WARREN Arts group cancels New Year's Eve event

Warren has been selected as a stop for Ohio Chautauqua 2004.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- After 15 years, the Fine Arts Council of Trumbull County is closing the curtain on the New Year's Eve Opening Night but hopes other events become new traditions.
"When we started Opening Night, there were only three in Ohio," said Bobbie Brown, FACT director. "Last year, there were three in the Mahoning Valley."
Youngstown and Canfield both host First Night events that are similar to Warren's Opening Night celebration. All of the events are alcohol-free and target families. The three communities ended up competing for artists.
"When we started it, we did it because it was a unique concept, and it no longer is," Brown said.
The council decided that the 2002 event would be the last, said Brown, who wrote the grant for the first Opening Night event before FACT formed. The event drew about 3,000 paid attendees annually.
"If you're going to grow and develop new programming, you need to let go of some of the old," she said.
What's planned
Although no New Year's Eve event will replace Opening Night, FACT has launched new programming during the year.
The Neighbors series, a collaborative project between FACT and the Trumbull County Martin Luther King Dream Team, started earlier this month. It's based on a state program that brings secular artists to urban churches to connect church congregations with urban residents.
FACT also applied and the city was selected as one of five cities for Ohio Chautauqua 2004: The Roaring Twenties. Next July 6-10, actors will portray people important to the era in a red-and-white striped, 5,000-seat tent that will be set up next to the Kinsman House, overlooking the Amphitheater.
Admission is free and events are open to the public. Car maker Henry Ford, magician Harry Houdini, writer and humorist H.L. Mencken, author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston and Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, are the figures to be portrayed during the weeklong series.
FACT is working with the Warren-Trumbull County Public Library to offer the events.
As part of the series, the actors must each deliver two outreach presentations of a scholarly nature during the week. Some may be geared at children and others for adults. Brown said FACT hopes to connect aspects of the county related to the 1920s.
Car advertising
Because one of the figures featured is Henry Ford and Warren is the home of the Packard Museum, one event will focus on the parallels of the advertising campaigns for both cars.
Women got the right to vote in 1920, and the city was a center for the women's suffrage movement, paving the way for another connection.
Trumbull 100, Warren Chamber Foundation and the Warren Library Association have contributed for the event, but FACT is seeking additional funding.
The city's Ohio Chautauqua presentation is a one-year engagement, but other cities have created their own versions that have become annual offerings.
"Even though we're losing some old things, hopefully, we'll get some new friends," Brown said.