Warren summer series set

Trumbull 100 is providing $50,000 for the programs.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The city will be alive this summer with the sound of music and the arts.
Programming at the new Warren Community Amphitheater begins Wednesday and continues through September with musical performers.
"It should be a very full summer," said Bobbie Brown, director of the Fine Arts Council of Trumbull County.
Trumbull 100, a community group aimed at enhancing the city and Trumbull County, has guaranteed about $50,000, becoming the financial underwriter for the program and allowing FACT to offer three performing arts series at the facility this summer.
First Place Bank, St. Joseph Health Center and Forum Health also are sponsoring the events at the amphitheater, which opened last year.
"I hope the community responds and comes to the amphitheater and sees that there's something going on downtown," said William C. Horton, president of Trumbull 100.
Tune It Up! runs from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays in the facility. Sanity Fare, an alternative rock band, gives the inaugural performance.
FACT has featured the Tune It Up! series for about five years, giving young musicians a performance venue.
"One of the reasons we started Tune It Up! is that we hearing from parents that their kids were in bands but there was nowhere for them to perform," Brown said.
Background
It started as a five-year series in Courthouse Square but will expand to fill the summer in the Amphitheater this year. This year's last Tune It Up! performance is set for Sept. 15 with the Youngstown State University's Dana School of Music's wind ensemble, directed by Dr. Stephen Gage.
Since the series started, opportunities for younger musicians have expanded to venues like the city's Italian Festival and Relay of Life events, Brown said.
From 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday and continuing each Thursday through Aug. 26, Something TaDoo takes the amphitheater stage.
"There are no restrictions," Brown said. "Performers can be of any art form, any age group, union or nonunion."
The first group is Rose & amp; Thistle, which performs Celtic music.
TaDoo is a new project this year designed by FACT. As part of the series, a historical marker will be dedicated June 17 to Kenneth Patchen, a city native and a poet who illustrated his poems. A performance from beat poet and songwriter Annie Gallup is also featured that day.
Other events
The third amphitheater program, called Saturday Night Specials, begins Saturday and continues for six Saturday evenings through Sept. 4. Programs run from 8 to 10 p.m.
Blue Lunch, a Cleveland-based group, "explores the music of the late '40s and '50s when rhythm and blues, swing and rock 'n' roll were all one thing," according to a FACT brochure.
Other Saturday Night Specials acts include a Beatles tribute band, dance companies from New Zealand and Cleveland, Celtic musicians and a jug band.
FACT's annual programming of Noon in the Park and Chalk on the Walk will continue.
All of the events are free to the public.
The city is the site for more entertainment this summer when Ohio Chautauqua 2004: The Roaring Twenties stops here as one of five cities in the state.
From July 6 through 10, actors will portray people important to the era in a 5,000-seat tent that will be erected next to the Kinsman House, overlooking the amphitheater. Admission to Ohio Chautauqua events also is free.
John Taylor, a past president of Trumbull 100, credited Brown for the events' coming together.
"We wouldn't and we couldn't have done this without Bobbie Brown," said Taylor, who is also city treasurer.
denise_dick@vindy.com