When you make plans at Derby Dinner Playhouse the festivities start with a large buffet while the house vocal ensemble “Footnotes” entertains you while you eat. There is also a full bar and various desserts to finish off the meal.

Each year Derby Dinner Playhouse presents eight mainstage shows, four children’s musical theater productions, and seven concerts. If you have some theatrical experience you can even audition for one of the Playhouse’s shows.

There are evening shows ever Tuesday through Sunday night, and matinée shows every Sunday and Wednesday. Click here for times and prices.

The current mainstage show is Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, which will play from November 17 to December 31, 2007. The cast includes 21 professional actors and singers and is directed by Lee Buckholz.

“Based on the popular movie, this timeless classic is full of dancing, laughter and features some of the best songs ever written. Guaranteed to be the highlight of your Christmas Season! This holiday film classic is the inspiration for this stage musical, featuring two singing sisters who find themselves in a snowless ski lodge in the company of a pair of performing army buddies. Add a four-star general down on his luck, a nosy housekeeper, and score that’s more romantic than mistletoe, and the result is magic. Songs featured are: “Sisters”, “Count Your Blessings”, “White Christmas”, “Blue Skies”, “I Love A Piano” and more. “

So ride over to Clarksville and enjoy a favorite holiday classic and a great dinner that is just in time to get you into the Christmas and winter spirit.

Light Up Louisville
Handmade Christmas Cards

Derby Dinner Playhouse, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, Dinner Theater

Picture by Tazzmaniac242417- www.sxc.hu

Light Up Louisville includes a parade, Santa’s Workshop, crafts and food booths, and holiday music and entertainment. The main event is when Santa personally hands the mayor the cord that will light up the Jefferson Square with thousands of holiday lights and fireworks. This event started in 1981 and now it is estimated that more than 75,000 people visit the event the day after Thanksgiving.

From November 23 to December 31, there will be an hourly light show between 6:00pm and 10:00pm. This is a fourteen minute light and sound display that includes more than thirty trees and the 40 foot “electronic” Christmas Tree.

Metro Hall will also be decorated with over twenty wonderful trees decorated in the cultural traditions of our Sister Cities and other nationalities, with the Holidays Around the World display. This event will open during the Light Up event until December 23, Monday-Friday 9:00am - 4:00pm. .

Schedule
3:00pm- Light Up Louisville Opens
Jefferson Street between 5th & 6th Streets
4:00pm–5:00pm: Wendy’s Winter Wonderland Parade
Jefferson Street from 7th Street east to 4th Street through 4th Street Live!
7:00pm: Santa Arrives
Jefferson Street from 5th to the main stage
7:30pm: Light Up Louisville - music, lights and fireworks
Jefferson Square Park, 6th and Jefferson Streets
7:45pm-10:00pm: Music, Food, Shopping & the Budweiser Holiday Pub
Jefferson Street between 5th & 6th streets

Check out what is happening in some other cities too.
Fall Fun

Light Up Louisville, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Holidays Around the World,

Picture by albinomonk- www.sxc.hu

The Brightside program was a government initiative launched in 1986 by Mayor Jerry Abramson. Its purpose is to keep the city of Louisville clean, beautiful, and environmentally friendly. Projects range from organized neighborhood cleanups to various landscaping projects throughout the city.

Currently the Louisville Metro government has anti-litter and litter-free programs, while encouraging citizen to report any illegal dumping. Louisville spends about $2 million dollar a year to clean up litter and trash that could be avoided it people would simply dispose of their waste in an appropriate manner. In one year more than 850 tons of litter was collected from organized cleanup and street sweeps alone.

This weekend you or your group can be a part of one of Brightside’s organized cleanups. On October 27th, the city of Louisville will have it’s Fall Brightside Community-Wide Cleanup, where various groups will be responsible for picking up trash and litter in specific areas. Individuals wanting to help can be placed with established groups. Brightside will provide t-shirts, bags, gloves, and pick up the filled trash bags at the end of the day.

There are also several fundraising events going on this week for Brightside’s beautification and environmental stewardship programs. The annual Fall Compost sale will finish up on October 27th from 8:00am to 2:00pm. The compost can be picked up at the Outer Loop Landfill located at 2673 Outer Loop. Prices are $2.50 per bag or $30 per scoop.

You can also buy an assortment of bulbs from Brightside to help beautify your yard and community. To see the brochure click here. Click here to download a printable form online and send your order by mail or fax 502.574.2792. The sale is going on until October 26th.

So grab your gloves, plant some bulbs, cover your yard with compost, and pick up some trash. It all goes to help make your city a cleaner and more beautiful place to live.

Recycle
Curb Appeal

Louisville, Brightside, Trash, Litter, Cleanup, Compost, Bulb Sale

Iron Chef and other Food Network TV shows have become extremely popular over the last decade. Millions of fans watch as celebrity chefs cook and teach a variety of dishes from the mundane to the exotic. Louisville even has it own culinary TV shows including Secrets of Louisville Chefs Live, hosted by Equus restaurant’s owner and chef, Dean Corbett.

This Thursday culinary Louisvillains will have the opportunity to watch and participate in the Best of the Best competition, which will benefit Sullivan University’s hospitality scholarship. Three chefs will compete in an Iron Chef style challenge, with students from Sullivan University’s hospitality program acting as sous chefs. There will also be a Best martini competition between four local bartenders, and Best Catering Culinary Presentation and the Best Catering Cuisine challenge. Audience member will help choose the winners in the catering and bartending competitions.

The event is sponsored by the Kentucky Bluegrass Chapter of Meeting Professionals International which has over 22,000 members in 65 countries.

Chefs
Matthew Purzycki of L& N Wine Bar and Bistro
Michael Hargrove, Primo
Chris Howerton, Corbett’s Restaurant.

Judges
Kirby Adams, WHAS-TV News
The Honorable Jerry J. Bowles, Jefferson County Family Court Judge
Kelly K., of the Peter B. and Kelly K. Show, 99.7 WDJX
Stan Curtis, Founder, USA Harvest and KY Harvest/Sr. VP Hilliard Lyons
Robert Granberg, Gordon Food Service (GFS) Executive Chef
Shannon Byrne, President, Kentucky Bluegrass Chapter of Meeting Professionals International
A member of the audience will be chosen at the event

Caterers
The Brown Hotel
Centerplate Catering
Chardeaus Classic Catering
Consumers Choice Coffee
Hyatt Regency Louisville
Kentucky State Parks
Masterpiece Creations
Louisville Marriott Downtown,
University Club
Juleps Catering

Bartenders from
Equus Restaurant
Park Place on Main
L&N Wine Bar and Bistro
Primo

Battle of the Best
October 15, 2007
Brown & Williamson Club
Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium
2800 South Floyd Street
Tickets $35 advance/ $40 door
5:00pm- 8:00pm
For more information, contact Tina Scott at 859-622-2535 or at http://www.kbcmpi.com/battle-of-best.htm.

Leo’s Readers Choice
Kentucky Harvest

Best of the Best, Iron Chef, Sullivan University, Kentucky Bluegrass Chapter of Meeting Professionals International

Many people talk about wanting to support local business and farmers, but how often do you really follow up. Montgomery Farms is a small family-owned farm in Underwood, IN that has become one of the best kid-friendly places to take your family during the Halloween season.

Montgomery Farms is about 30 minutes north of Louisville, and each year they add and improve their selection of activities to celebrate fall and the Halloween season. They have been showcasing their corn maze in which you have to find you way out of a large corn filed while avoiding some scary characters.

They also offer an old fashioned hayride, a small cow train for the kids, and a playground. There is also a nice lake at the farm where you can shoot a cannon at targets on the other side of the water. Montgomery Farms also has some free activities including the petting zoo, goat climb, hayrides to the pumpkin patch, hay loft swings, and the farm facts center and I spy.

The farm has a nice Barn store that offers a large selection of pumpkins, gourds, and beautiful mums. They also have other fall flowers, Indian corn, jams, jellies, candles, and various fall and home decorations. Various types of in-season produce are also for sale. The farm offers Camp Montgomery where kids can spend a day learning what it is like to work on a farm. They cater corporate or group functions and parties, and Montgomery Farms can also host school field trips where kids can visit, learn, and play on the farm.

So grab the kids and head up to Indiana to spend of couple of hours on a beautiful, local, 40-acre farm that helps to preserve an agricultural tradition.

Montgomery Farms
1122 Radio Tower Road
Underwood, IN 47177
812-752-2300

Monday- Thursday 10:00am-6:00pm
Saturday- 10:00am- 12:00am
Sunday- 11:00am-5:00pm

Maze $8
Hayride $5
Maze & Hayride $11
Cow Train $4
Playground $4
Cow Train & Playground $7
Cannon Shots (3) $2

The Haunted Network
Waverly

Local Farms, Montgomery Farms, Halloween, Halloween Fun, Corn Maze

Saturday night I finally made it to the Waverly Hills Sanitarium’s Haunted House. They had a good crowd and the weather was perfect to stand in line. The air was cool enough for a sweater or jacket and the sky had an eerie pink tint while there was some thunder and lightning. Luckily it never started to rain, but it gave Waverly a great spooky ambiance from the outside.

We stood in line for about an hour and then went in with a group of eight people. The actual haunted house was fairly typical with scary scenes with butchered bodies and various characters popping out at you from nooks and crannies. Jason and Freddy made an appearance, as well as a fiend who chases you out of the building with a chainsaw. Rooms varied from being almost pitch black to strobe lights and fog. There was also a big spinning tunnel that you walked through that was very disorienting but a lot of fun. Walking through the haunted house took about 15 minutes.

To be honest I had a good time, but I am not sure that the $20 price of admission was worth what ended up to be a fairly standard haunted house. The $2 parking fee goes to the Crusade for Children. There was certainly no feeling that the ghosts and spirits that supposed haunt Waverly Hills were there. In fact I am sure any real ghosts probably leave when the haunted house is going on.

Waverly Hills does offer a two, four, and eight-hour tour during the rest of the year, and I would think that this may be a better way to spend your money if you are really looking for a supernatural experience.

Other Halloween Fun
Halloween & Louisville

Waverly Hills Sanitarium, Waverly Hills Haunted House, Haunted Houses, Halloween

One of the largest attractions in the Louisville area during Halloween is the Haunted Network. This network is comprised of four main attractions including the Haunted Hotel, Pitch Black, Industrial Nightmare, and Dementions.

The Haunted Hotel has been around for 17 years and each year the creators try and make the experience a bit scarier and dramatic. The hotel is currently open from 8:00pm to 11:00pm on Thursdays and Sundays, and from 8:00pm to 1:00am on Fridays and Saturdays. The event is open until October 28, 2007 and is located at 3000 S 4th Street. Tickets are $15, but you can download a coupon from the website for $2 off on Thursdays and Sundays.

Pitch Black is another experiment in terror where you are in a maze where you have to figure your way out in virtual darkness. Distracting sounds and groping monster make escaping that much more disorienting. Times and dates are the same as the Haunted Hotel. Pitch Black is located at 835 Spring Street in Jeffersonville, IN. Tickets are also $15 and include the Cage Maze. There is also a $2 coupon good for Thursdays and Sundays on the website.

Industrial Nightmare markets itself as the “Mother of all Haunted Houses”. The difference in this Halloween event is that the action takes place in an industrial setting with plenty of places for the gruesome to surprise you. There are many recreations from your favorite horror movies and then characters seem like they have walked right off the screen. Tickets are $17 and include a visit to Dementions that is located next to the Industrial Nightmare. Dementions is another horror fest in where you are visited by characters from the movie Saw and chased by multiple chain-saw wielding fiends. Times, dates, and the coupon is the same as for the above events, and the Industrial Nightmare and Dementions are also located at 835 Spring Street in Jeffersonville, IN.

So if you want some good scares this Halloween season in the Louisville area, check out any of all of these attractions.

October & Halloween in Louisville

Halloween Crafts

Halloween, Haunted Houses, Haunted Hotel, Industrial Nightmare, Dementions, Pitch Black, Haunted Network

The latest exhibit to open at the Speed Museum is For Safekeeping: The Kentucky Sugar Chest, 1790-1850. Clifton Anderson and Professor Marianne Ramsey of Eastern Kentucky University curated this exhibit, and the collection is part of the Speed Museum’s commitment to preserve Kentucky’s artistic and folk heritage.

For Safekeeping will display over forty pieces of sugar chest in various forms that show a variety of design and construction features. The social and cultural impact of sugar and its uses during this time periods will also be explored.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries white sugar was a high priced commodity that was a sign of status, and protecting this valuable food product was the impetus behind the variety of this type of protective furniture. The Speed’s collection includes sugar chests, desks, and presses.

This exhibit is also part of the Speed’s long-term goal to become “the nation’s leader in the preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of important Kentucky fine arts, decorative arts, folk arts, and design.” Also see www.koar.org for more information on the Speed’s award-winning Kentucky Online Arts Resource.

There will also be a clinic on October 20, 2007 in conjunction with this exhibit. Professor Craig T, Friend of North Carolina State University will give a talk about life on the early Kentucky frontier, while Marianne Ramsey will discuss inlaid furniture. Andy Anderson, a Kentucky antiques dealer, will lecture about the form of the sugar chest. Tickets for the clinic are $10 or $5 for members.

The exhibit run from October 9-December 2, 2007
Admission to the event is free.

The Speed Art Museum
2035 South Third Street
Louisville, KY 40208
502-634-2700

See the Art History Guide for more on art in general.

The Speed Art Museum, Sugar Chests, Kentucky Decorative Arts

Last Sunday was a busy day for me since I not only visited the St. James Court Art Show, but also attended the opening reception for the new exhibit at the Huff Gallery. The current show is local artist, Amanda Matthews Fields‘, solo show at Spalding University. Fields’ latest show, Dryad: Sprit of Trees is a mix of paintings and sculptures that embrace the duality of nature and the feminine.

Picture by Heather Hedgepeth- Ptelea: Elm Hamadryad

Ms. Fields’ work has expanded from 2-D paintings to large-scale sculptures that incorporate mortar with beautiful pieces of wood that the artist has recycled from the local area. Other sculptures include the piece, Leaving, in which a leaf starts out as a simple drawing on canvas and evolves to a sculpture that sits up and eventually appears to be standing and ready to walk about from the exhibit.

Picture by Heather Hedgepeth- Leaving

Ms. Fields’ also uses her work to evoke an emotional response to such issues as deforestation and the impact of industry on our environment. Other pieces of work simply remind you of the beauty and wonder of our trees and nature.

Picture by Heather Hedgepeth

The reception was attended by various art enthusiasts and collectors who seemed to enjoy the entire collection. Ed Hamilton, the famous local sculptor, also made an appearance with his wife. Make sure you don’t miss this wonderful exhibit and come and support one of Louisville’s most talented artists.

Picture by Heather Hedgepeth- Ed Hamilton & Amanda Matthews Fields

The Dryad: Spirit of Trees show will be open until November 4, 2007 at the Huff Gallery, which is located in the library building at Spalding University. The exhibit is open to the public during normal library hours.

Spalding University
Library Building
853 Library Lane (Near the Main Public Library)
Mon-Thursday: 8am-10pm
Friday: 8am-6:30pm
Saturday 8am-5pm
Sunday 8am-6pm

More information on Amanda Matthews Fields at www.wildhoneysuckle.com

Amanda Matthews Fields, Huff Gallery, Ed Hamilton, Spalding University

I managed to get down to the St. James Court Art Show yesterday for about 3 hours and enjoyed all the arts and crafts despite the heat. There were hundreds of booths that contained anything from clothing and kites, to expensive paintings and handmade vases. There were also plenty of food vendors and informational booths to keep the visitors feed and occupied.

I know that I did not see every vendor or artist, but we did view quite a number of booths and small shows in some of the open houses. Some of my favorites included Kendra Krumpe who dyes her own fabrics and makes wonderfully colorful handbags. Kats by Kelly was an incredibly fun booth for cat lovers with all types of whimsical cat cartoons and drawings. Artist, Jerry Krider, had some incredible wood pieces displayed that included some very intricate and beautiful puzzles. Michael & Jennifer Burt are two stained glass and jewelry artists who had several pieces that were very appealing in both form and color. I also fell in love with the glasswork of both James R. Wilbat and Stephen Rich Nelson.

There was also an area between the Mag Bar and the actual art show where artists had their own work displayed for the visitors. This was the “Unfair” and held some interesting pieces of art, jewelry, and clothing. There was even a small table in which you could have your fortune told with Tarot cards.

Parking can be a problem during this event so I printed off a site and parking directions map from the website, and decided to park near JCC. Parking at that lot cost $10 and included a ride in a nice air-conditioned van to 2nd Street and Magnolia and then a pass to get back to the lot. Not only was this a much better way to get down to the art fair but the fee also goes towards making improvements to the Old Louisville neighborhood.

All Pictures by Heather Hedgepeth- 2007

St. James Court Art Show, St. James Art Fair