Events going on in and around Providence this weekend.
Family Fun
Mayor Jorge Elorza’s Halloween Monster Mash – Friday, October 28th, 2016
Providence City Hall, 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Join Mayor Elorza as he welcomes residents from across the City of Providence for a family friendly free party for youth.There will be a dance party, costume contest (with celebrity guest judges), a presentation on Halloween safety by the Providence Police Department,a spooky appearance by BIG NAZO Creature-Characters and of course, candy!
Spooky Story Time and Haunted Art in the Park – Saturday, October 29th, 2016
Burnside Park, 10:30 AM to 1:30 PM
Spooky Storytime is back to haunt Burnside Park with partner Kidoinfo for the 5th year in a row! This spooktacular event is fun for all ages, and a great family-friendly, not-so-scary event featuring spooky and funny stories and tons of fall fun! Guest authors, illustrators and performers will read and perform their own works. Our artists in residence, co-founder Alison Paul and Ricky Katowicz transform the park with art and at At Haunted Art in the Park kids create an art pulled from the pages of a Halloween-themed book. Enjoy a Halloweenie dance party + costume parade, a hay bale maze to explore, mini pumpkins to adorn, and crisp apples to crunch from our local farmers.
Magic of Music – Sunday, October 30th, 2016
Providence Public Library, 2:00 PM
Providence Public Library welcomes pianist Benjamin Nacar for a free family musical program in its Auditorium (3rd Floor.) Gather around the piano on stage in the PPL Auditorium with local classical pianist and composer Benjamin Nacar for a magical journey through the land of music. Combining storytelling in words with storytelling in melodies, Ben will perform a variety of selections from J. S. Bach to Nikolai Medtner. The short concert will conclude with a piano rendition of Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
Museums
SALON: Open Sesame – Friday, October 28th, 2016
The Providence Athenaeum, 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
SALON: Jed Hancock-Brainerd and Rebecca Noon of Strange Attractor discuss Rhode Islanders’ relationship with the ocean and their upcoming performance.
Hancock-Brainerd and Noon researched Rhode Islanders’ relationship with the ocean in preparation for a 100-person Sea Pageant performed on August 21, 2017 on First Beach in Newport during a solar eclipse. They found materials related to the ocean and epic poetry; recreation; performance; transportation; the slave trade; sailing races; shipping; immigration; indigenous, Colonial, and Victorian traditions; ecological changes; and hopes for the future. They will use their findings to create an epic choral piece with a group of generative artists, that includes dancers, poets, musicians, and visual artists that they then teach to a chorus of 100 performers. Join us as they will share some of what they learned and some of what they are creating.
Mirror with a Memory – Friday, October 28th, 2016 to Saturday, November 12th, 2016
Peter Miller Fine Art Photography Gallery, open by appointment
Mirror with a Memory is an exhibit of works by the artists and craftsman who have taken back the chemical and physical qualities of the photographic medium.
We live in a flood of imagery, from Instagram feeds to Facebook, and most of us have come to fully embrace our cellphone screens as our primary means of grasping at the fleeting image. These immaterial encounters with the digital have changed fine art photography for better or worse; the medium has shifted our consciousness from the print and to the screen.
All of the artists in the exhibit utilized an alternative photographic component including Wet Plate Collodion, Experimental C-Prints, Manipulated Polaroids, Cyanotype, Vandyke and more.
Theatre
Our Town – Friday, October 28th, 2016 to Sunday, October 30th, 2016
Smith Center for the Arts: Angell Blackfriars Theatre, 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM
The Department of Theatre, Dance and Film celebrates the Providence College centennial year with Thornton Wilder’s classic play about everyday life in a small New England community. A minimalist theatrical style distinguished this 1938 Pulitzer Prize-winning play which has become a staple of the American theatrical repertoire. The setting, Grover’s Corners, NH, is intended to represent all communities in which the inhabitants strive to future human relationships, respond to life’s unexpected challenges and seek meaning in their world.
Friday and Saturday shows start at 8:00PM and the Sunday shows start at 2PM.
Mysterium-The Eternal Masquerade – Friday, October 28th, 2016
Providence Public Library, 7:30 PM to 12:00 AM
A one-of-a-kind immersive arts-inspired Halloween adventure! Eternal Masqueraders will experience a Halloween odyssey like no other, taking in captivating performances, enjoying signature food & drink, and exploring one of Providence’s prime and unique venues.Over the course of the evening, guests will be invited to engage in interactive and mysterious, live performances that combine to create a suspenseful literary expedition through the Library’s historic Renaissance and 1950s structures.
Through the incomparable artistry of TEN31 Productions, the story will literally and figuratively unfold with an eerily mesmerizing and immersive combination of living art installations, punctuated by theatrical and dance performances. The event will culminate with delectable desserts and dancing.
Interactive performance begins at 8 pm and will go on until 10:31 pm with dancing to follow ’til Midnight. Ticket includes food all night, open bar and performance. Costumes not required; however, Black & White Arabian Nights inspired dress strongly recommended & masks will be provided.
Miscellaneous
Cirque Mechanics– Saturday, October 29th, 2016
One Avenue of the Arts, 7:30 PM
You’ve never seen a circus like this! Hailed as “the greatest contribution to the American circus since Cirque du Soleil,” by Spectacle magazine, the incredible Cirque Mechanics wows with flying unicycles, floating trapeze artists and innovative mechanical staging. Enter a world inspired by steampunk culture where cycling is the way to escape a technology-obsessed society. You’ve never seen a circus like this: a dazzling whirl of acrobats, cyclists, and magnificent one-of-a-kind machines.
Evening Cemetery Tour – Saturday, October 29th, 2016
North Burial Ground, 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Ghost enthusiasts, cemetery enthusiasts, and those who love history will enjoy a free Ghost Walk through Providence’s North Burial Ground. Dress in your Halloween finest, and come at 4 if you want to enter the costume contest. Please wear comfortable walking shoes and bring a flashlight, since the cemetery gets quite dark after sunset. Children’s games and activities will also be available, and light Halloween snacks will be
served. Small group tours of approximately one hour in length will begin between 4:30 and 4:45, and will depart every 10 minutes or so, with the last tour leaving between 5:45 and 6 pm. Your tour guide will lead you by lantern light on a walk from grave to grave at dusk and you’ll listen to
stories of the lives (some long, some short!) and deaths (some natural, some violent!) of a number of residents of the cemetery. You’ll hear from costumed re-enactors about murder, lost love, and young men at war and at sea, far from home. The tour content and themes are aimed at an adult audience.
Families, however,are welcome on the tour, using their own judgment as to whether the content and setting are
appropriate for their children.
