MURRAY – The Murray Parks Committee last week approved two planned Playhouse in the Park events for later this year, as well as accepting a donation of security cameras and renewing its lawnmower lease.
Playhouse in the Park Executive Director Lisa Copeland spoke to the committee about a “ghost light walk” the community theater would like to do toward the back of the park in conjunction with Halloween. She said the Playhouse Board of Directors has tentatively planned to hold the family-friendly event from 5-8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 13-14, and they would ideally like to put a traffic barricade up next to the Saputo Playground to ensure safety for the participants.
“‘Ghost light’ is a theater term, and you’ve seen other towns and other theaters do this, where we would take groups of folks and they would walk from one location in the park to another,” Copeland said. “We’re thinking of maybe the deck and perhaps the caboose and the old schoolhouse – probably four to five spots in the park. In each spot, there would be a storyteller, and we’re working with the Historical Society to get some stories. People would walk (to each of the storytellers) and then back up at the deck, where we would have cider and popcorn and those kinds of things.”
The committee voted to approve the traffic barricade. Copeland said her next request might be a bit more controversial, but Playhouse is hoping to sell premium tickets for some of its August performances of “The Savannah Sipping Society” – a play about the friendships between four Southern women – to have a couple of wine tastings on the deck before the Saturday evening shows. Committee member Linda Cherry said she realized the door had been opened with several park events involving alcohol in the last year, but she would rather not see it.
Committee member Grant Rudolph said he was in favor of allowing Playhouse’s request because the recent events – which included a beer garden at a Labor Day weekend concert and the Bourbon and Bow Ties park fundraiser – had proven to be successful and had not seen any problems. He added that Bourbon and Bow Ties is planned again this year, and he believed things should work well as long as the procedures of checking IDs and having the serving area cordoned off from the rest of the park continue.