News Around the Lake...

The Taste of Grand Fundraiser to benefit the Grove General Hospital Foundation will be held Sept 17 beginning at 6 p.m. at Patricia Island Golf Club and will offer samples of fine food from more than 17 restaurants around the Lake. Wines to sample will also be available, as well as beer, and entertainment will be offered by Superfreak from Oklahoma City featuring 70's disco type music. Tickets: $60 each now, Kristi Middleton at 787-3855...The Lake's last fireworks display of the year will be on Duck Creek Sunday Sept 4 to raise funds for a proposed airport improvement at the Ketchum Airport. Brent Howard, the restorer of fine old boats, is chairman for the South Grand Lake Municipal Airport Authority. He wants to pave a runway 5,000 feet in length to make a positive economic impact for the South end of the lake. Cost is estimated at $300,000 since contractors are donating the equipment, and $225,000 has already been pledged. Currently a 3,000 foot grass strip is in place. Howard said this is a Title 60 Public Trust and donations are eligible for tax deductions. The Master Plan calls for a credit card fueling station, FBO and rental hangers. More details are at www.southgrandlakeairport.com.
Auditions will be held in the Grove Community Center, Saturday, August 27 at 1:00 p.m for “The Little Prince,” the Playmaker’s youth theatre production scheduled for November 11-20.
The secret of what is really important in life is the basis for this classic story by Antoine de Saint Exupéry. The Little Prince learns this secret, finally, from a fox in a visit to the Earth from his small asteroid.
The play will be directed by Linda Fracek. Cast requirements include: the Aviator and the Rose (high school students); the Little Prince, King, and a desert flower (mid-school, upper-elementary); a conceited person, business person, lamplighter, geographer, snake, and fox (any gender or age over 5 who can read & learn lines); and six to twelve actors to act as an ensemble (any gender or age over 5—no lines). Participants will read from the play-script so prepared audition pieces are necessary for young children only who have limited reading skills.
Leave a message with any questions about the auditions and a confirmation of your attendance with The Playmakers, 918-786-8950. Please include your school level on the message. Rehearsal for some characters will begin after Labor Day...
The Playmakers, Grove’s Community Theatre, has been awarded an Annual Project Support grant from the Oklahoma Arts Council. These funds have already begun to assist in funding the five productions scheduled for the 10th anniversary year, 2005-2006.
The grant requires that The Playmakers match the Arts Council’s funds with local resources in order to receive the award. “This is the first time we have been eligible for this specific grant,” said Linda DuBois, Board Finance Chair. “With the many other arts organizations and community theatres in Oklahoma applying for these monies, we are very fortunate to get a piece of the pie,” she added. “They will cover about one third of the Playmakers annual production budget of approximately $30,000. For example, the recent successful show, “Le Grande Follies,” which kicked off our anniversary year, was given $3000 towards the approximately $8000 expended on mounting such a large production. We can keep our ticket prices low for a while longer because of grants like these,” she explained, “but we still have to cover the overhead through other means.”
Through state appropriations and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts,
the Oklahoma Arts Council funds over 1,200 events annually with an estimated total
attendance of over 3.5 million. Projects funded by the Oklahoma Arts Council
generally account for over $20 million in grants and matching funds distributed
throughout Oklahoma’s rural and urban communities.