Events going on in and around Providence this weekend.
WaterFire – Saturday, October 1st, 2016
A WaterFire “Flames of Hope: A Celebration of Life” Lighting sponsored by Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer Resource Foundation and Lifetime Medical.
Sunset is at 6:26 PM, and fires stay lit until 12:30 AM
All Full WaterFire installations light up over eighty braziers from Waterplace Park to Memorial/South Main Street Park on scheduled evenings. Lighting occurs shortly after sunset and the event continues until half past midnight.
Flames of Hope Weekend – Saturday, October 1st, 2016 to Sunday, October 2nd, 2016
Station Park & Rhode Island State House, 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Historic downtown Providence, RI will come alive with a weekend of inspiration, a time of enrichment and a community of support for the largest breast cancer event in the Northeast. Events include:
Passport to Wellness: Vendors specializing in health, wellness, cancer care and resources for all types of cancer patients, survivors and their families.
Celebration Village: Garden of Hope, Octoberfest Beer Garden, Healing Arts Project, entertainment on the main stage, food court. Don’t miss the ultimate salute to the 80s by Decadia
Illumination of Life: Featuring The State Ballet of Rhode Island, the Illumination of Life is a moving program that illuminates the RI State House in pink leads into the Flames of Hope torch procession
Waterfire: “Flames of Hope” is an incredibly touching and moving ceremony and community wide observation, serving as a testament to every person who has been affected by breast cancer.
On October 1st prepare for Providence to turn pink and help us celebrate the courageous men and women, and their families affected by breast cancer.
Family Fun
8th Annual Africa Nyaga Drum & Dance Festival – Saturday, October 1st, 2016
Burnside Park, 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Co-produced by Sidy Maiga and the Downtown Providence Parks Conservancy, this event showcases the music and dance of Africa and the diaspora. Performances by Afriamanding & Sidy Maiga – a PVD FEST headliner from 2016 – as well as dancers, storytellers, and more! Burnside Park will be activated with music, dance, food, storytelling and activities for all ages.
Family Fun Day – Saturday, October 1st, 2016
Audubon Society of Rhode Island, 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM
After 16 years, the Audubon Environmental Education Center has too much stuff! Field guides, children’s books, gift shop surplus, office supplies and other items will be looking for a good home. Help us recycle, reuse and reduce by purchasing a treasure at our Refuge Rummage Sale. All proceeds benefit the Audubon Environmental Education Center. While you’re here, enjoy fun family activities throughout the day. No registration is required.
Museums
Engineer It! – Saturday, October 1st, 2016 and Sunday, October 2nd, 2016
Providence Children’s Museum, 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM
Kids complete different engineering challenges using simple household items. Build amazing structures using only cardboard squares, construct towers with popsicle sticks and clothespins, and create contraptions from paper tubes and straws.
Underwritten by Amgen Foundation.
Concerts
R Life Live – Friday, September 30, 2016
Renaissance Providence Downtown Hotel, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Chris Carpenter will be performing live music from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Renaissance Providence Downtown Hotel. The public is welcome to discover something wonderfully new!
Theatre
Wicked – Wednesday, September 21st, 2016 to Thursday, October 8th, 2016
Providence Performing Arts Center, various times
Take a look at what happened in the Land of Oz…but from a different angle. Long before Dorothy arrives, there is another girl, born with emerald-green skin—smart, fiery, misunderstood, and possessing an extraordinary talent. When she meets a bubbly blonde who is exceptionally popular, their initial rivalry turns into the unlikeliest of friendships…until the world decides to call one “good,” and the other one “wicked.”
Tickets range from $39 to $169 So get them now!
Bring Your Own Improv – Friday, September 30th, 2016
Warwick Museum of Art, 7:00 PM and to 9:00 PM
Bring Your Own Improv (BYOI) is now in its ninth season! This interactive improv show welcomes voluntary audience participation! You can participate in one of three ways: Applaud at a scene you like, yell out fantastic suggestions, or if you feel you’re ready, jump up and get involved with us on stage!!!
Tickets range from $5 to $8
Miscellaneous
Joe DeVito & Ellen Rinaldi – Friday, September 30th, 2016
Courthouse Center for the Arts, 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Starring Joe DeVito of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, Chelsea Lately & Comedy Central. With special guest Ellen Rinaldi!Joe DeVito has the power to start fires using his mind, and he also does standup comedy. Whether taking on relationships, his Italian-American family, or current events, Joe’s dead-on timing, unexpected twists and sheer flights of lunacy make him a favorite at clubs and colleges across the USA, and at the top venues in New York City.
Tickets are $17.
Paul Mercurio & Stephen Colbert– Friday, September 30th, 2016 to Saturday, October 1st, 2016
The Comedy Connection, 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM
A native of Providence, Rhode Island, Paul Mecurio is an Emmy and Peabody Award winner for his work on “The Daily Show w/Jon Stewart.” He has appeared in his own Comedy Central Special, starred in his own series on HBO, appeared on CBS’s “The Late, Late Show,” VH-1, “Conan O’Brien,” “Red Eye w/Greg Gutfeld,” “Hannity,” CNN, MSNBC, “The Tonight Show,” “The Daily Show,” and ABC’s “Wednesday’s at 9:30.” Paul graduated with honors from Georgetown Law School and began his career on Wall Street as a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at the law firm of Willkie Farr and Gallagher and later as an investment banker at CS First Boston. All the while, Paul was honing a second career writing and performing comedy and was hired by Jay Leno to write jokes for “The Tonight Show.” With the encouragement of Jay, Paul moved center stage, leaving Wall Street and starting his career as a stand-up comedian.
Tickets are $15.
SALON: Ordinarily Well– Friday, September 30th, 2016
The Providence Athenaeum, 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
SALON: Dr. Peter Kramer on his new book Ordinarily Well
A practicing doctor who trained as a psychotherapist and worked with pioneers in psychopharmacology, Peter Kramer combines his patients’ stories with a history of drug research, critiquing the growth of skepticism toward antidepressants and showing how industry-sponsored research findings can be skewed toward desired conclusions. Updating his prior writing about the nature of depression as a destructive illness and the effect of antidepressants on traits like low self-worth, Kramer shows how antidepressants act in practice: less often as miracle cures than as useful tools for helping troubled people achieve an underrated goal―becoming ordinarily well.
Free & open to the public