Pocahontas Opera House Provides Great Entertainment In Late September

Marlinton, WV – The Pocahontas Opera House, known for bringing a variety of acts to the county doesn’t disappoint the last two weeks of September. Bluegrass great Larry Sparks takes to the stage on Saturday, September 18th. Opera House Vista volunteer Jamie Poster is excited about having this legend in the house.

“Larry Sparks is the man’ of Bluegrass, he’s won two international bluegrass music awards” says Poster. “Larry Sparks is old friends with Bill Hefner so he got the hook up on that one.”

Millpoint resident Bill Hefner is a popular bluegrass musician in his own right, and well known for his custom made instruments.

Need a good laugh? If so, check out the laughter club on Wednesday, September 22nd at 6pm.

“On September 22nd, the Pocahontas laughter club is going to meet at the Opera House and that’s a special project to my heart because I discovered laughter in my life eight months ago” says Poster. “It’s just really fun and really silly and invokes a lot of childlike playfulness; and laughter is free and good for your health.”

Poster says there are plenty of things going at the Opera House in conjunction with the Autumn Harvest Festival the weekend of September 25th.

“During the Autumn Harvest Festival we’re going to have a old time forestry fundraiser going on in the lot next to the Opera House” she says. “There’s going to be [an] axe throw and log rolling and pulp toss. These are all events that old time lumberjack camps used to do.”

The festivities at the Opera House continue that evening.

“During the evening we’re going to have old time music” says Poster “the Hammons Musical Heritage Celebration. Their influence in this community is obviously just felt everywhere, especially in music. We’re just inviting members of the community to perform if they feel like they want to share something.”

“We’ve had some people sign up from Morgantown and somebody just signed up from Pennsylvania so you can feel the Hammons affecting more than just Pocahontas County, which is really neat.”

Musicians of all ages are invited to perform during the celebration. Performers won’t be judged but will receive a gift from the Opera House. The Hammons Musical Heritage celebration kicks off at 7:30pm. Allegheny Mountain Radio will also have their raffle drawing for a Hefner guitar, a quilt by Normal Mikesell and an afghan by Jean Jackson during the celebration.

The Tears of Joy Puppet Theatre wraps up the weekend with a Sunday afternoon performance at 3pm. Emily Newton, who just finished her year of Vista service with Pocahontas County Parks and Recreation, is personally acquainted with the theatre based in Portland Oregon. She’ll be joining them for the performance on September 26th.

“There’ll be a fantastic puppet show that tells a really great story” says Newton “kind of a Japanese version of Tom Thumb. Very small boy goes off to save the world, or at least his village in Japan. He fights a rat; there’s a giant koi fish that he rides down a river.”

“Then after the puppet show the kids will be invited to come up and look at the puppets and maybe even get to make one of their own. We will also have some other Japanese cultural workshops like origami and Japanese music.”

As with other events at the Opera House, children under twelve are admitted free. For more information about all these events, visit their website www.pocahontasoperahouse.org.