The start of the holiday season begins with Halloween and the GFWC Coral Gables Woman’s Club’s annual Halloween party on Oct. 29 always is a player.
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 spootacular evening co-chaired by club 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.
On Nov. 17, the club members will be filling countless Thanksgiving baskets for those families of the dental clinic clients and collecting gift cards as holiday gifts for the children. That same evening, they also will package toiletry gifts to donate to Agape women.
The club has exploded with new members this year all anxious to serve the community and women interested in joining can visit www.gfwccoralgableswomansclub.org.
On the theater front, Actors’ Playhouse raised the curtain on its 2016-17 Mainstage Season with the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Million Dollar Quartet, a musical running through Jan. 1, 2017, in their intimate 300-seat Balcony Theatre.
Opening night on Oct. 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 plays 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 are 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.
On the party front, the Coral Gables Museum provided a lovely venue for the celebration of Biscayne National Park’s 48th anniversary and the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. The National Parks Conservation Association invited guests to celebrate our national parks with hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and a short program surrounded by “This Land Is Your Land: A Second Century For America’s National Parks,” the national parks exhibit currently on display.
Sponsors for the affair were Travelodge, National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) and the Coral Gables Museum. A birthday cake for the momentous occasion was cut by none other that the father of Biscayne National Park, Lloyd Miller, at an amazingly spry 96 years old.
Among the more than 100 guests were NCPA regional director of the Sun Coast office, John Adornato; Miami-Dade County District 8 Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava; Lt. Col. Tom Davis and wife Jesika Davis, and Yolanda Woodbridge, to mention a few.
Until next time, keep making each day count.
If you want to submit information for this column, please send your news via email to gloria@communitynewspapers.com.
