Arts Briefs | Aug. 28 edition

Published 2:35 pm Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Concerts in the Park

Vashon’s Concerts in the Park series will conclude on Thursday, Aug. 28 with a beloved local band, The Great Divide, playing thier signature blend of country rock, Texas swing, and straight-up rock.

In 1987, the band won the Marlboro Country Music Talent Roundup, which came with a $5,000 prize and the opportunity to open for renowned country artists Alabama, The Judds, and George Strait at the Tacoma Dome, performing before an audience of 20,000.And through the years, they have entertained thousands of islanders at innumerable concerts.

Current members include Loren Sinner, Bob Goering, Jerry Wilks, Lonesome Mike Nichols, Greg Hitch, Randy Webb and Dan Tyack. All are from Vashon, with the exception of fiddler Wilks, who comes from Yakima, and Goering, who will be flying in for the show from his home in Hawaii.

Teenaged multi-instrumentalist Neko Rogneby will open the Aug. 28 show in her solo debut.

To find out more, visit vashonevents.org.

Dockton Art Walk

The second annual Dockton Art Walk, featuring work by 20 artists in 11 studios, will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 30 and 31. Work on view includes paintings, pottery, jewelry, neon, sculpture, block prints and felted apparel.

Food will be available to purchase at Studio #3 from Lunetta Pizzeria (Saturday) and Aeggy’s food truck (Sunday). Studio #5 will be the site of Buvette, a café pop-up, on both Saturday and Sunday.

Music will also be performed at the Old Dockton Store from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. both days, with Riverbend and Croaker taking the stage on Saturday, and Us and Lift from the Porch on Sunday.

Get a tour map and find out more at docktonartists.com.

Melanie Beth Curran

Melanie Beth Curran, a New York City-based folklorist, traditional musician and writer, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 29, at Open Space for Arts & Community,

Curran’s live performance transports listeners back and forth over centuries of musical history and landscape, exploring shifting narratives in Irish musicality through traditional American and Irish songs, hidden histories, and rousing original music.

Curran was a Fulbright recipient for her work documenting the living musical traditions of Bretagne, France.

Get tickets and find out more at openspacevashon.com.

Amanda Knox

The first two episodes of Hulu’s “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox” will be shown at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 30, at Vashon Theater as a fundraiser for the Washington Innocence Project.

Amanda Knox and her husband Christopher Robinson will be on hand to talk about the new series and answer questions from the audience. Knox and Robinson are executive producers for the eight-episode series, along with Monica Lewinsky and Warren Littlefield (“Handmaid’s Tale,” “Fargo” and “Dopesick”).

“Twisted Tale” tells the story of Knox’s wrongful conviction and imprisonment after the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher in Italy in 2007. The series then follows the public scrutiny that Amanda endured after she returned home and builds to her extraordinary return to Italy in 2022 to meet with her Italian prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini.

Standing Nation

Island theater-maker Mik Kuhlman’s solo outdoor theatre piece,“The Standing Nation: Remembering Our Kinship with Trees” will be performed twice on Sunday, Aug. 31, in a forest on Vashon. Both shows will be wheelchair accessible.

The show, first performed by Kuhlman in 2022, is a flexible outdoor theater experience with recorded music composed by Max Sarkowsky which can be staged at private homes and on behalf of community organizations in the Pacific Northwest.

Email mikshowtix@gmail.com for reservations and information about the location of performances. There is limited seating for each show.

Isaac Slade

Isaac Slade, the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, will perform at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 5 and 6, at Vashon Center for the Arts. His career-spanning solo set will feature songs from his former multi-platinum-selling rock band The Fray, as well as new music.

Slade, a Vashon resident, serves as a board chair on a music education initiative with Colorado Governor Jared Polis, aiming to provide universal music access for every K-12 student in Colorado. He works with several organizations in the fight to end human trafficking, and keeps busy with other projects including running the island’s vinyl record shop, Side Stack Records.

Get tickets and find out more at vashoncenterforthearts.org.

Liangong

Island performer, dancer and movement teacher Arlette Moody will offer a series of 12 classes, from 6:40-7:35 p.m. on Thursday nights, beginning Sept. 4, on Liangong, a health exercise practice developed in China in the 1970s. Participants will learn the first 18 exercises of the practice, which will address aching neck and shoulders, healing backaches and strengthening hips and legs. The classes will be held at Tree of Life Wellness Center.

Find out more and register at arlettemoodymovement.com.

Join the Chorale

The Vashon Chorale will soon begin rehearsing on September 9 for its annual winter concert, “Night of Silence,” to be performed on Dec. 13 and 14 at Vashon Center for the Arts.

The program will include seasonal, soulful, soothing and cross-cultural pieces by American and British composers.

Pre-registration and music distribution for the Chorale’s fall session will be held on Saturday, Sept. 6 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Windermere Real Estate, or 30 minutes before the first rehearsal, which begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9 at the Presbyterian Church. Rehearsals are held every Tuesday evening.

Founded in 1989, the Chorale has been led since 2008 by Dr. Gary Cannon, an active conductor, tenor soloist and musicologist.

Fish War

Backbone Campaign’s Meaningful Movies series will continue with a screening and discussion of “Fish War” from 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9, at Vashon Theatre.

The film covers the time period in the 1960s and 70s, when the state of Washington started arresting Indigenous tribal fishers. Scores of legal battles culminated in a landmark Supreme Court case that was meant to put an end to the violent Fish Wars. Fifty years later, the fight for salmon continues.

See a trailer for the film at tinyurl.com/4kwke58t.

The film screening will be followed by a discussion with speaker Ed Johnstone, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission Chairman, and moderator Patrick Christie, a professor at the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs and the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.

The screening is made possible with support from Vashon Theatre, Island Green Tech, 4Culture, Friends of Thunderbird, Vashon Heritage Museum, Vashon Maury Island Land Trust and the Meaningful Movies Project.

Poetry book launch

“Grief Age Love: Poems for the Autumn Years,” a new poetry collection that plumbs both the joys and sorrows of aging, will be launched at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10, in the atrium of Vashon Center for the Arts.

The book is the first to contain the works of four Vashon poet laureates: Inaugural Poet Laureate Ann Spiers, Merna Ann Hecht, Sandra Noel and Margaret Roncone, who serves in the position currently. Edited by islander Jeanie Okimoto and published by Endicott and Hugh Books, “Grief Love Age” boasts the work of more than 30 Vashon poets, many of whom will attend the event on Sept. 10 to read their works.

Find out more at endicottandhughbooks.com.

Auditions

Vashon Repertory Theater will hold auditions for its April 2026 production of “Moby Dick,” adapted and directed by David Quicksall, to be performed at Vashon Center for the Arts. Seattle auditions will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13, at Re-Act Theatre; Vashon auditions will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 14, at the Vashon High School band room.

Get more information at vashonrepertorytheatre.org/auditions-and-opportunities, and sign up at tinyurl.com/36y44baa.

Irish Music

Lane to the Glen, an acclaimed Sligo traditional trio made up acclaimed players Oisín Mac Diarmada (fiddle), Daithí Gormley (accordion) and Samantha Harvey (piano, dance) will perform at 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 15 at the Vashon Havurah, 15401 Westside Hwy SW. To reserve a seat, call or text Jan Strolle at 206-228-0730 or email janstrolle@comcast.net. Tickets are $25, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Vashon Opera

Vashon Opera will launch its 2025-26 “fairytale season” with Jule’s Massenet’s “Cendrillon” (Cinderella) with performances at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19 and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 21, at Vashon Center for the Arts.

The opera, with a French libretto by Henri Cain, is based on Charles Perrault’s version of the fairytale. Vashon Opera’s production will boast the local debuts of rising national and regional opera stars Sarah Colt (Cinderella) and Sarah Eduljee (Fairy Godmother), and the return of Vashon Opera favorite Grace Skinner as Prince Charming.

Find out more and get tickets at vashonopera.org.

Correction: The print edition of this story included an editing and proofreading error that resulted in the omission of much of the information pertaining to the Sept. 9 screening of “Fish War” at Vashon Theatre. We regret the error, which is corrected here.