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Dickens Christmas Fair 2006 December Missive #3

Well, here it is, closing day fast approaches. It's been a great year, full of the new, the vintage, the fun and the occasionally terrifying <wink>. I just compiled the lists and it looks like there were almost 600 entertainers this year! Wow! Thank you all for your hard work and enthusiasm and let's have a great closing day!

Cat

PS Happy Solstice!

In This Missive:
More Press
Closing Weekend Discounts
Tear Down Dates
Beverage Contest Winners
Craziness from the Crummles
Notes from Martin Harris
PEERS' Victorian 12th Night Ball
A Timegames Invitation


More Press:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/16246282.htm
http://www.examiner.com/a-464820~Brit_has_Scrooge_in_his_blood.html


Closing Weekend Discounts:
Here's some text to send out to your friends who have yet to join us this year:

Wrap up your last-minute shopping or kick off the holiday weekend at the Great Dickens Christmas Fair!Join us this Saturday, December 23, from 11 am to 7 pm, for our Season Finale!

In honor of our last day, enjoy a $3.00 discount on every adult admission when you bring an unwrapped children's gift or toy to our Box Office. Or, look in area newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle for our ad featuring a $3.00 off coupon. Ebeneezer Scrooge would be so proud!
The Christmas spirit has never been so alive as it is at the Great Dickens Christmas Fair. Do join us!
Happy Christmas and Best Wishes for the New Year!

With All Sorts of Regards,
The Cast & Crew of the 28th Annual Dickens Christmas Fair
Cow Palace Exhibition Halls, San Francisco
www.Dickensfair.com
(800) 510-1558


Tear Down Dates (for those of you with booths or environmental areas)
(from Mark Solum)

Christmas eve from 10am- 4pm.
Closed Christmas Day.
Tuesday-Sat 8am-6pm
New Years eve- 10am-4pm
Monday – Wednesday 8am-6pm
Wednesday, January 3rd - last drop dead day to be out.


Beverage Contest Winners
(from Carol Goodman)
And The Mad Maniacal Mixologist Winner Is....
Kathleen Morris of Ale 2 (The Green Man) with her 'Formula Hyde'.  A fabulous blend of Capt. Morgan Rum, Sloe Gin and Collins mix.
The judges were in unanimous decision after her smooth mix presentation and the first sip of the 'Formula'.
Our judges surprised all entrants by insisting that a second place award go to Nathan Schmidt of The Other Books renown for his 'Victorian Snog'.  A creamy blend of rum, nog and Crème de Cacao.

Please join us at Mad Sal's Dockside Alehouse to celebrate the season and the winning drinks (priced at a low, low holiday amount of $3.75 each).
 
Cheers,
Carol Goodman


Craziness from the Crummles
From Rockin' MC (Mrs Crummles, that is!)
We've been having fun with Nicholas Nickleby and Smike at 12:15 on the Other Books Stage doing about 15 minutes of madness.  This weeks fully improvised show is entitled "The Curse of Sekmet" and is a supernatural thriller about an ancient Egyptian artifact and the strange compulsion it exerts on a group of people.  IF YOU LIKE IMPROV (and can focus and have fun) then show up and start jumping in.  Musicians, dancers, and actors are welcome!  Also, if anyone has a tape or DVD, or  of any of our last weekend's shows, we would happily pay the tape or DVD cost for
a copy!  See Julie (Mrs Crummles) to discuss.


Notes from Martin Harris (including a gig tonight):
What made this the best Dickens Fair ever, was the rich and unbounding enthusiasm of everyone, dedicated to outdoing themselves with brilliant performances that touched the loneliest of hearts.  It is such a joy to work with you all in the Fair Family, oozing with talent and the excitment for life itself.  I wouldn't come 6000 miles if you weren't the very best.  Job well done!!

I have two performances left before Saturday.
The Freight and Salvage have asked me to replace Santa Claus this year at their Fundraiser Christmas Party on Thursday Dec 21st by joining Laurie Lewis to be very Scroogie talking about the Fair and helping give out presents to the kids, as redeemed Scrooge...you know Scroogie Cakes.

Then Friday I've been asked back to the Berkeley City Club in the Julia Morgan Building on Durant at 7.30pm to read A Christmas Carol by the crackling fire in the dining room upstairs.  The carolers will be singing from 7.15pm and if anyone wants to take advantage of the celebrated restaurant by eating there first, you get 10% off with a ticket, so please call 510 280 1540.  It's a wonderful evening to bring the whole family to.

As I have a 6pm flight on Saturday back to the heart of Dickens Country, the redemption scene will now be at 2.45pm in my office at Scrooge and Marleys and then sadly I have to raptured into the sky by all the spirits, United as they fly.  As I have a few CDs of A Christmas Carol left, (that makes a very special Christmas present), see me early in the day if you'd like to purchase one.

I land on Sunday afternoon just in time to get changed back into costume to give my traditional reading of The Carol at 8pm to a candle lit dinner in Dickens favourite Pickwick Pub The Leather Bottle on the night itself Christmas Eve.  Then I've been asked to read the Scriptures at Midnight Mass in the 11th century church St Mary's across the road, so I'll have been up two and half days...call the Union!

Anyway thanks again to you all for making this such a joyful Christmas for me.
A very Happy Christmas to you all and to anyone who doesn't feel this way, Bah Humbug!!!

Martin


PEERS' Victorian 12th Night Ball
Please join Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig and your other friends from Fezziwigs at a glorious Victorian 12th Night Ball on Saturday evening, January 6, at the San Mateo Masonic Temple ballroom at 100 N. Ellsworth Avenue, San Mateo. After a dance lesson at 7:00 p.m., Bangers and Mash plays a full evening of waltzes, polkas, schottisches, mazurkas, reels, country dances, and other popular Victorian ballroom dance music. Intermission entertainment includes Wink, Whist, and performances by the Peerless Music Hall and Mr. Charles Dickens himself. Victorian day or evening dress or modern evening dress is admired, not required.  Tickets are $15.00 in advance (by December 30) or $20.00 at the door. For details and ticket information, please call James and Cathleen Myers at (510) 522-1731, email peers@peers.org or see the PEERS website at http://www.peers.org
 
Best regards,
Cathleen Myers


A Timegames Invitation
AN INVITATION especially for those Timeplayers who possess a continuing passion for the history we have played with over the last forty years:

    Behold! Timegames brings you glad tidings! We seek shepherds who shall lead the flock yet again into theatrical miracles at an upcoming time-travel event.
    A dinner meeting in late January will be limited to twenty good women and men, true to high accomplishment, wise in the ways of research and full of curiosity and talent.
    It will be a plus for those who attend to have experienced several of the Living History Centre's nineteenth-century Old California events, starting in 1972 with the Old San Francisco Waterfront Fair and Nautical Exposition produced for the California State Parks at Hyde Street pier on historic ships and in an authentic set designed by Doris Karnes.
    If you were a part of the Great American Shindig in '76 and/or Dickens Christmas Fairs of yore- these also add to our memories of great theatrical triumphs and engender ideas applicable to what happened in the most unusual happenings of Old California. Our timeline will reach back into the thousands of pre-history years when humans and the abundance of Nature here flourished in harmony before the European invaders arrived.

    In this new Timegames production being planned, three tickets will be offered for a three-part experience. Any part or all three may be chosen on any performance day; this can be a full afternoon and evening experience. The afternoon ticket offers authentic amusements in a variety of theatrical environments. The feast available will change in its cultural emphasis from time to time and is prologue to the grand finale after sunset: "Son et Lumiere"- a contrast in cultures on seven stages.
    Your knowledge and varied talents and skills can set the standard for what can become a one-of-a-kind long-running many-splendored thing! Invention need not be a solitary process.

WELCOME TO THE EXPLORATION OF POSSIBILITIES.

    Would you enjoy being part of the idea sessions for this soon-to-be summer-long event? (High-tech lighting experts are most welcome!) We'll also venture into sources for multicultural funding possibilities.
    This dinner meeting may be of historic stature itself if the best minds of our community put their heads together.

   Call (415) 892-0162 please to leave your preferred phone number. I like to hear voices-and often do! State the best time to return your call; we'll attempt to set a dinner meeting date convenient for all. This will be at my house.
    Email Phyllis@Timegames.org only as a last resort since I do not have continuous computer assistance at present.

    We are also searching for descendants of the native language groups who made Northern California their home for thousands of years before the European invasion. An impressive body of oral history was recorded in 1900- your ideas?

With all sorts of regards,
Phyllis Patterson
Chief instigator, Timegames



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