Making History Again

Mountain Theatre Company’s record-breaking run of Jersey Boys sets the pace for a successful season of local professional theater.

Mountain Theatre Company made history last summer at The Highlands Playhouse with Jersey Boys, its opening production of the 2022 Mainstage Season. All 22 performances of the show’s run sold out, totaling over 3,700 tickets sold. It is rare for a show to sell out its entire run, but once word got out in Western North Carolina that the level of talent on MTC’s stage was rivalling that of Broadway, ticket sales took off at an enormous rate. Multiple performances saw people waiting outside the theatre doors as performances began with patrons hoping to score seats from last minute ticket cancellations.

As MTC began to select the current 2023 Season, returning patrons and people who were unable to get tickets to Jersey

Boys began begging them to produce the show again. In a bold move, Executive Director Scott Daniel brought the show back for a limited run return engagement to kick off their 2023 Season this summer. Most of the cast returned as well, including the actors playing the roles of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, whose incredible harmonies and chemistry on stage together had audiences raving.

Despite having fewer performances in a shorter production run, and thanks to their new theater venue at the Highlands Performing Arts Center having another 100 seats to sell, MTC’s 2023 production of Jersey Boys sold even more tickets than the 2022 run. A total of 3,748 people came to see Jersey Boys the second time around, breaking the show’s own previously held record. The cast and crew celebrated on stage on closing night with a champagne toast after their director, Scott Daniel, shared the news at the final curtain call.

The incredible success of Jersey Boys is setting the stage for another groundbreaking season at Mountain Theatre Company, their first in their new venue as the resident professional theatre company at the new HPAC.

Their 2023 Season continues with Rock of Ages, The Rocky Horror Show, and Home for the Holidays. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit mountaintheatre.com.

by Lindsay Garner Hostetler, Director of Marketing and Outreach, Mountain Theatre Company

Photography’s Dynamic Duo

Brilliant photographers Jacquelyn and Gil Leebrick share their talents and insights with members of the Art League of Highlands-Cashiers, 5:00 P.M. Monday, August 28.

The Art League of HighlandsCashiers is pleased to announce that the guest speakers at the August meeting will be Jacquelyn and Gil Leebrick. The presentation will be at The Bascom Terrace at 5:00 P.M., August 28, following a social at 4:30 P.M.

Jacquelyn has been a practicing artist working in photo-based media and a photographic educator for more than 40 years. She is Professor Emeritus of Photography in the School of Art and Design at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. She received a Masters of Fine Art from Clemson University and a Masters of Art from Florida State University. Feature articles on Jacquelyn’s artwork have appeared in Digital Fine Art Magazine and Camera Arts Magazine. She has exhibited her photographs internationally, nationally and regionally for over 35 years.

In the summer of 2008 The Light Factory Contemporary Museum of Photography and Film in Charlotte exhibited a mid-career retrospective of her artwork. In recent years, she’s lectured and conducted workshops in traditional photography, digital illustration and digital imaging. Jacquelyn and her husband, Gil Leebrick, were honored educators at the Southeast Society for Photographic Education Conference in fall of 2011.

Gil Leebrick has been photographing and teaching photography for more than 55 years. He is Professor Emeritus of Photography and the former Director of the Wellington B. Gray Gallery in the School of Art and Design at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. He was Associate Professor of Art at Clemson University and was Director of the Appalachian Environmental Arts Center from 1984-1991. He’s taught at Western

Carolina University, and was Director of the Image Foundation in Hawaii from 1977 through 1982, where he also taught photography at Honolulu Community College. He is the recipient of grants to photograph Pre-Columbian Native American ceremonial sites. His photographs have been in over 200 exhibits and reside in numerous public and private collections. Gil’s portion of the presentation will exhibit images from a decades long series of work entitled “Visual Meditations.”

Please join us for this free event. For more information about the Art League, visit artleaguehighlands-cashiers.com.

by Zach Claxton,