merelyplayers.org - Nightlife opens up to avant-garde music, theatre

merelyplayers.org - Menu

merelyplayers.org - Sharon Huff

Visit Merely Players @

Press Room

Nightlife opens up to avant-garde music, theatre

12/08/06

by Matt Weafer
Messenger-Inquirer

No longer is the nightlife scene just about smoky bars and Bon Jovi cover bands. Owensboro is adding a healthy menagerie of culture-rich pubs and avant-garde entertainment.

With the evolution of Martin's Bar into the low-key, mellow, easy hang-out with original acoustic music, where friends can gather and actually have a conversation without straining their vocal cords, one of the oldest bars in town welcomes a weekend environment minus the helter-skelter atmosphere of the cliché bar scene.

Zazu and The Brothers' Pizza have embraced the arts in Owensboro. The Brothers' opens its stage to local musicians for original music, and Zazu also welcomes original music and hosts Merely Players, an irreverent, edgy theater troupe, taking live theater off the traditional stage onto nontraditional, offbeat venues.

The rest of the year for Martin's Bar, 624 E. Second St., will be relatively laid-back, owner Eric Hamilton said. "We're going to decorate and play some Christmas music," Hamilton said. "We're just going to have some holiday cheer."

Zazu, 119 E. Second St., hosts Merely Players every Tuesday night at 8 with a $5 cover charge.

Alan Velotta, artistic director of Merely Players, said the group is a member-driven theater troupe performing in various locations other than the traditional theater.

"By removing the artificial barriers associated with the traditional theater, such as stage, curtain, sets and lights, we're able to engage the audience, making them a part of the performance," Velotta said.

The end of the year will finish with a performance of "Best in Show 2006." Velotta said Merely Players will perform a two-part review of the best-received short plays and musicals of the year. The first act will be short sketches and plays, and the second act will be songs and other comic bits from musicals such as "The Rocky Horror Show" and "Forbidden Broadway."

Next year's performances are quickly lining up as well, Velotta said, including "Rattlesnakes," a full-length play by London playwright Graham Farrow, who will travel to Owensboro to help produce and supervise the production.

"Doing shows in nontraditional venues, we do things very simply," Velotta said. "In the process we're exposing unlikely audiences to live theater, which makes theater cool again, and a lot less expensive."

Cultivating another spectrum of the art world, The Brothers' Pizza, 624 E. Second St., invites original bands and musicians to perform virtually every weekend.

Jared Wright of J.W. Entertainments, a promoter of the Owensboro music scene, said until The Brothers' opened its music venue, original bands had few places to perform.

Saturday, the bands Get Your Guns and The Average Unknown Soldier will perform. On Dec. 17, southern hard-core band Kill the Sheriff will perform, along with With Faith or Flames and Nights Like These. The bands Far From Fallen and Thought So Murderous will take the stage on Dec. 22.

The Brothers' is the only venue hosting live, original music every weekend in Owensboro. However, Wright, who is also interning with Sunlite Music Co., said Sunlite is remodeling the back room in their location at 600 W. Third St. to begin booking concerts.