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Tickets for The Blair County Arts Foundation's annual gala fundraiser, A Night for the Mishler, are selling out fast for the multi-faceted event slated for March 9.
The evening kicks off at the Jaffa Shrine under the theme "Applause for the C'Oz," cocktails and dinner by Binus Catering, and a tribute to Ed Henderson, who is the recipient of the Angel of the Arts award.
The approximately 200 dinner attendees then go to the Mishler Theatre for the "Yellow Brick Joel: Face to Face Tribute." The concert features the iconic music of Elton John and Billy Joel. The evening concludes with a post-concert dessert reception at the Osgood Cultural Center at the BCAF offices next door.
Jane Hite leads the BCAF committee in organizing the evening, which is the organization's "signature event," said Executive Director Kate Shaffer.
"People anticipate this and we try to schedule something that's going to draw a large audience and make our patrons really happy. It's an exciting night all the way around," she said.
Standalone tickets for the concert sold out quickly through word of mouth.
The "Face to Face" tribute concert stars Bill Connors as Elton John and Dave Clark as Billy Joel. "This stunningly accurate concert will feature hits like 'Crocodile Rock,' 'I'm Still Standing' and 'You May Be Right,'" Shaffer said.
Hite, who also serves as board vice president, said "The Wizard of Oz" is the theme for the evening, and ties together the various elements for the evening, from decorations at the Jaffa, to the "Yellow Brick Road" song by Elton John to the organization's recently renamed offices cultural center in tribute to the late Dr. Carroll Osgood, and his wife, Dianne Osgood, longtime patrons. Dr. Osgood died in May at age 83 after a distinguished career as a neurosurgeon.
The first Night For the Mishler took place in 2005 and Hite has chaired the event for 15 years.
"Janie's mind is extraordinarily gifted," Shaffer said. "We schedule the Mishler performance first, then Janie hits the ground running and creates the perfect theme for the entire evening. Taking the committee's suggestions into account, Jane makes certain attention is given to every detail, from beginning to end."
The dessert reception, organized by committee member Sue Kuhn, will be held in the Osgood Cultural Center, next door to the Mishler.
"The BCAF is kind of the house that Ozz and Dianne built," Hite said. "Diane was a longtime board member and they were instrumental in making sure that the BCAF has always been afloat."
Kuhn said the Night for the Mishler committee members collaborate well.
"We work very well together and are very creative," Kuhn said. "The committee members come from all different backgrounds and have a variety of resources to pull from. It's like no other committee I've ever served on. Everyone brings something to the table and they all do what they say they are going to do."
The concert portion of the evening will be full of great music, said David Clark, who has been performing as Joel for decades and created the "Face to Face" tribute about two years ago.
For 38 years, he owned and operated a wedding band business and decided to create a tribute act to Joel.
"These tribute shows are in high demand -- people eat them up," he said. "It started out as a fun way to expand and it has really exploded," he said.
He's performed with a few different "Eltons" but he and Bill Connors are now working together on shows.
"He and I have a really good musical chemistry and he's really, really good," Clark said.
The tribute is patterned after a 1994 Elton/Joel concert tour.
Given the depth of each artists' catalog of work through the decades, Clark said the goal is to give fans a representative sampling of the hits. A seven-piece band backs up the two piano players during the concert.
"We can't do the entirety of all their songs as we want to keep the show's time frame to a reasonable length of two hours with an intermission," said Clark, who, like Joel, lives in Long Island. Joel's former band, The Lords of 52nd Street, even tapped him to play with them as Joel, he said, including for a performance when they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
"I was 10 when Joel's album 'The Stranger' came out," Clark remembers. "I was obsessed with it and I knew I wanted to do that -- be a piano-playing performer -- it's been in my blood ever since. It's so fun as a grown adult to live out that fantasy."
Staff writer Patt Keith can be reached at 814-949-7030.
If you go
What: Blair County Arts Foundation's A Night for the
Mishler
When: March 9, 5 p.m. dinner followed by 8 p.m. concert
Where: Dinner is at the Jaffa Shrine, 2200 Broad Ave.; concert at the Mishler, 1208 12th Ave.; and dessert reception at BCAF administrative offices adjacent to the Mishler
Tickets: $150 per person for A Night for the Mishler tickets, which include dinner, the concert and dessert reception. Individual tickets for the Yellow Brick Joel concert are $45, plus $4 box office fee, and are available online at www.mishlertheatre.org, or at the box office, 1208 12th Avenue, 814-944-9434, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.