WC MUSIC, THEATER LOOKS AT ’50S GENERATION IN THE BEAT CAFÉ

The Central Wyoming College music and theater departments bring together comedy, literature, dance, and music from the Beat Generation with original shows scheduled at 7:30 p.m., Nov. 22 and 23 in the Robert A. Peck Arts Center Theatre.

The performances are wrapped together at The Beat Café, and the audience is invited to sit at tables on the stage that is being transformed into a San Francisco coffee house in the 1950s.

While sipping complimentary tea or coffee and eating desserts, spectators are treated to a variety show of Beat-period routines, said CWC Theater Director Mike Myers.

The Beat Café is the finale to the month-long events celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Arts Center at CWC. With the performance and rehearsal space totally booked this month, Myers sent his students off to research the cultural phenomena and return with rehearsed short performances reminiscent of the times.

“The students are learning history through theater,” Myers said. “We are creating this from the ground up.”

As the Beat Generation was getting underway, so was Bebop, a style of jazz from musicians like Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. Music instructor Jason Ogg and a group of musicians play the jazz tunes that were said to influence Beat writers and poets who were out to change the social consciousness of America.

Poetry readings will be accompanied by jazz and folk musicians, Myers said. “That was very common to have this kind of improvisational musical backgrounds to poetry.”

The presentations by the students and some CWC alumni are self-selected. “I’ve encouraged them to read about the Beat Generation so they have some kind of idea of the milieu,” he said, adding some have discovered the music of The Kingston Trio and the comedy of The Smothers Brothers to share.

The Beat Generation was the precursor to the hippy era, which theater students became familiar with when they prepared for last spring’s musical Hair. “The beats were very influential on the hippies,” Myers said, using The Doors’ front man Jim Morrison and Paul Simon as examples of musicians who became inspired by the Beat Generation.

The show each night is limited to 100 audience members and patrons are asked to reserve their seats by Wednesday, Nov. 20. Myers is rating the show PG13 signifying the material is suitable for audience members 13 and over.

Tickets for The Beat Café are $10 for adults and $8 for seniors and youth. They are available at the CWC Box Office; open weekdays from 3-6 p.m., or online at tickets.cwc.edu. Call 855-2002 for more details.

To assist with the annual Community Thanksgiving Dinner, the Beat Café case is accepting donations of canned cranberry sauce and vegetables and/or checks payable to the RHS Key Club. A percentage of the gate receipts also go to this project.