Main Street
Craig Bohmler enjoys a cap with many feathers
By Mary Ann Cook
RIDING HIGH: Los Gatos composer Craig Bohmler is riding high on a crest of successes these days. He's been commissioned to do a millennium pageant for the Concord Pavilion based on the life of John Muir. "It's the coolest thing I've ever done," Bohmler enthuses.
And the biggest--with a chorus of 100, cast of 28 and an orchestra of 27 with members from the California Symphony. Performances will be Oct. 12-14, four of 'em, in Willows Theater. It's also the biggest thing the Concord Pavilion has undertaken.
The production may become a yearly event and Yosemite is interested, too. Mary Bracken Phillips is the lyricist/book writer.
Besides this heady news, Enter the Guardsman, Bohmler's international award-winning musical, will be the holiday offering at San Jose Rep starting Dec. 15. It will be performed at the Laguna Playhouse on Nov. 6, and will open Ashland's 2001 season--the first musical ever to be presented at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival.
So many feathers and all in one cap.
NEW BOOK: Saratogan Audry Lynch's latest book is Steinbeck Remembered, a compilation of interviews with friends and acquaintances of Steinbeck, including several from Los Gatos and Saratoga and, in particular, noted colleague John Baggerly.
Bags was a young reporter for the LG General Mail News at the time he interviewed Steinbeck. He found Steinbeck straightforward and burly with something of a hippie lifestyle. He says JS was his favorite interview: he only wishes he could meet him again and do another interview.
Since Steinbeck wrote Grapes of Wrath while living here, Los Gatos considers him a native son, even though he was born and raised in Salinas. Lynch's book covers the early years in Salinas, the hell-raising years in Cannery Row and the established writer years in Los Gatos.
Others whose remembrances are in the book are Ruth Duval and George Beatty of Los Gatos and Bill Thomas and Eleanor Ray of Saratoga. Duval was a kid sister in the group that hung around with Steinbeck in the Cannery Row years. "He was the one who made things happen," she says.
Thomas knew the Steinbeck family in Pacific Grove, and says, "he wrote about real places and real people . . . left an authentic record of a place, a time and a people."
Neighbor Beatty's appraisal was crisper. The Steinbecks reportedly gave great parties, he said, but he never attended any, though invited.
Martin Ray was the winemaker at Paul Masson and he and his wife, Elsie, were friends of the Steinbecks at the time Grapes of Wrath was published. "My vintage for yours," Steinbeck wrote in an inscribed copy of the first edition of Grapes of Wrath that he gave the Rays.
After Elsie's death, Eleanor Ray became Martin's second wife and passed onto Lynch her reminiscences of those years. These recollections are hardly sugar-coated.
Lynch is a counselor at Bernal Intermediate School in San Jose, has taught community college classes about her favorite author, leads tours to the Steinbeck Center and other haunts, and collects all his books.
BANJO JUBILEE: Banjo aficionados label the banjo the happiest of music and America's only original musical instrument. To get happy, try the 28th annual Banjo Jubilee to be held Sept. 3, noon to 5 p.m. at Rickeys Hyatt House in Palo Alto. The Peninsula Banjo Band is the host group.
Chris Bracher and George Thum of Saratoga are two of its members. Charlie Tagawa is musical director of the 42-member group and Floyd Oatman is jubilee chairman. The public is invited to PBB rehearsals every Tuesday, 8-9 p.m. at Straw Hat Pizza, 1535 Meridian, San Jose.
Others playing in the jubilee are Bob Lasley's Scarlet La Rue Band of Los Gatos and bands from Redwood City, Oakland, Pleasant Hill and Sacramento. Tickets are $12 in advance; $15 at the door. All proceeds go to charities, such as Hospice of the Valley or Stanford's Children's Hospital, or to scholarships to teach the 4-stringed banjo.
NEW OFFICERS: New officers for the Summit League: Molly Swenson, president; Therese McNeil, vice president; Ginny Bowman, treasurer; Jan Willoughby, recording secretary; and Joey Vaudagna, corresponding secretary. Eight new members of the club are Carrie Arata, Barbara Bocks, Cheryl Colman, Cody Jones, Anne Lafoon, Joyce Mitakides, Anne Marie Vogel and Randi Zanardi.
BROADWAY SHOW TUNES: The Funtimes Singers will present a concert of songs from musicals on Aug. 25 and 26, at 7:30 p.m. at Campbell Congregational Church, 400 Campbell Ave. Locals in the group are Julie Austin, Sue Heller and Lynda Fox. Tickets are $5 at the door.
GODSPEED AND FAREWELL: Faith Lutheran Church invites well-wishers to attend Pastor John Kessel's final Los Gatos services on Aug. 27, at the 8 a.m. or 10 a.m.
OPERA LECTURE: Opening lecture in the San Jose Opera Guild's fall series will be on Aug. 29, at 10 a.m. at the History Club. Larry Hancock, a member of Opera San Jose, will speak on Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky. Luncheon will follow. Cost for the talk for nonmembers is $10. Lunch is $7.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
