OTTUMWA —
Years ago, the first Bridge View Center board said they wanted events that appealed to all sorts of community members. It appears they’ve gotten their wish.
A preview of the newly released event calendar shows events catering to different audiences — or maybe the same exact people in a different mood.
One night, an audience member could be cheering (and jeering) during professional wrestling or roller derby; on another night, they could be listening to the Ottumwa Symphony.
At the Cornbelt Cow Calf Conference, visitors could learn about marketing their animals. The next month, they could watch someone else’s animals during the Bull Riders of America finals.
The Gospel Music Association’s 2012 Artist of the Year Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers is performing, and — as of Tuesday, at least — some tickets remained. And Jake McVey, the first country singer from Iowa to have a number-one music video on CMT, will be here.
Of course, Bridge View has other shows that don’t call for season tickets: the Home and Garden Expo, the 4-H Expo and a three-day craft fair. They will also have a night’s entertainment by a professional stage magician, a gun and knife show and performances by the Ottumwa Community Players.
On Tuesday, however, Bridge View Center announced the upcoming season, and the public, including potential season-ticket holders, saw what they’d get if they came to the live series Bridge View has planned.
“You have never before had a preview of the Bridge View Theater Series,” said Larry Gawronski, the center’s executive director. “The only way I know how to do that is to give you a taste of each [performance].”
Another first, he said, is the number of community supporters who came forward to get some of the top shows to town — and, through funding the events, keeping the prices down.
The biggest sponsor has been a local bank, for which Bridge View renamed the schedule of shows “The South Ottumwa Savings Bank Bridge View Theater Series.”
Gawronski was the master of ceremonies, introducing a mixture of large screen videos and live performances.
At one point, he combined both: A Beatles tribute band, in which each member was chosen by George Harrison’s sister, spoke to audience members via a web cam set up at their Branson show location.
The Liverpool Legends said they’ll perform a musical history of the Beatles running from the Ed Sullivan appearance through the Sgt. Pepper years. It’s so real, a member (possibly joking ...) told Ottumwans that Yoko Ono comes out on stage and breaks up the band.
Gawronski surprised some audience members by saying the show (which he has seen) is so real that the Beatles’ music playing as the audience filtered in Tuesday night was actually the Liverpool Legends.
Nationally known comedian Jimmy McHugh drove to Ottumwa from Chicago to support his show, as well as the live arts in general.
“It was a pleasure to come down,” McHugh said after he performed live.
The show he co-produces, Chicago Comedy All Stars, is made up of four individual standup comics who he has confidence in. Toward the end of the show, he said, all four are on stage at once.
The majority of the show? Concentrated comedy.
“It’s not like each of us needs to perform 45 minutes of material. It’s four performers in a 90-minute or two-hour show, so they’re hitting you with their best material,” he said.
He seemed to quickly connect with the Ottumwa crowd. Some parts of his act are universally understood as funny, he said, but he adjusts his act based on who he’s performing for.
For example, he saw a train passing across the Des Moines River from Bridge View Center on Tuesday night. As someone who is from the Midwest, he said, he gets how annoying to motorists a train can be, as he himself has had to wait for more than a hundred cars to crawl past before they slowly grind to a stop — and then start going backwards.
He also struck the right note with his audience when he mentioned how much he dislikes vacuuming, which he equates with mowing the lawn — indoors.
“If they made a ride-on vacuum cleaner, I’d vacuum every day,” he said.
A total of six shows are in the series, and a friend of Gawronski’s, Jeff Chelesvig, said it’s season tickets that help support programs like this. He should know: Most of the seats at the venue he oversees, The Civic Center of Greater Des Moines, are taken up by season-ticket holders, and they helped make his center a success.
Season tickets can be bought now. Tickets for individual shows don’t go on sale until August, Gawronski said.
Local News
Related Photos
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Chicago comedian Jimmy McHugh meets a brand new fan after the short preview he gave at Bridge View Center on Tuesday. Season ticket holders will see McHugh's show as well as five other productions this season. Mark Newman/The Courier
June 20, 2012
Bridge View Center previews new season
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