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Category: News

Hometown Teams – More Than Just a Game: African American Athletes in Iowa

Website AdminEvents, History, News, Sports
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The African American Museum of Iowa will be presenting “More Than Just a Game: African American Athletes in Iowa” Saturday, March 24th at 10:30 – 11:30 am in the Uptown Theatre as a part of a series of Hometown Teams events.

The Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street traveling exhibit “Hometown Teams: How Sports Shape America” will be in Mount Vernon, Iowa from March 18 to April 28, 2018.  It is one of ten related events that is scheduled while the exhibit is in Mount Vernon.

From the African American Museum of Iowa:

Since the late nineteenth century, African Americans have participated in a variety of sports and contributed in profound ways to Iowa’s sporting culture. African Americans experienced severe discrimination in sports as in other activities, but fought long and hard to overcome racism. In Iowa, they frequently used achievement in sports as a way to come together as a community. These countless narratives both on and off the court, field, and ring, remind us of the broader struggle for civil rights in America.

This presentation coincides with the Smithsonian’s Museum on Main Street “Hometown Teams: How Sports Shape America” exhibit, on view at the First Street Community Center March 18 to April 29, 2018. “How Sports Shaped America” is a Smithsonian traveling exhibit that allows visitors to put sports in the context of American culture and gain a better understanding of the role that sport plays in its interactions with families, schools, government, business, and other social institutions. The African American Museum of Iowa will feature local sports figures Art Pennington and Jack Trice.

RSVP on Facebook.

  • This event is presented by the African American Museum of Iowa.
  • Attendance is free and open to the public.

Complete Schedule of Hometown Teams Events:

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Live Music – Chuck Mitchell – 2018 LilFest Concert Series

Website AdminMusic, News
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The First Street Community Center’s Uptown Theatre is happy to be hosting Chuck Mitchell as a part of the Spring/Summer 2018 LilFest Concert Series.

photo of Chuck Mitchell
Noel Brown – photo credit

Chuck Mitchell can fill a stadium with his voice, his songs and the songs of many others!  Indeed he’s been doing just that since the heyday of folk music when he shared his last name with Roberta Joan Anderson Mitchell (better known as Joni).

When:  Saturday, March 24th, from 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Tickets are available at the door:

– General admission: $15
– VIP Seating: $50
– Student tickets are only available with a valid student ID at the door: $5

If you have concert questions or would like to become a VIP sponsor of one or more of our events please call (518) 576-9513.

Doors open at 7:15 pm.  BYOB -You can bring your own adult (or non-adult) beverages with the purchase of a First Street Community Center Uptown Theatre cup.

Click here to learn more about Chuck Mitchell, or you can check out his Facebook page.

MORE INFO:

Chuck Mitchell started singing in Detroit folk clubs and saloons in 1962. In Toronto, on his first out of town gig, he met a boney blonde songwriter named Joni Anderson, from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. They married, and as a duo Chuck and Joni Mitchell played the coffeehouse circuit and gin rummy, until she was 115,463 points ahead. They got divorced in 1968.

The folk clubs faded, and Mitchell moved on to college and arts council residencies. He lived in Coconut Grove, Santa Monica, and Greeley. In the eighties, he wandered back to the Heartland, and settled in a tall brick Keokuk house overlooking the Mississippi, built by a riverboat captain in 1879.

Mitchell’s credits include A Prairie Home Companion and repertory theater in the US and the UK. He has played Harold Hill in The Music Man, Woody in Woody Guthrie’s American Song, and Stephen Foster in Mr. Foster & Mr. Twain. Oh, and Carl Sandburg.

His one man cabaret folk show combines his skills as an actor, singer and guitarist. He sings songs by Guy Clark, Fred Eaglesmith, B. J. Shaver, Michael Peter Smith, and Cheryl Wheeler, and cabaret songs by Brecht and Weil — “Mack the Knife” and “Bilbao” — and whimsical songs by Flanders & Swann — “The Gnu” and “The Hippopotamus”. He roves the room singing “Freeborn Man” by Ewan McColl. He weaves poetry by Carl Sandburg, T.S. Eliot and others into his shows.

Mr. Mitchell will be available for media interviews in advance of the show by calling or texting Nancy Emrich Freeman at 847-256-0000.   Further information about Chuck Mitchell and high-resolution photos are also available by contacting Nancy Emrich Freeman.  On YouTube, enter “Chuck Mitchell Sings”.

Photo of LilFest - Bear LogoLilFest Concert Series 2018

The LilFest Series regularly presents folk and international concerts in intimate settings in the Eastern Iowa region. Past performers include Jim Post, James Lee Stanley, Eric Taylor, The Sweet Potatoes, Claudia Nygaard, and Nathan Bell.

LilFest was originally developed in the Chicago area by Nancy Emrich Freeman, the now-resident of Mount Vernon continues a grand tradition of bringing the finest musicians to play in the places that are best for both the person onstage and the fan in the nearby seat.

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Smithsonian’s ‘Hometown Teams’

Website AdminGymnasium, News, Sports
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Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Development Group (CDG) in partnership with the Iowa Economic Development Authority’s Main Street Iowa program will celebrate the many roles athletics play in towns, cities, and states across the country when it brings the traveling Smithsonian exhibit “Hometown Teams: How Sports Shape America,”  to Mount Vernon from March 18 to April 29, 2018.

“Hometown Teams” examines how and why hometown sports are more than just games.  Sports shape and unite us. From pick-up games to organized leagues, millions of Americans of all ages play sports. And, if we’re not playing sports, we’re sitting in the stands or gathered on the sidelines cheering as young athletes take their first swing or score their first goal. Let’s not forget, either, the tireless souvenir sales people and those slinging hamburgers and popcorn at concession stands.

The traveling Smithsonian exhibit will be enhanced and complemented by exhibits featuring local legacies.

A short video about the exhibition can be viewed at here.

“Hometown Teams” as well as the local exhibits featuring memorabilia from Eastern Iowa communities will be on display in the First Street Community Center’s Gymnasium, with occasional special events held in the Uptown Theatre.  Entrance to the exhibit will be FREE.

The exhibit will be on view from March 18 to April 29, 2018.

The open hours for the exhibit will be:

Wednesdays: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Thursdays: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Fridays: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Saturdays: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Sundays: Noon – 4 p.m.

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Live Theatre – And Then There Were None – by Agatha Christie

Website AdminNews, Theatre
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The Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Theatre presents Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None”

One of the classic murder mystery stories of the 20th century.  Agatha Christie’s dramatization of one of her darkest and most successful mystery novels is set in a house on a remote island off the coast of Devon, England in the 1940’s. The plot revolves around ten strangers who are summoned there because they have a secret past in common.

Each visitor has been marked for murder and, one by one, they are killed in the order dictated by a sinister nursery rhyme about ten little soldiers. As a storm rages outside, there is no escape. This is a classic murder mystery drama by one of the masters of the genre!

Do they deserve it? Who is the murderer? Who will be the next victim? Will anyone leave the island alive to tell the tale? Will anyone in the audience figure it out before it’s too late?

Performances Thursday, March 8th – Saturday March 10th at 7:30 pm, and Sunday, March 11th at 2pm.

Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors.

Tickets can be purchased at the event, or before by calling 319-535-2030 and asking for tickets to the show.

For more information about the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Theatre check out their website.

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