatre producer James Pollard dealt with his approaching demise with a rather macabre plan. As documented in the 2017 B.C. film For Dear Life, Pollard was diagnosed with terminal cancer in his mid 40s and responded by rallying friends and family to become involved in preserving his body after death. A producer to the end, and beyond! The film also deals with the range of personal and family reactions to Pollard’s coming death. The screening will be followed by a discussion. Presented by the Hospice Society on Saturday, Oct. 27 at 2 p.m. at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons. Admission $10. 

Belle Miners 

The female musical trio Belle Miners plays the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre on Thursday, Nov. 1 as part of their Westcoast Warmth Tour. The two Canadians and one Australian offer catchy folk-pop tunes in soaring, tight harmonies, as their YouTube videos attest, 6:30 to 10 p.m. at 5714 Medusa St., Sechelt. Tickets $20 to $25 on event
brite.com. 

Young Artist Awards 

Artists aged five to 18 years who take photos, build, carve, sew, draw, paint or do other art in their spare time are invited to enter up to three pieces of original works for the Young Artists Awards, presented by the Sunshine Coast Arts Council. Entries must be delivered to the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre at Trail and Medusa in Sechelt by Nov. 18. The works will be displayed at the centre until mid-December. For full details and an entry form see sunshinecoastarts
council.com. 

Submissions 

If you have an event you’d like considered for Art Beat, let Rik know at arts@coastreporter.net by 11 a.m. Tuesday. Space is limited.