The Warsaw Community High School Performing Arts Center announced its 2016-17 season. For tickets, call 574-371-5040 or visit online at www.warsawpac.org More information also is available by liking the PAC’s Facebook page. The season lineup starts Feb. 25 with Sleuths Mystery Dinner Show where you are the nobility and have been invited to Lord Mansfield’s annual fox hunt banquet. You enter Mansfield’s Mansion and are greeted by Jeffries, the butler. He, the epitome of solicitousness and decorum, ushers you into an elaborate dining room where a boisterous maid is serving up hors d’oeuvres. Gypsies are preparing a feast and Lord Mansfield is concocting a potent home brew in the kitchen. Thievery, debauchery, and magic occur as one of the characters meets an inevitable fate. Solving this crime will be a challenge for the entire family. Dinner and dessert provided by “The Cake Lady.” On March 4, the PAC will play host to Night of Harmony. Three International Barbershop Quartet Champions come together to offer this show. Instant Classic, Storm Front and Vocal Spectrum take the stage in this night. The WCHS Select Choral also will join the show. Up next is Adam Trent on March 31. What comes to mind when you think of a magician? Is it a guy who makes awkward dance movements and tells stale jokes while torturing women in wooden boxes? Until recently, this has been people’s stereotype of magicians. Trent is not suggesting that simply wearing jeans and a trendy shirt solves this problem. Perhaps a good refresh is needed. Trent always thought that magic should be entertaining first and tricky second. He doesn’t want people to remember just the “tricks”, but also the laughs and the memories that were made. So that’s the way he approaches his performance style. On April 8 Helen Welch takes the stage. Sponsored by the Lakeland Community Concert Association, she is a critically acclaimed vocalist whose live stage performances explore a diverse range of musical compositions, starting with the 1930s up through present-day. Whether she’s singing Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee and Sarah Vaughan, or Elton John, Sting and Randy Newman, Helen’s sophisticated vocals and humor leave audiences enchanted, according to information provided by the PAC. The “Helen Welch experience” is perhaps best described by a fan who wrote on her Amazon page, “If you have a chance to see Helen perform, do it! You are in for a special treat.” The last show will be May 6 with Paul Asaro. Also sponsored by the Lakeland Community Concert Association, Asaro is known as one of the finest of a select group of pianists who have mastered the demanding two-handed jazz and ragtime piano styles from the first half of the 20th century, information provided by the PAC states. The Stride piano of James P. Johnson, Willie “The Lion” Smith and Fats Waller, the New Orleans styles of Jelly Roll Morton, the ragtime of Scott Joplin and Eubie Blake, stomps, boogie woogie and swing, Asaro “plays them all with a fine ear for detail, blending the elements into his own personal style.” Most of Paul’s earliest influences were more recent pianists such as Dick Wellstood, Ralph Sutton and Butch Thompson, musicians who worked within these traditions while at the same time developing their own unique approach.
