SEQUIM — Your Community Variety Show, a monthly program of live local entertainment which was launched last September, is on hiatus.
“We’ve been talking about taking a break,” said organizer and host Michael Bunnell, “and this seemed like the best time to close down for a while.”
Other entertainment available
He noted the abundance of other summertime entertainment in the greater North Olympic Peninsula community as one reason for wrapping things up at this time.
The free show was at Sequim Prairie Grange the third Tuesday of each month.
Show provided by sponsors
It was provided by Skookum Bay Productions, a division of Skookum Bay Publishing, and Joyful Noise Music Center.
Bunnell said a few pieces of equipment need to be repaired or replaced, which can’t be done in the few weeks between monthly shows.
People involved have plans
He also said that everyone on the volunteer production crew has other things that need some extended attention: a band tour, a career change, a family relocation, and personal or family health issues.
The July 17 program, which ended the show’s 11-month run, did full justice to the “variety” promised in the show’s title, organizers said.
Soul Posse rocked the house with an opening set of country-flavored hits in the polished style to be expected of a band with two members who once played with the legendary Merle Haggard.
Writer and actor Patrick Casteneda, who recently moved to Sequim, read and acted out an original Sherlock Holmes adventure.
Mike and Diane Johnson performed some of the songs they did before they teamed up with Rodger Bigelow and Dave Keyte to become Buttercup Lane.
Mike and Erma Kuenzli tapped their Hawaiian heritage to present songs of the islands, and two very different aspects of 1960’s folk music were offered in solo sets by Bob Wickwire and the show’s host, Bunnell.
Closing performance
The closing performance was by another recent arrival in the community, Joe Schipani, whose renditions of hits from the 1940s and 1950s on the electronic accordion brought thunderous applause.
“As I’ve always said,” Bunnell pointed out, “this is a good old-fashioned friends-and-neighbors event; and we have some very talented friends and neighbors.”
