The start of the holiday season begins with Halloween and the GFWC Coral Gables Woman’s Club’s annual Halloween party on October 29 is always a player with many members coming from the great Pinecrest area. This year’s event featured another haunted mansion affair with lots of food, dancing, contests for best costumes and more. Taking top costume prize was Michael Stoklosa, who came as a giant dinosaur. Not being able to eat or drink, Michael just danced the night away adding to an already spooktacular evening co chaired by Past President Barbara Lapsley and Dr. Iris Torres Rivera, whose husband Ralph and son David took over when she had to leave town for a family emergency. These amazing members of the CGWC Men’s Auxiliary came through again. Proceeds from the evening will benefit the club’s free children’s dental clinic adjacent to their historic clubhouse that provides more than $220,000 in free dental services annually to children of the working poor.
Club members prepared multiple boxes recently for Operation Christmas Child and again, on November 17, will be filling countless Thanksgiving basket for those families of the dental clinic clients and collecting gift cards as holiday gifts for the children. That same evening, they will also package toiletry gifts to donate to Agape women. This club has exploded with new members this year all anxious to serve the community and women from Miami-Dade and Broward interested in joining may visit www.gfwccoralgableswomansclub.org.
In other Halloween related events, it seems the costumes get better every year and not just for humans. Case in point was Howl-O-Ween at Pinecrest Gardens. This was a pet-focused Halloween bash with a doggie fun zone, trick-or-treating, craft projects, pumpkin patch portraits, costume contests an adoptable dog parade, live entertainment, DJs, and so much more all to benefit Paws 4 You Rescue.
With Thanksgiving and Christmas just around the corner, some great events are already on the agenda. “Caring Santa” will make an appearance at the Falls on November 20, 9 – 11:30 a.m. And the n Dadeland Mall on December 4, 9 – 10:30 a.m. Dadeland Mall will provide children with special needs a welcoming environment for a subdued beautiful opportunity to visit Santa with their families. To sign up, check in with Everbrite — www.eventbrite.com/e/caring-santa-tickets-27077787391. The events are free.
Another event focused on children comes up the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Join the fun at the Annual Jr. Orange Bowl Parade, 4 p.m. in Coral Gables. Look for lots of our local schools and youth groups who will be performing. For bleacher seating in front of City Hall on Biltmore, visit jrorangebowl.org to purchase. Ticket will also go on sale by the grandstand area at 10 a.m. parade day.
On the theatre front, Actors’ Playhouse kicked off its 2016-17 Mainstage Season with the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Million Dollar Quartet , a musical running through January 1, 2017, in their intimate 300-seat Balcony Theatre. Opening night on October 20 received a standing ovation and an encore performance after which the cast mingled with the audience as they enjoyed some yummy food catered compliments of JohnMartins.
This show brings us back in time to a recording studio where Sam Phillips (Sun Records) invites 4 icons (Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins ) to meet. They end up having a one time only jam session that rocks the house. Directed by award-winning Actors’ Playhouse Artistic Director David Arisco, David works his magic with musical director Manny Schvartzman and associate musical direction by Dominique Scott , who played Jerry Lee Lewis like no other bringing the audience to belly laughs with his antics playing the piano upside down and backwards . Others rounding out this awesome cast of characters were Jim Ballard (Sam Phillips), Eddie Clendening (Elvis), Lindsey Corey (Dyanne), Andy Davis (Fluke) Adam Egizi (Brother Jay), Sky Seals (Johnny Cash), and Jeremy Sevelovitz (Carl Perkins) . Among the many enjoying the show were lots of women from the Coral Gables Woman’s Club including this writer with Marti Bueso, Valerie Valenzuela, former Mayor Dorothy Thomson with hubby Jack, Ruth Martinez with husband Sam, all of whom raved about the show as did everyone.
Finally, Orchestra Miami’s 10th Anniversary Season celebration will be held on Sunday, Nov. 20th , 4 p.m. at the Scottish Rite Temple auditorium featuring internationally renowned soprano Eglise Gutierrez and Argentinean violinist Tomas Cotik. For more information, visit orchestramiami.org.
Until next time, keep making each day count.
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