In Brief: November 12

Falcon Marching Band brings stadium sounds indoors

The Falcon Marching Band will present its annual “Sounds of the Stadium” concert at 3 p.m. Sunday (Nov. 15) in Kobacker Hall at the Moore Musical Arts Center.

Led by Falcon Marching Band director Dr. Michael King and Director of Bands Bruce Moss, the band will perform music from its halftime shows at this season’s Falcon football games. With highlights from halftime shows like “Frieda and Freddie Funk It Up” and “Talons Up!” to “Lost in the 90s,” the band has something to please everyone in the spirited concert.

King, who is in his first year at BGSU conducting the marching band, said pleasing the wide audience that attends the football games has been one of his goals this year. “We will have a little bit of everything to make sure that everybody who’s in the audience can attach themselves to what we do in some way or other,” he said.

At 259 members, the Falcon Marching Band is the largest student organization on campus. It is composed of students from all colleges of the University and is open to all students by audition regardless of major and class standing.

Music majors are admitted free to the concert with proper BGSU ID.  Advance tickets are $3 for students and children and $7 for adults. All tickets are $10 on the day of the concert. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit bgsu.edu/Arts or call the Arts Box Office at 419-372-8171.

Befuddled lovers and wedding day antics make for ‘A Perfect Wedding’

The welcome and unwelcome guests at a wedding set in a mystical forest are at the heart of “A Perfect Wedding,” by playwright Charles Mee. Their humorous antics carry the play, the second production of the season for the theatre and film department.

Directed by Sara Chambers, theatre and film, “A Perfect Wedding” was inspired by widely divergent texts on the topic of love and marriage.

“The topics include Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ Soap Opera Digest, the writings of Gottfried von Strassburg, Li Yu, Kenneth V. Iverson, Bill Neal, Laura Kipnis and the Internet,” said Chambers.

Multiculturalism abounds in the play. A groom on the brink of his wedding dashes off into a forest, followed by the bride and the wedding party. There, love is found in many guises: Meridee, the bride (played by Mackenzie Baumhower), with Ariel (Micala Behrens), her bridesmaid; Meridee's sister Tessa (Bessie Smith) with the escapist groom Amadou (Nate Zibkowski); and one of the four male wedding planners with another. To top off the craziness, between these escapades and the three weddings that climax the play is a funeral.

Chicago’s Windy City Times said, “'A Perfect Wedding' fits the bill for adventurous audiences looking for something different. This unconventional piece is also timely since it is largely friendly—if slightly ambivalent—toward the message that all kinds of people should be allowed to form long-lasting marriages, including gays and lesbians.”

“I hope that our audiences are both challenged and delighted by Mee’s view of the world presented in ‘A Perfect Wedding’ and are moved by his ultimate assertion that people long for a connection with one another,” Chambers said.

This play involves mature themes and is not suitable for children.

“A Perfect Wedding” opens at 8 p.m. on Nov. 19. Additional performances are at 8 p.m. on Nov. 20 and 21, as well as at 2 p.m. on Nov. 21 and 22 in the Thomas B. and Kathleen M. Donnell Theatre in the Wolfe Center for the Arts. Advance-purchase seats are $15 for adults and $5 for students and children. All tickets are $15 the day of the performance. To purchase tickets, visit bgsu.edu/arts or call the box office at 419-372-8171.