Blog

Reading of Pinter’s “No Man’s Land” at Towgate

WHEELING, W.Va. (February 16, 2016) – -Oglebay Institute’s Towngate Theatre will offer a staged reading of “No Man’s Land” by Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter at 8 p.m. Friday, March 4 at Towngate Theatre.  The performance is part of Towngate’s Second Season, which enhances Wheeling’s arts landscape by featuring literary programming, theatrical readings, poetry, improvisation and more.

A tantalizing and poetic play, “No Man’s Land” explores a sense of being caught in a mysterious limbo between time present and time remembered, reality and imagination and life and death.  Michael Ramsay, president of Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, and Wheeling playwright Tom Stobart will read the lead roles. The performance is directed by community theater veteran Arlene Merryman. The cast also features Butch Maxwell and Lewis Willming.

Harold Pinter was a Nobel Prize-winning English playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen.

Tom Stobart, Butch Maxwell and Michael Ramsay will perform a reading of Pinter's "No Man's Land" March 4 at Towngate Theatre.
Tom Stobart, Butch Maxwell and Michael Ramsay will perform a reading of Pinter’s “No Man’s Land” March 4 at Towngate Theatre.

“No Man’s Land” is set in 1975 in a large room with a bar at a house located in London, and over the course of two hours of tension undercut by comedic dialogue we get to know a wealthy man of letters, Hirst, a hard-up “poet,” Spooner, and Hirst’s two overprotective servants.

Since its premiere in 1975 and its acclaimed 2008 London revival, “No Man’s Land” has been hailed as one of Pinter’s indisputable modern classics.

Stobart, who reads the role of Hirst, says the play is “by turns, funny, scary, and resonantly poetic and a piece that will haunt and tantalize the memory.”

Guests are invited to stay after the reading for coffee, cookies and mingling with the cast.

There is a nominal admission fee of $5. For more information, call 304-242-7700 or visit www.oionline.com.

Towngate Theatre is located in Wheeling’s Centre Market district at 2118 Market Street.

OI’s Craft Beer Series Continues Feb. 26

Wheeling, W.Va. (February 16, 2016)- – Oglebay Institute continues its Art and Ale craft beer series at 6:30 p.m. Friday, February 26 at its Stifel Fine Arts Center in Wheeling. The event features a selection of beers from Colorado-based New Belgium Brewery – available for the first time in West Virginia. The Stifel Fine Arts Center is among the first Wheeling venues to feature New Belgium’s award-winning craft beers.

Fort Collins, Colorado has been home for New Belgium since its beginning in 1991. The company is in the process of opening a second home in Asheville, N.C.  The fourth largest craft brewery in the United States, New Belgium is a 100 % employee-owned brewery and is one of the Wall Street Journal’s Best Small Businesses.

“We’ve spent a lot of time in West Virginia this past year, and there is definitely a strong, emerging craft scene there,” New Belgium divisional sales director Rich Rush said in a press release. “We’re excited to get to work and to begin a great and long-lasting relationship with the beer drinkers, retailers and our distributor partners in West Virginia.”

OI’s Art and Ale event will feature five New Belgium selections paired with a buffet of foods prepared by Ye Olde Alpha. Beer selections include:

• Fat Tire Amber Ale (toasty, biscuit-like malt flavors coasting in equilibrium with hoppy freshness)
• Citradelic Tangerine IPA (a blend of citrus, tropical fruit and pine hop with light herbal and caramel notes)
• Ranger IPA (an abundance of hop flavor from start to finish),
• Slow Ride Session IPA (a blend of eight hop varieties twisted with tropical scents of melon, peach, lime and grapefruit)
• Hoppy Blonde Ale (malty-sweet with a light bitter finish)

The Fat Tire Amber Ale will feature a limited-edition label commemorating New Belgium’s entrance into the West Virginia beer market.

Guests at the February 26 event will also have an opportunity to browse the art gallery and explore the historic Stifel Fine Arts Center, which was known as Edemar Mansion and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Tickets are $30. Members of Oglebay Institute receive a discount. Advance reservations are required and can be made by calling 304-242-7700 or at www.oionline.com.