Dueling Pianos Concert Held at the Roxy

Big Time Entertainment put together a dueling pianos concert at the Roxy in Hopkins Saturday with around 50 people present. Those who did not go missed out on a wide variety of songs from Polka songs from the 1930’s that only the older folks remembered to some songs in the early 1980’s that certain older folks back then used to refer to as “devil music.” They even threw in a Michael Jackson tune.

In between, they played plenty of pop songs and old country. They played two Beatles classics, the Johnny Cash classic “Folsom Prison Blues,” John Denver’s classic “Country Roads,” and one song, “Hey, Good Lookin’,” that was frequently played back in the early 1980’s, but has not been played recently.

The band consists of Ken Page and Kevin Coon on the pianos and Frank Delacris on the drums.

They interacted well with their audience, who knew all the songs by heart and didn’t need a whole lot of prompting to sing along. In the contest between the women and the men, the women always seemed to out-sing the men, with the exception of Gunner Stricker, who seems to have musical talent like his older brother, Gannon, does.

The band made several of the audience members stars of the show, including Gunner, who got up and sang one song, along with John White, who displayed a side of him that many people didn’t know about. Mr. White broke out some dance moves and gave certain members of the audience a spanking to keep them in line during the show.

 

The Hopkins Guys In Concert at the Roxy August 14th

The Hopkins Guys will be live in concert Friday, August 14th at the Roxy at 7:00  pm. Members will be Phil Forney, Jerry Forney, Robbie Forney, Ricky Cross, Rick Titus, Dennis White, and J.R. Gladman. Proceeds will be used to pay for the restoration of the neon sign. Hopkins businesses have been helping to raise money to restore the sign. Concessions will be available.

 

Cake Show Doubles as Roxy Fundraiser

A cake party will double as a fundraiser for the Roxy Theater in Hopkins. The party will be held Sunday, August 23rd at the North Nodaway Gym with doors opening at 2 pm. Cost is $20 per person with preregistration or $25 at the door. All proceeds will go to the Roxy.

Every attendee who brings a cake can get up to 12 slices of other cakes. A box will be provided. Homemade or store-bought cakes are welcome. You must have a cake to enter.  Please bring your own cake server. Bring any kind of cake you like.

Before they begin, people will be allowed to walk around and view the cakes. One group at a time will be called to pick out their slices of cake, but you will only have 10 minutes to do it.

There will be a drawing for various door prizes.

There will be drinks available for sale in the commons area.

To enter or for more information, contact Deena Poynter (660) 541-1336, Kary Owens (660) 562-0460, or Judy Crane (660) 254-2427.

 

 

Roxy Attracts Interest as Event Venue

The Roxy has been attracting interest as an event venue following its first two concerts. The first concert, the Forney Bros., featuring various artists from around the area, attracted around 150 people in June. More recently, Crazy Professor Hair raised around $677 at a Friday concert.

The venue has attracted interest from other people wanting to hold events at the Roxy along with offers of help.

The board, at its meeting Monday, voted to make the Roxy an alcohol-free venue.

Don Crane reported that the place needs dehumidifiers to fight ongoing mold issues in the building.

On the wish list for the future is repairing the sign, which would cost thousands. It is not something that will be done immediately, but down the road when the Roxy is on a firmer financial footing.

 

Roxy Theater Benefit June 20th at Hopkins

After several months of work refreshing the Roxy Center in Hopkins, plans are underway to celebrate a reopening with a night of special music featuring the Forney Brothers and special guests on June 20th.  Jerry Forney has long wished to host live music at this venue and is calling on his musician friends to sing and play to raise funds to help operate the theater.

The show will kick off with some area musicians with ties to Hopkins like JR Gladman and Rick Titus then finish with the crew of Jerry Forney including his brother Larry.   Phil Forney is still recuperating from a car accident and surgery that occurred in May.

The Roxy Theater opened in the late 1940's as a movie theater and was operated for a number of years by the Ralph White Family including his sons, Merle and Forrest. After the movie theater closed, the building sat idle until the mid 1990's when Hopkins Community 2000 purchased the building from Merle and a restoration began. Additional plans for the upper floor to house a youth center and updates to the theater to accommodate live performances were made. Live acts, school plays and Hopkins Picnic events were held there over the next several years.

With some damage to the theater after a storm occurred the Roxy hadn't been used much for a while.  Morgan Pope, a senior at North Nodaway at the time, undertook the challenge of fixing up the youth center, putting on a fresh coat of paint and getting things back in working order.  A grant from the Gladys Rickard Foundation supplied the resources to reface the east wall, replace windows and repair other parts of the theater. Though there are still some other projects the group would like to tackle, the theater is ready to be used again. There are plans for other live performances and the youth center to be open on a monthly basis.

For more information contact Deena Poynter at 660-541-1336 or Kary Owens at 660-562-0460.

 

 

Work Day Held at Roxy

Around 20 students and adults helped during a work day at the Roxy Saturday. Helping out were Laney, Landon, and Ashley Turner, Draven Rader, Taccoa Moyer, Amy Richards, Owen Martin, Lakota Rucker, Airanna Owens, Ali Brittain, Don and Judy Crane, Vicki Riley, Cameron Morrison, Deena Poynter, Glenda Wyer-Nelson, Cody and Emily Bix, and Allan Thompson. Maryville Hy-Vee donated donuts and water to the workers.

Workers did painting, vacuuming, and cleanup.

The hole on the roof has been fixed, and the east side of the building shored up. Another work day will be held at a later date.

The North Nodaway School Play will once again be at the Roxy April 4th and 5th at 7 pm each night. The play is named “The Audition,” and it will be about a play audition with a bunch of rambunctious students trying out for different roles. The question is whether the director (Olivia Renfro) can put it together in time for the play to be a success.

 

North Nodaway School Play Takes Satirical Look at Grocery Store

The North Nodaway school play was held Friday at the Roxy Theater. It was a short one act play, “Paper or Plastic,” which took a satirical look at what really goes on inside a grocery store. 

Sarah (Olivia Parker) has worked at the store as long as she ever has, around six months, and decides that she deserves a promotion, or at least a raise. She finds the Assistant Manager, Carla (Alyssa Roderick), lounging on her couch staring into her cell phone. To everyone’s surprise, Carla grants the promotion so she can get out of the store and take the two week vacation that she feels she deserves.

But Sarah’s problems have just begun, seeing that she is taking on tasks and problems that usually happened behind the scenes. There was a product demonstration due at the store for tomorrow, there was a big store promotion due for that weekend, there were all sorts of customer issues and complaints to handle, angry workers were threatening to go on strike – and by the way, there was a 20% chance of an ice storm that night.

Everybody’s worst fears come true, and an ice storm as bad as the one that hit the area in 2009 hits in full force and is expected to leave everyone stranded until at least the weekend. The store descends into chaos as Sarah finds herself trying to referee a fight between a milk shopper (Saylor Brown) and a bread shopper (Kirsten Bull), confronting angry workers who demand more pay and who have taken a hostage in the process, trying to find enough people to cover all the responsibilities, and being lectured by a stressed out mom of four (Lexi Harger) who spends every night at the store standing around reading her magazine. How will Sarah navigate the rampant chaos, and will she able to stay up the night, given that she has never worked night shift before? And can the in-store announcer (Ellaina Renfro) help keep up appearances and persuade shoppers to buy the latest savings on ice, 25 cents off, tonight only? Meanwhile, there is rampant looting taking place, with two looters (Sarah Chesnut, Saryn Brown) helping themselves to the Lucky Charms cereal and fighting over it.

Also participating in the play were Karissa Oberhauser (Regina, Shopper 3), Braya McGinness (Kenny), Hayleigh Vinzant (Little Sam), Sophia Ferguson (Connie), Sydney Whipple (Felicia, Shopper 1), and Morgan Pope (Shopper 2). Hailee Dominguez was the stage manager, while Danielle Riedel and Tessa Steele worked the production room. Emily Bix was the director.