Riffs, roams and raves with Wimberley View Editor Teresa Kendrick
Riffs: Wimberley Music Fest 2024 and Sarah Jarosz Don’t forget to mark your calendars for Barnabas Connection’s Wimberley Music Fest on October 12 at the VFW Rodeo Fairgrounds. The Creek Church,” made up of singers and musicians who are actively involved in the church. They are followed by Wimberley Feng Shui, Dylan James Riley, Benji Uzo, the Hill Country Honeys and Icy Simpson-Monroe performing with the Wimberley United Methodist Church and Wimberley Presbyterian Church choirs.
Classical singer Simpson- Monroe of Austin has creds a mile long as a performer and her voice, described as “otherworldly,” was featured in the award-winning documentary, “When I Rise,” the story of Barbara Smith Conrad. Her business, Clapton and an endless number of Texas musicians who are featured in the film. Keys, who toured with the Stones for more than 45 years, was especially recognized for his work on the song “Brown Sugar” and the album “Exile on Main Street.”
Like many gifted musicians, Keys was a smalltown Texas kid who found the road out of town through music. He died at the age of 70 in 2014.
Following the film, there will be a question and answer period with the director Jeff Stacy and Hector Saldaña, Texas Music Coordinator, The Wittliff Collections. Tickets are $5. Doors open at 6:15 p.m, complementary pizza and drinks served from 6:30 p.m., and the film starts at 7. The Price Center is located at 222 W. San Antonio St. in San Marcos. For more information about First Tuesday SMTX, visit firsttuesdaysmtx. com.
Raves: Now and Then The play on stage at the Wimberley Playhouse, “Now and Then,” is a bonafide winner. If it hasn’t crossed your radar or you’re on the fence about attending, take a leap of faith and go. I thoroughly enjoy this kind of fresh storytelling from contemporary production of “The Tin Woman” garnered rave reviews, notably for Nina Bryant’s performance, from an eminent Austin reviewer who wrote, “I rarely jump to my feet after a performance to applaud an actor, but tonight I did…” The play is set in a bar and the Players set is so realistic that I almost jumped up and started clearing the tables of glasses and bottles, alongside the actor. It was that convincing.
The play comes across, to me, as a television program of unusual substance. The dialogue is fresh, contemporary and so seamlessly real that it’s almost like overhearing a friend’s conversation on the phone. It is a dramedy, half drama and half comedy, which is a dramatic structure that is so relatable to American audiences.
The play opens in 1981, just as bartender Jamie is closing down the bar. At the last minute, a desperate customer offers him and his girlfriend, Abby, $2,000 to sit and have a drink with him. As the trio swap stories, the young couple realize that the last-minute customer is unusually invested in their choices and the reason he gives them is mind bending.
