Art Attack!

This weekend is called Art Attack. It is where the arts scene in Harbor Country present various events. At the Acorn, we have a kick-off party with the most entertaining commercials of the year and food from a number of area restaurants. We also have an art opening in the gallery at our wine shop, two performances of a play about Mark Twain containing original music written and performed by Jim Post, and a closing night party on Sunday. Art Attack is near and dear to our hearts as it was the first theatrical event we produced in Three Oaks, well before the birth of the Acorn Theater. I’m going to guess the year as 1996 and Kim and I got together with Jonathan Pitts (who is now Executive Director of the Chicago Improv Festival) and we produced three shows of interesting performers. The names I remember from the show include Lunacy (a female poetry/drumming group,) Local Infinities, Adrian Danzig (of 500 Clown fame,) Greg Allen (of the Neofuturists), and an up-and-coming writer named David Sedaris. The shows were a lot of fun and the audiences were full so we produced shows every year at Art Attack weekend for a number of years in Three Oaks. We used the Vicker’s Theatre as a locaion. One year, we had the show in the Featherbone Factory, just a few yards down from the present location of the Acorn Theater. These Art Attack shows led to us bringing Shakespeare to the part in Three Oaks every summer. This series evolved into today’s Music in the Park series. So you see, a lot of things grew from a little event called Art Attack.