Past Special Events

For your interest, to see the range of what Gentrain offers in its Special Events series, here are some recent ones.

Wednesday June 28, 2023 -- Trip 
to the Legion of Honor in San Francisco

The Gentrain Society will travel to the Legion of Honor in San Francisco to see The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England.

The exhibition will trace the transformation of the arts in Tudor England through more than 100 objects, including iconic portraits, spectacular tapestries, manuscripts, sculpture, and armor, drawn from The Met and collection and international lenders.

Please email mbpwriter@gmail.com for more information. 


Saturday May 20, 2023 -- The Metropolitan : Don Giovanni

Monterey 13 theater at Del Monte Center, Monterey
Time: 9:55 am (We suggest you arrive at least 20 minutes early)
Cost: $25


Live opera from New York. There are a number of eating establishments nearby where play-goers can meet for an afternoon meal and socialize with Gentrain friends.For further information, contact Linda Chetlin, (831)373-2440, funnyface06@att.net


Thursday May 11, 2023 -- HELLO SUMMER, 2023!

11:00 am Sam Karas Room of the MPC Library
Gentrain Society Members and Gentrain Program students and instructors are invited to celebrate summertime with a light lunch in the Sam Karas Room of the MPC Library. Come after class for a delicious quiche, assorted desserts and beverages, and mingle with others as we all take off in different directions and welcome summer.


Wednesday October 26, 2022 -- Ramses the Great and the Gold of the Pharaohs

We will travel by chartered bus to the deYoung Museum to see this new collection of Egyptian artifacts. A limited number of tickets remain available. All attendees must be members of the Gentrain Society.

For further information, contact Mary Pendlay, mpbwriter@gmail.com.




Tuesday August 30, 2022 -- MCTA: Frank Lloyd Wright

Howard Burnham & MCTA Virtual Theatre, (831) 915-1968


Saturday July 30, 2022 -- MCTA: The Unfortunate Dr. Dodd

Shakespeare’s first anthologist - Howard Burnham & MCTA Virtual Theatre, (831) 915-1968


Saturday July 16, 2022 -- MCTA: Jane Austen as recalled by her brother Henry

Howard Burnham & MCTA Virtual Theatre, (831) 915-1968


Saturday July 2, 2022 -- MCTA: Lafayette

Howard Burnham & MCTA Virtual Theatre, (831) 915-1968


Saturday June 11, 2022 -- Edward VIII

Howard Burnham & MCTA Virtual Theatre, (831) 915-1968


June 1, 2022 ?? -- San Jose Stage Company is thrilled to launch our 38th Season!

Although we haven't been able to welcome you back into our theatre, we've had the opportunity to explore new possibilities and we are excited to present our first virtual season! The Stage will be transformed in a way that allows audience and artist to viscerally connect beyond the conventional theatrical experience. The Stage continues its mission of bringing powerful, provocative, and profound theatre to our community. Now, more than ever, it is essential that we stay connected and continue to give power to truth and unity.

Join us for another exciting year as we re-envision The Stage for our 38th Season!


Saturday May 21, 2022 -- Patton, Rommel and Me

Monty (for Armed Forces Day) - Howard Burnham & MCTA Virtual Theatre, (831) 915-1968


Saturday April 30, 6 p.m. GUNHILD CARLING Paper Wing Theatre & Supper Club

Swedish musical sensation Gunhild Carling is an internationally acclaimed superstar whose show is a can't-miss event! Whether she's singing favorite swinging jazz standards, playing one of many instruments (trumpet, trombone, harmonica, oboe, harp, flute, recorder, or jazz bagpipe!) or juggling and tap dancing, Gunhild's sublime showmanship shines. And just wait for the finale – spoiler alert –she plays three trumpets at once! Carling competed as a celebrity dancer in Let's Dance 2014 placing third and was on Sweden's "Dancing with the Stars." Gunhild performed for "Sweden's Got Talent" in 2017 and "America's Got Talent" in 2019. For tickets visit paperwing.com.

Saturday April 9, 2022 -- Mr. Trelawny, killer of Shelley and Byron

Howard Burnham & MCTA Virtual Theatre, (831) 915-1968 


Saturday March 12, 2022 -- P.G. Wodehouse

Howard Burnham & MCTA Virtual Theatre, (831) 915-1968 


Saturday February 12, 2022 -- Dr. Watson on Sherlock Holmes

Howard Burnham & MCTA Virtual Theatre, (831) 915-1968


Sunday, April 19, 2020 RAGTIME, THE MUSICAL
From the Novel by E.L. Doctorow
Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, Mountain View, California

CANCELLED

Here's a printable flyer.

Our next Gentrain Society Regional Theater trip will take us to Mountain View on Sunday, April 19, for TheatreWorks' production of Ragtime, The Musical. Thus far there have been three iterations of Ragtime, and each of them has garnered a cluster of awards: the novel, by E. L. Doctorow, published in 1974, won a National Book Critics Award in 1975, and an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award in 1976. Both Modern Library and Time magazine named it one of the best 100 novels of the 20th Century. The film made from the book in 1981 by Miloš Forman was nominated for eight Oscars and six Golden Globe Awards. And the musical in 1996 was nominated for 12 Tony Awards (it won four), and narrowly lost the Best Musical Award to Disney's Lion King; it was also nominated for 13 Drama Desk Awards (it won five), and its revival in 2009 was nominated for six Tony Awards and seven Drama Desk Awards (it won one).

The musical features three families from three different social strata at the turn of the century: a white upper-middle-class family in New Rochelle, New York; an African-American jazz pianist from Harlem, his girlfriend, and their son; and a Jewish immigrant and his daughter on the Lower East Side. The play deals with interactions among these families and groups, the interactions catalyzed by a large number of historical figures, including J. P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Booker T. Washington, Emma Goldman, Harry Houdini, Stanford White, Evelyn Nesbit, and Harry Thaw - there are even cameo appearances by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. The primary narrative thread concerns the Harlem ragtime pianist, Coalhouse Walker, Jr., and his confrontation with a racist fire chief and its consequences, a thread which pulls the other families and social classes into its fabric. The musical generally takes a positive view of America as a melting pot, but it is at the same time aware of the problems for the rest of the century generated by what is usually called the Progressive Age. That, plus some fine music and dazzling staging, makes this play a splendid way to spend a Sunday afternoon in the cozy village of Mountain View.

As always, Grant Voth, former Gentrain Coordinator and long-time guide for these theater trips, will give an introduction to the play in Lecture Forum 101 on Friday afternoon, April 17, from 1:00 - 3:00 pm, designed to enhance understanding and enjoyment of the piece.

The cost is $80.00 per person which includes play ticket, bus transportation, Dr. Voth's lecture, and snacks on the bus ride. Please make your check payable to "MPC/ Gentrain Society" and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please include your telephone number and/or your email address. Questions? Call Wayne at 831-375-2371 or 831-917-0511.

The bus will leave the MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road at 10:00 am for arrival in Mountain View around 11:30 am. The play begins at 2:00 pm. You will be dropped off near the theater where there are numerous restaurants for lunch prior to the play. The bus will then pick you near the theater for our return trip to Monterey. We should be back in Monterey around 6:30 pm.


Sunday October 27, 2019: Mark Twain's River of Song by Randal Myler and Dan Wheetman at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts

Our first theater trip of the new academic year will take place on Sunday, October 27, when we travel to the TheaterWorks production of Mark Twain's River of Song in Mountain View. This is the West Coast premiere of a piece by Randal Myler and Dan Wheetman that combines twenty-some songs interspersed with readings and dramatic scenes from the writings of Mark Twain. It is set on the Mississippi of Twain's time, and it features all kinds of songs by and about the people who lived on the river and on its banks: farmers, lumberjack, boat captains, gamblers, slaves, and runaways. Twain was a river boat pilot on the Mississippi and knew all about its beauties, its power, and its dangers, as the passages from his work make clear. The piece premiered at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre last winter, and it played to sensational reviews. Like that production, this one will be directed by Randal Myler and the music arranged and directed by Dan Wheetman. It's a chance to step back to a time when the Mississippi was America's first superhighway, negotiated by steamboats and into a world that we can scarcely anymore imagine. It culminates with a dramatic scene from Huck Finn, about Huck and Jim, the runaway slave, on their raft floating down the river.

Dr. Grant Voth, former coordinator of the Gentrain program and long-time guide for these theater trips, will give a class in Lecture Forum 101, on Friday, October 25, from 1:00 - 3:00 p.m., designed to enhance understanding and enjoyment of a visit to Mark Twain's Mississippi River.

The cost is $80.00 per person which includes play ticket, bus transportation, Dr. Voth's lecture, and snacks on the bus ride. Please make your check payable to "MPC Gentrain Society" and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please include your telephone number or your email address. Questions? Call Wayne at 831-375-2371 or 8341-917-0511.

The bus will leave the MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road at 10:00 a.m. for arrival in Mountain View around 11:30 a.m. The play begins at 2:00 p.m. Your will be dropped off near the theater where there are numerous restaurants for lunch prior to the play. The bus will then pick you up in front of the theater for our return trip to Monterey. We should be back in Monterey around 6:30 p.m.

Here's a printable flyer.


Sunday April 28, 2019: Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest at Aurora Theater in Berkeley

The final Gentrain Society Regional Theater trip this academic year will take us to the Aurora Theater in Berkeley on Sunday, April 28 for Oscar Wilde's evergreen comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest. It's one of the most sparkling plays in the English language; as Wilde himself said of it, "it is [a play] by a butterfly and for butterflies." It has a stunning cast of comic characters—the inimitable Lady Bracknell, Miss Prism, the Rev. Chasuble, two very droll butlers, and of course the four lovers, who discover during the course of the play the importance of being earnest.

The editors of the Oxford Anthology of English Literature say about it that it is "the perfect realization of innocence, of harmlessness, [in a] social world in which it is impossible to hurt or be hurt." It is in fact as free of evil and of principles as is a flotilla of butterflies. The most intense emotions in the play are reserved for cucumber sandwiches and muffins. It will provide us with a break from our very messy world to float free for a few hours in a place where, like Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, people can make words mean anything they want them to—they just have to pay them extra. And to top it all off, every character in the play talks like Oscar Wilde, whom William Butler Yeats said was the most brilliant and witty conversationalist he had encountered in his long and storied life. It is the most perfect play of its kind in our language.

Grant Voth, former Gentrain Coordinator, will provide a class on Friday afternoon, April 26, from 1 to 3 p.m. in Lecture Forum 101, designed to enhance understanding and enjoyment of this marvelous piece.

The bus will leave MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road (behind the Music Building) at 9:30 a.m. for arrival in Berkeley around 11:30 a.m. The play begins at 2:00 p.m. You will be dropped off near the theater where there are numerous restaurants for lunch prior to the play as well as a number of interesting shops and books stores. The bus will pick you up in front of the theater for our return to Monterey. We should be back in Monterey about 7:00 p.m The cost is $85.00 per person which includes bus transportation, play tickets, and the class given by Grant Voth. Please make your check payable to the "MPC Gentrain Society" and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940-2528. Please put your telephone number and/or your email address on your check. Questions? Call Wayne at 831-375-2371 or 831-917-0511.

Here's a printable flyer.


Saturday, January 26, 2019: Peter Morgan's Frost/Nixon at Mountain Center for the Performing Arts

The next Gentrain Society Regional Theater trip will occur on Saturday, January 26, when we will travel to the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts to see the TheatreWorks Silicon Valley production of Peter Morgan's Frost/Nixon. The play focuses on the historic series of televised interviews between David Frost and Richard Nixon. On the evening of May 5, 1977, 45 million people watched the interview that treated Watergate - a full one-third of the adult American population.

The play provides the context for the interviews, the people and events that led up to them, and then gives us the most important moments from the climactic Watergate dialogue. The David Frost team made clear after the event that their purpose had been to try to elicit some kind of apology, some sign of contrition, some confession of guilt from Nixon as a way of finally putting Watergate to rest, and so the interviews became a kind of verbal prize fight between an entertainer and a disgraced ex-president. Morgan's play also explores the role that journalism and the media played in the great encounter and explores the question of the extent to which television inevitably theatricalizes and trivializes what it takes up.

The play was written on the 30th anniversary of the Frost-Nixon interviews, and gives us a great opportunity to remember and rethink them. It was Morgan's first work for the stage (among his many other works he did the screenplay for the Helen Mirren movie, The Queen, and the Netflix series, The Crown). This powerful play was also made into a movie starring Frank Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost.

Dr. Grant Voth, former coordinator of the Gentrain Program, will give a class on the play on Friday, January 25, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm in Lecture Forum 101, designed to enhance understanding and enjoyment of the play.

The cost is $92.00 per person which includes play ticket, bus transportation, Dr. Voth's lecture, and snacks on the bus. Please make your check payable to the "MPC/Gentrain Society" and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please put your telephone number on your check. Questions? Call Wayne at 831-375-2371 or 831-917-0511.

The bus will leave the MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road at 10:00 am for arrival in Mountain View around 11:30 am. The play begins at 2:00 pm. You will be dropped off near the theater where there are numerous restaurants for lunch prior to the play. The bus will then pick you up in front of the theater for our return trip to Monterey.


Sunday-Monday September 23-24: KING TUT: TREASURES OF THE GOLDEN PHARAOH

Here's a printable flyer.

An overnight bus trip to California Science Center, Los Angeles, CA

To celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the discovery of King Tut's tomb. The California Science Center is proud to present this world premiere - the largest King Tut exhibition ever toured.

Total cost with shared room $261.00 per person; Total cost with single room $370.00 per person.

Pre-tour lecture to be presented by Tut expert, Gentrain's own Tom Logan


Sunday, August 19, 2018: Romeo and Juliet -- Shakespeare Santa Cruz

Here's a printable flyer.

Our next Gentrain Society play trip will be to the beautiful outdoor theater in Delaveaga Park in Santa Cruz on Sunday, August 19, 2018, to see Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet at a 1 p.m. matinee performance.

Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare's most popular and oft-performed plays. It is perhaps the most beautiful play about young love in the English language, created during the "lyrical period" of Shakespeare's career, which also included Richard II and A Midsummer Night's Dream. But it is also about growing up, in both archetypal ways and in the particular circumstances of a deadly feud between powerful families in Verona; and it is in the context of their warring families that the young lovers must try to negotiate the difficult passage from adolescence to maturity. Finally, it explores some of the mysterious connections between love and death.

As always, Grant Voth will provide a class on Romeo and Juliet, in LF101 from 1 to 3 p.m. on Friday, August 17, designed to enhance understanding and enjoyment of the play.

The bus will leave the MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road at 10:30 a.m. The plan is for each participant to bring their own picnic lunch (including wine) to enjoy the Grove prior to the 1:00 p.m. performance. The Grove has very limited lunch concessions available.

The cost is $85.00 per person which includes bus transportation, play ticket, and the class given by Grant Voth prior to the event. Please make your check payable to the "MPC Gentrain Society" and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please put your telephone number on your check. Questions? Call Wayne at 831-375-2371.


Saturday April 28, 2018: Suzan-Lori Parks's Father Comes Home from the Wars at A.C.T. in San Francisco

Here's a printable flyer.

Next Gentrain Society Regional Theater Trip On Saturday, April 28, we will travel to San Francisco to see A.C.T.'s production of Suzan-Lori Parks's Father Comes Home from the Wars. Ms. Parks in 2002 was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her Topdog/Underdog, and she was a finalist for the same prize in 2014 for this play. It is a trilogy which follows the journey of a black slave during the Civil War, seeking his liberty and his identity. The trilogy stands alone, but Ms. Parks intends it as the first installments in a series of plays that will together constitute a kind of epic. She has said that she thinks of the great saga of the war as an American story with sufficient scope and significance to stand alongside the great Greek wartime epics of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Odyssey stands as a kind of template for the action in this play: there is a character named Homer, the central character is named Hero (whose wife's name is Penny, for Penelope), and there's even a dog named Odd-See for the weird way he moves his eyes. The dog is played by a human actor, and according to all accounts is one of the most gripping and entertaining of the cast members.

The central situation is that Hero's master has demanded that Hero accompany him to the war, promising him his freedom if he survives. Hero knows that that would put him on the wrong side in the war, and he isn't sure that he can trust his master's promises anyway. The three parts include the departure for war, a confrontation in a forest with a Union prisoner, and a bitter-sweet return home. The play has garnered lavish praise in its East Coast and Los Angeles productions, and promises a powerful, moving-and frequently funny-afternoon of great theater. It also includes a good deal of music.

As usual, Dr. Grant L. Voth, former Gentrain Coordinator and Humanities instructor at MPC, will offer an introduction to the play on Friday afternoon, April 27, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm in LF102, designed to enhance understanding for, appreciation for, and enjoyment of the of the play.

The bus will leave the MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road at 9:00 am for arrival in San Francisco around noon. The play begins at 2:00 p.m. You will be dropped off near the theater where there are numerous restaurants for lunch prior to the play. The bus will meet us at the same drop off point after the play for our return to Monterey. We should arrive back at MPC between 7:00 and 7:30 pm.

The cost is $94 per person which includes play ticket, bus transportation, snacks on the bus, and the pre-theater lecture give by Grant Voth. All of our tickets for this play are on the main floor of the A.C.T. Theatre. Please make your check payable to the "MPC/Gentrain Society" and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Also, please put your telephone number on your check. Questions? Call Wayne at 375-2371.


Sunday February 11, 2018: George Bernard Shaw's Widowers' Houses in Berkeley

Here's a printable flyer.

Our next Gentrain Society Theater trip will be on Sunday, February 11, 2018, when we travel to the Aurora Theater (where last year we saw the marvelous production of Stoppard's The Real Thing) in Berkeley. The play this time will be George Bernard Shaw's Widowers' Houses. The play was written in 1898, and it was the first Shaw play actually produced on stage - by the Independent Theatre Society, a subscription club formed to escape the censorship of the Lord Chamberlain's Office. At the time, Shaw's plays were considered by the censor as too raw and scurrilous for polite audiences and public theaters.

The play is about a young, idealistic, aristocratic (but poor) doctor, who falls in love with the daughter of a self-made (very rich) businessman. They become engaged, but when Henry (the young doctor) finds that his prospective father-in-law makes his living by renting slum housing to the poor, he insists that he and Blanche (the daughter) accept no money from her father, but live as best they can on his meager income. After a bitter argument, Blanche ends the engagement. But then Henry finds out that his modest salary comes from interest on mortgaged tenements and is therefore as dirty as his father-in-law's. The plot thickens.

Shaw published the play in a collection called Plays Unpleasant, because they were written, he wrote, not to entertain but to raise social consciousness - in this case about the exploitation of the poor by the unproductive rich. But Shaw couldn't write a play without being entertaining, and the Shavian wit is sprinkled abundantly through the play.

As usual, Grant Voth, former Gentrain Coordinator, will offer a class in LF102 on Friday, February 9, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm, designed to enhance understanding, appreciation, and enjoyment of this lively play.

The bus will leave the MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road at 9:30 a.m. for arrival in Berkeley around 11:30 a.m. The play begins at 2:00 p.m. You will be dropped off near the theater where there are numerous restaurants for lunch prior to the play. The bus will pick you up in front of the theater for our return trip to Monterey. We should arrive back at MPC between 6:30 and 7:00 pm.

The cost is $82.00 per person which includes play ticket, bus transportation, snacks on the bus, and the pre-theater lecture given by Grant Voth. Please make your check payable to the "MPC/Gentrain Society" and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Also, please put your telephone number on your check. Questions? Call Wayne at 375-2371.


Snowflake Social December 5, 2017

Midnight at the Oasis Scholarship Fundraiser October 28, 2017

"Midnight at the Oasis" was great fun--just look at the pictures! We were welcomed to the event by Sahin's beautiful serenades. We all indulged in delicious lamb (the Eyres secret recipe), foul moumedas, dates, baklava (Angelo's homemade can't be beat), watermelon salad, hummus and so much more......

Alan's reading mesmerized us all. Tom's ancient coins and the displays by John and Gamble added to our knowledge and the atmosphere of our Middle Eastern-themed gala.

Our hostess, Marilyn, exquisitely performed both traditional and modern bellydances to everyone's enjoyment. AND, photographer Maria Prince's personal photos from the exotic photo tent--I can only say, "what happens at the oasis, stays at the oasis."

Wayne and Rene certainly want to thank everyone who helped make this event possible, especially Marilyn and Jeff Riehl for providing their beautiful home and so much more to make this a very successful and fun day. Most importantly, at last count, we raised over $6,200 for the scholarship fund. Congratulations, Gentrain Society!

The Exotic Tent photos by Maria Prince


Saturday October 28, 2017: Scholarship Fundraiser

For our bi-annual Gentrain Scholarship Fundraiser gala this fall, we will have a Middle Eastern theme so dig through your trunk and pull out your camel-riding clothes or harem garb, as you choose.....
Here's a flyer with details and driving directions!


August 20, 2017: Theatre Trip Shakespeare Santa Cruz

Here's the full brochure

Save the Date for a Bonus Gentrain Society Special Event Regional Theater Trip to The Grove at DeLaveaga Park, Santa Cruz, California.

Our next Gentrain Society theater trip will occur in August 2017 when we travel to see the Shakespeare Santa Cruz production of Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona. The play is one of Shakespeare's earliest comedies; if we have their chronology correct, it was his third comedy and his first romantic comedy, whose main concern is getting the right young people paired off for marriage.

The play is in fact what one editor calls a "dramatic laboratory," in which Shakespeare created drafts of elements and devices he was to use over and over, in different combinations, in the comedies ahead, including the first iteration of such great later comic heroines as Beatrice, Rosalind, Portia, Viola, and Helena. There's also a trip into a forest inhabited by a gang of aristocratic outlaws, a woman who disguises herself as a boy, and two good clowns - low-comic characters who mockingly comment on the action of the lovers' plot. It is also a charming play, full of courtly love talk, betrayal of a friend by trying to steal his mistress, and two triangles (a friendship triangle and a love triangle) cunningly connected.

As always, Grant Voth will give a class, designed to enhance understanding and enjoyment of the play, from 1 to 3 pm in Lecture Forum 101 on the MPC campus on the Friday prior to the production. While not yet set for sure, the date we are trying to nail down is Sunday, August 20, matinee. Concerns or questions call Wayne at 831-375-2371.

Shakespeare Santa Cruz is in its second season at its new enchanting home at DeLaveaga Park. Look for more information regarding cost, time, and other details on the Gentrain website, at the Gentrain classes and lectures, and in the July/August Conductor.



Don't Miss The Gentrain Society's Annual Picnic
May 20th At 11:30am At Whispering Pines Park

Where we will honor Song Monroe for her years of dedicated support to The Gentrain Program. Song will retire from MPC in June.
Menu: pulled pork, beef brisket, potato casserole, BBQ beans, mac and cheese, salads, deserts and beverages.
Cost: $20 per person
Mail a check to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940 or give a check to Rene Kimzey in class.


Saturday May 6, 2017 11:00 AM: Monet: The Early Years at The Palace of the Legion of Honor San Francisco.

The Gentrain Society will be conducting a trip to the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, on Saturday, May 6, 2017, to view the exhibit Monet: The Early Years.

Monet: The Early Years will be the first major US exhibition devoted to the initial phase of Claude Monet's (French, 1840-1926) career. Through approximately sixty paintings, the exhibition demonstrates the radical invention that marked the artist's development during the formative years of 1858 to 1872. In this period the young painter developed his unique visual language and technique, creating striking works that manifested his interest in painting textures and the interplay of light upon surfaces.

This exhibition is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience Monet's mastery before Impressionism and includes paintings that are profoundly daring and surprising. Depictions of moments both large and small, with friends and loved ones, in the solitude of forests and fields and in the quiet scenes of everyday, offer new revelations about an artist that many consider to be extraordinary.

With a selection of works gathered from some of the most important international collections - the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and other public and private collections worldwide, Monet: The Early Years authoritatively demonstrates the artist's early command of many genres, not only the landscapes for which he has become so renowned but also still lifes, portraits and genre scenes.

The Bus will leave the MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road at 8:30 am for arrival at the museum around 11:00 am. We have requested an 11:30 am entry time into the exhibit. Following the viewing of the exhibit, there will be time to have lunch and/or see other parts of the museum.

The cost is $70.00 per person which includes exhibit price, bus transportation, and snacks on the bus. Please make your check payable to the "MPC Gentrain Society" and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please put your telephone number on your check in case we need to contact you. Questions? Call Wayne at 831-375-2371.



Sunday February 5, 2017: Aurora Theatre Company, Berkeley, California -- Tom Stoddard's The Real Thing.

The next Gentrain Society Regional Theater trip will be to a new theater for us, in a familiar place: the Aurora Theater in Berkeley, on Sunday, February 5, 2017, where we will see Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing. The play, first produced in 1982, has had frequent revivals since then and has aged very well, still interesting and provocative. It’s about a playwright, his wife, two friends of theirs, also actors, and a young Scottish soldier imprisoned for setting fire to the wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Warrior. It has all of Stoppard’s brilliant writing, its structure is that of a Chinese box, with plays inside of plays inside of plays, and its themes are questions about “the real thing” in love, in marriage, in art, in music, and in ideas by which we live. It was one of Stoppard’s first plays to deal with love and commitment in a way that is not just witty, and it convinced audiences that he had a heart as well as a head. One reviewer of the 1982 production wrote that it is a play that reminds us why we go the theater and why we fall in love, and why, sometimes, it is worth all the effort.

As always, Grant Voth, former Gentrain Coordinator and Professor Emeritus at MPC, will be giving a class on the play on Friday afternoon, February 3, from 1 to 3 p.m. in Lecture Forum 101, designed to enhance understanding and enjoyment of the play on Sunday in Berkeley.

The bus will leave the MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road at 9:30 a.m. for arrival in Berkeley around 11:30 The play begins at 2:00 p.m. You will be dropped off near the theater, where there are numerous restaurants for lunch, prior to the play. The bus will pick you up in front of the theater for our return trip to Monterey

The cost is $78.00 per person which includes play ticket, bus transportation, snacks on the bus, and the class presented by Grant Voth. Please make your check payable to the “MPC Gentrain Society” and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please put your telephone number on your check in chase we need to contact you. Questions? Call Wayne at 831-375-2371.


Tuesday January 10, 2017 11:00 AM: Salvadore Dali Lecture and Museum Tour.

Many of you attended the Wednesday lecture on the Dali17 Museum recently opened in Monterey and asked whether a tour could be arranged for Gentrainers.
As the "genie" said, "your wish is our command." Dr Gamble Madsen will lecture on Dali and the group will then go to the museum for a docent led tour and video.

DATE: January 10, 2017
TIME: 11:00 AM
LECTURE LOCATION: Social Sciences Building (room assignment TBD)
TOUR LOCTION: Dali 17 Museum, 5 Custom House Plaza, Monterey
(transportation and parking on your own)
COST: $15
Space is limited so early registration is encouraged. Send checks made to Gentrain Society/MPC to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940 or pay Rene in class.


Tuesday December 6, 2016 11:00 AM: Snowflake Social

Enjoy talking to fellow students during class breaks?? Want to savour the season with tasty treats and gregarious Gentrainers? Join us for the first ever Snowflake Social immediately following class on TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6TH, 11 am in the Sam Karas Room (by the library) on the MPC campus. Free, but please sign-up in class at registration desk or E-mail RSVP@gentrain.org by December 2.


Sunday October 23 2016: Pacific Repertory Circle Theatre Carmel, California -- Shakespeare’s King Lear.

The new Gentrain Society Regional Theatre season begins on Sunday, October 23 in Carmel, where the Pacific Repertory Theatre will be producing Shakespeare's King Lear in their Circle Theatre. Lear has been called the "Everest of world theatre," with its stunning and powerful portrayal of a man who - as a result of his own actions - descends step by step into Hell, while simultaneously ascending a kind of spiritual Mount Purgatory to discover inner strength and understanding that he never knew he had. Along with Cordelia, Kent, and the two bad sisters and their husbands, the play is also a rich study in the various ways humans can respond to despair. It has always been considered one of Shakespeare's four greatest plays, and in the context of the rest of his work, that is a powerful claim.

Grant Voth, former Gentrain Coordinator, will as usual be offering a class in Lecture Forum 101 on Friday afternoon, October 21, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm, introducing theatre-goers to the play in ways designed to allow them enhanced understanding and appreciation of this magnificent work.

The cost is $16.00 per person which includes the play ticket and the class given by Grant Voth. To reserve a seat, send a check payable to "MPC Gentrain Society" to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please put your telephone number on your check. Questions? Call Wayne at 375-2371.


Saturday April 23 2016: Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts -- Edmund Rostand’s Cyrano.

Our next Gentrain Society Regional Theater trip will be on April 23 when we travel to Mountain View to see Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac. The play was written in 1897, at the height of the Realist movement in theater, as a swashbuckling historical romance. It has proven to be one of the most popular plays in history, featuring not only the amazing title character (and his fantastic nose) but also his (and Christian's) love, the warm, caring, intelligent and beautiful Roxanne.

The play is set in 1640 (Acts 1-4) and 1655 (Act 5) in what Rostand pictures as the golden age of France: the age of the musketeers, of literature, of love, of swordplay and wit. Cyrano himself is an embodiment of that golden age, a character of honesty, courage, verbal dexterity, passion, and willpower who succeeds at everything he undertakes—except the winning of his life-long love, Roxanne. Instead, he uses his magnificent powers of language to help Christian woo her, and then, faithful to the end, he never tells her how much he loves her—although at the very moment of his death Roxanne realizes the truth and ends the play with her famous statement that she only ever loved one man, but lost him twice.

The play allows us to wonder about that "one man", since he seems never to have actually existed; rather, he was an ideal made up of Christian's physical beauty and Cyrano's intelligence and powers of language, what Roxanne calls the "soul". It also allows us to ponder, as Roxanne does, what it is that causes us to fall in love with one person rather than another—what it is that we actually fall in love with.

Grant Voth, Professor Emeritus and former Gentrain Coordinator at MPC, will give a class on the play on Friday afternoon, April 22, from 1 to 3 pm in LF101, the purpose of which is to enhance understanding, enjoyment, and appreciation of the next day’s play.

The bus will leave the MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road at 10:00 am for arrival in Mountain View around 11:30. The play begins at 2:00 pm. You will be dropped off near the theater, where there are numerous restaurants for lunch prior to the play. The bus will pick you up in front of the theater for our return trip to Monterey.

The cost is $85.00 per person which includes play ticket, bus transportation and snacks on the bus. Please make your check payable to the "MPC Gentrain Society" and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please put your telephone number on your check. Questions? Call Wayne at 375-2371.


Join us for the Annual Gentrain Picnic Saturday May 21

Where we will honor Tom Logan upon his retirement from MPC
May 21st at Whispering Pines Park (map)
Pacific Street at Alameda, Monterey

11:00 Meet and Greet
12:00 Lunch

Tickets $20 for dinner (Tri-tip, chicken, sides,wine/, beverages and desserts) Check made payable to Gentrain Society, MPC, can be sent to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Chualar St, Monterey, 93940 or given to Rene Kimzey in class. Deadline May 16.

St. Patrick’s Day Potluck

Faith and Begorra
It's time for a St. Pat's Day Potluck!!
All Gentrain Lassies and Laddies are invited:
Saturday, March 19, 2016 3:00-5:00 pm
Pacific Grove Community Center, 515 Junipero Avenue

RSVP -- rsvp@gentrain.org or sign up sheet in class

Please bring a Potluck item by the first letter of your last name:
A-F Salad
G-M Hot Entree
N-R Dessert
S-Z  Appetizer


Saturday November 7 2015: San Francisco’s A.C.T. -- Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness.

Among the many much darker stories of family life in O’Neill’s body of work, Ah, Wilderness stands out as his single major comedy. It is a story of a young boy’s coming-of-age in a small Connecticut town in 1906. The story is set on July 4 and includes a picture of small town America at the turn of the century, including picnics and fireworks and walks on moonlight beaches, as well as an account of economic and social life in such a time and place.

Richard Miller, the protagonist, is a sensitive 17-year-old reader of romantic literature who is taken through a series of initiation experiences over two days of the national holiday. The title of the play is in fact taken from one of Richard’s favorite poems, Edward Fitzgerald’s “The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám,” particularly its most famous lines: “A book of Verses underneath the Bough, / A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou / Beside me singing in the Wilderness— / Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!” The title suggests the possibility that the wilderness of modern life is tolerable if one finds love. But despite the romantic and comic—and partly sentimental—picture of family life in the play, this is still O’Neill and not Booth Tarkington, so there are shadows behind the warm light thrown on the Miller family.

Grant Voth, former Gentrain Coordinator and Emeritus at M.P.C., will offer a class on the play on Friday, November 6, in Lecture Forum 101 from 1 to 3 p.m., designed to enhance understanding, enjoyment, and appreciation of the play the following day.

The cost is $70.00 per person which includes bus transportation, play tickets, and the class given by Grant Voth. Please make your check payable to “MPC Gentrain Society” and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please put your telephone number on your check. Questions? Call Wayne at 375-2371.

The bus will leave MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road at 9:00 a.m. for arrival in San Francisco around 11:30 a.m. The play begins at 2:00 p.m. You will be on your own for shopping, sightseeing and lunch prior to the play. The bus will return to Monterey between 7:00 and 7:30 p.m.


Gentrain Scholarship Fundraiser GALA

Food, libations, entertainment, mystery guests, music and a personal tour of an historic home. Here’s an opportunity for you to help deserving MPC students to pursue their educational goals. Please help us sustain this program with your participation in this event—bring your friends, form a group.

Event: October 17th from 2-4 PM
Location: Historic Norman H. Davis House
Cost: $75 single, $125 for a couple. THIS IS FULLY TAX DEDUCTIBLE.

Purchase can be made in the Tuesday and Thursday Gentrain classes and the Wednesday lectures, or you may mail a check to: Wayne Cruzan, 75 Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. All checks should be made out to: GENTRAIN SOCIETY SCHOLARSHIP FUND. Questions??? Call Wayne (831) 375-2371 or Rene (808) 222-5348.
Note: This is a private residence, at 454 Cedar Street in Monterey, only open to the public for this event. Please respect their privacy! Here's a link to Google Maps.
Driving directions from Pacific Street in Old Town Monterey:
1. Go UP Franklin Street toward the Presidio
2. Turn left on High Street
3. Turn right on Roosevelt Street
House is at the intersection of Cedar and Roosevelt, on the upper right corner.

Saturday, March 21, 2015 Berkeley Repertory Theater -- Moliere’s Tartuffe

As spellbinding as a deadly snake charmed from its basket. This modern interpretation of Moliere’s most popular play is as intense and incisive as the day it was written and just as entertaining.
Here's a flyer with all the details.


Saturday, February 14 2015 Valentine's Day Potluck

Saturday February 14, 2015 3:00 - 5:00 PM
Annual Valentine's Day Potluck
Pacific Grove Community Center
515 Junipero Avenue, Pacific Grove

Our annual Valentine's Potluck will be a "just for fun" get together to enjoy good food and good friends. All members and their guests are welcome. In January, RSVP sheets will be on the Registration Table in class and at the lectures, or you may e-mail rsvp@gentrain.org
Potluck Guidelines:
Last name begins with .. bring a ...
A-F ... Hot Entree
G-M ... Dessert
N-R ... Appetizer
S-Z ... Salad


Saturday January 17, 2015 A.C.T. San Francisco -- Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink
There is a waiting list for this trip.
Here's a printable flyer about the event.

The Gentrain Society’s next theater trip will be to San Francisco on January 17, 2015, to see A. C. T.’s production of Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink. The play started its life in 1991 as a radio drama. It was adapted for the stage and opened in 1995. Its American premiere was at the A.C.T. in San Francisco in 1999, with Carey Perloff directing, so she will be reprising that opening in January.

Grant Voth, former Gentrain Coordinator, will give an introductory class on the play on Friday afternoon, January 16, 2015, from 1 to 3 p.m. in Lecture Forum 101, the purpose of which is to enhance your understanding, enjoyment, and appreciation of the play.

The cost is $65.00 per person which includes bus transportation, play tickets, and the class given by Grant Voth. Please make your check payable to the “MPC Gentrain Society” and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please put your telephone number on your check. Questions? Call Wayne at 375-2371.


Saturday, October 4, 2014 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
2013 Gentrain Society's Annual Picnic

Whispering Pines Park     map
Pacific and Alameda Streets
Monterey
$20 Per Person

This is a great opportunity for prospective and current Gentrain members, faculty, staff and friends to enjoy a relaxing afternoon in the park. Come and dine on a delicious picnic dinner.


Sunday, March 16 2014 Stage Theater in San Jose -- The Three-Penny Opera byBertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill

This theater trip is currently sold out. However, if you would like to have your name put on a waiting list, phone Wayne Cruzan at 831-375-2371.
Our third and final trip for the school year will be on Sunday, March 16, The next Gentrain Society Regional Theater trip will be on Sunday, March 16, to the Stage Theater in San Jose to see a production of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera. The play, which opened in Berlin in 1928, forever changed musical theater: Cabaret, Chicago, and Urinetown are direct descendants of this ground-breaking work. Its first night became such a phenomenon that as Lotta Lenya (Weill’s wife and the first actress to play Pirate Jenny) later said, people who missed that opening afterwards lied about it, claiming to have been there, so that if all of them had been telling the truth, there would have been thousands in attendance that night.

By the time Brecht and Weill fled the Nazis in Germany in 1933, it had been translated into 18 languages and been given over 10,000 performances across Europe. It played off-Broadway in New York from 1954 to 1961, running to 2707 shows, at that time the longest-running production in history. It featured 700 actors during its historic run and captured two Tony awards in 1956. It was adapted from John Gay’s 1728 The Beggar’s Opera, and it was intended as a socialist critique of capitalism. The play still has that political bite, but it also turned out to be so much fun, fueled by the jazzy songs of Weill, that few if any of the 750,000 people who saw it in its New York run were converted to Marxism. Several of the songs have had spectacular careers of their own apart from the play: the opening number, best known to us as “Mack the Knife,” was covered by, among others, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and most famously, Bobby Darin. It is still being performed in theaters across the world; it may very well be, as Newsweek once said of it, “the greatest musical of all time.”

The play, as always, will be introduced and discussed by Grant Voth, Professor Emeritus and former Gentrain Coordinator, on Friday, March 14, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm in Lecture Forum 101. This introduction is designed to enhance understanding, enjoyment, and appreciation of the San Jose production.

The cost is $65.00 per person which includes bus transportation, play tickets, and the class given by Grant Voth. Please make your check payable to the “MPC Gentrain Society” and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please put your telephone number on your check. Questions? Call Wayne at 375-2371.

The bus will leave the MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road at 9:30 am for arrival at Santana Row by 11:00 am. You will be on your own to enjoy lunch at one of the many indoor or outdoor restaurants and for a little shopping if you have time. We will leave Santana Row in plenty of time for our performance at the Stage Theater. We should return to Monterey around 6:30 pm.


Saturday, February 8 2014 Valentine's Day Potluck

Saturday February 8, 2014 3:00 - 5:00 PM
Annual Valentine's Day Potluck
Pacific Grove Community Center
515 Junipero Avenue, Pacific Grove

Our annual Valentine's Potluck will be a "just for fun" get together to enjoy good food and good friends. All members and their guests are welcome. In January, RSVP sheets will be on the Registration Table in class and at the lectures, or you may e-mail rsvp@gentrain.org
Potluck Guidelines:
Last name begins with .. bring a ...
A - F Dessert
G - M Appetizer
N - R Salad
S - Z Hot Entree


Saturday February 1, 2014 A.C.T. (American Conservatory Theater) San Francisco -- George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara

The next Gentrain Society Regional Theater trip will be on Saturday, February 1 to San Francisco to see A.C.T.’s production of George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara. Although the play crackles with Shavian wit, Shaw called it a “Discussion in Three Acts,” since it takes up some important economic, political, and religious subjects. Barbara is a wealthy young woman who has found her vocation in the Salvation Army, ministering to the poor and saving their souls. She suffers a crisis of conscience, however, when she discovers that the only way the Salvation Army can stay solvent is to accept large sums of money from a whiskey distiller and a munitions maker, who cater to and promote some of the very ills the Army is trying to eradicate. Even more troublesome is that the munitions maker—modelled in part on Alfred Nobel of dynamite and Peace Prize fame—is her own father, who sets out to convert her to his religion, based on a ruthless pursuit of power and wealth and based on the premise that the worst (and perhaps only) sin is that of poverty. The final act is his effort to convert Barbara and her fiancé, a Greek professor with a special love of the plays of Euripides, to his creed. The debate is a lively one, and the ending a surprise. It has always been considered one of Shaw’s best plays.

The play, as always, will be introduced and discussed by Grant Voth, retired Gentrain Coordinator, in LF101 from 1 to 3 p.m. on Friday, January 31, 2013. This introduction is intended to enhance understanding, enjoyment, and appreciation for the A.C.T. performance

The cost is $68.00 per person which includes bus transportation, play tickets, and the class given by Grant Voth. Please make your check payable to the "MPC Gentrain Society"> and mail to Wayne Cruzan 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please put your telephone number on your check. Questions? Call Wayne at 375-2371.

The bus will leave MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road at 9:00 a.m. for arrival in San Francisco around 11:30. The play begins at 2:00 p.m. You will be on your own for shopping, sightseeing and lunch prior to the play. The bus will return to Monterey about 7:00 p.m.


Saturday, September 28, 2013 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
2013 Gentrain Society's Annual Picnic

Whispering Pines Park     map
Pacific and Alameda Streets
Monterey
$20 Per Person

This is a great opportunity for prospective and current Gentrain members, faculty, staff and friends to enjoy a relaxing afternoon in the park.

We will be saying aloha to Frank and Frieda Bresk, who are moving to Santa Barbara, for all of the contributions they have made to the Gentrain Society over many years. Come and dine on a delicious picnic dinner.


Saturday, September 22, 2013 2:00 PM
Pacific Repertory Theater, Circle Theater, Carmel
The Imaginary Invalid by Molière

Sunday, September 22, at 2 p.m. in Carmel: The Pacific Repertory’s production of Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid. The play was Molière’s last, and in it he played the lead role of the hypochondriac, dying of a very real pulmonary disease immediately after its fourth performance. The play deals with one of the playwright’s favorite satiric topics: doctors (we remember the performance of The Doctor in Spite of Himself at Berkeley Rep). But this time Molière goes after the patient as well—Argan, the imaginary invalid, one of his best comic creations. What is so stunning about the play is, in the words of John Wood, one of the play’s translators, “the unflagging, unconquerable gaiety with which he turns his own condition to the same comic account as he had already done the foibles of others.” It features a brilliant cast of characters (and Argan is a real character, not a type or caricature), some amazing situations and scenes, and a finale that is both outrageously funny and a brilliant coup de theatre. The play was originally written as a comèdie-ballet, with music and dance. Much or all of this is generally omitted by modern productions, but the last scene must be choreographed, and how it is done on stage is always one of the big items of interest for audiences. John Wood uses as an epigraph for his translation William Butler Yeats’s statement that “What is there left for us that have seen the newly discovered stability of things changed from enthusiasm to a weariness . . . but to rediscover an art of the theatre which shall be joyful, fantastic, extravagant, whimsical, beautiful, resonant and altogether reckless. . . .” As Wood notes, this play is so vivid, brilliant, and brimming with life that it perfectly fulfills the condition of the theater postulated by Yeats.

The play, as always, will be introduced and discussed by Grant Voth, retired Gentrain Coordinator, in LF101 from 1 to 3 p.m. on Friday, September 20. The introduction is intended to enhance understanding, enjoyment, and appreciation of one of the great comic classics in the Western theater canon.

The cost is $15.00 per person which includes the play ticket and the class given by Grant Voth. To reserve a seat, send a check payable to “MPC Gentrain Society” and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please put your telephone number on your check. Questions? Call Wayne at 375-2371.


Saturday, June 8, 2013
American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

On Saturday, June 8, the Gentrain Society will be attending Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia at A.C.T. in San Francisco. This may be the best play so far written by one of the great figures in modern theater, dealing with a host of interesting issues (the age of the classical garden in England giving way to the Romantic Gothic garden; the elegant universe of Newtonian physics giving way to new theories of entropy and the idea that Newton’s perpetual cosmos is running down into disorder; and the relationship of science and the humanities in terms of what we know and believe). The setting is an English country house with scenes alternating between 1809 and 1993 (the date of the original production) with characters unique to the two periods but a set which remains the same and, during the course of the play, collects items from both eras. The central figures in both worlds are 12-year-old Thomasina and her tutor Septimus from 1809, one of whom has anticipated the science of fractals which is being studied as the theory of chaos by people in the same house in modern times, who have inherited all the notebooks of tutor and student. The play is funny, treats its characters with a warmth unusual for Stoppard, and manages to raise a host of stimulating questions in ways that we can understand without necessarily being mathematical wizards.

As usual, the play will be introduced in a way designed to enhance understanding and enjoyment by Grant Voth, former Gentrain Coordinator and Professor Emeritus, from 1 to 3 p.m. on Friday, June 7, in Lecture Forum 101.>

The bus will leave MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road (behind the Music Building) at 9:00 a.m. for arrival in San Francisco around 11:30. The play begins at 2:00 p.m. You will dropped off near the theater where there are numerous places to enjoy lunch prior to the play as well as a chance to do some shopping. The bus will pick you up in front of the theater for our return to Monterey.

The cost is $72.00 per person (not the price listed in the recent Conductor). This includes bus transportation, play tickets, and the class given by Grant Voth. Please make your check payable to the “MPC Gentrain Society” and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please put your telephone number on your check. Questions? Call him at 375-2371.


Sunday, April 21, 2013
Berkeley Repertory Theater
Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre

On Sunday, April 21, the Gentrain Society will be sponsoring a bus trip to Berkeley to see the Berkeley Repertory theater’s production of Shakespeare’s Pericles, Prince of Tyre. This was the first of Shakespeare’s final “romances,” as they are usually called, which borrowed plots from Greek and Roman and Italian and British folkloric or “fairy tale” stories to create what are essentially “tragicomedies”: plays that skirt serious (and potentially tragic) circumstances to arrive at happy endings brought about by providential action. There are plenty of serious events in this one: incest, shipwrecks, apparent deaths, a young noblewoman captured by pirates and sold to a brothel, and a father and husband brought so low by misfortune that he loses his will to live, all brought to resolution by the beneficence of the play’s guiding spirit, the goddess Diana and the divine music of the spheres.

The play has never been a favorite with critics (it prompted Ben Jonson, Shakespeare’s contemporary, to make his famous remark about “mouldy tales”), but it was at the same time phenomenally successful on stage, a kind of Renaissance Les Miserables, which went through six editions in print over the next couple of decades. The Berkeley Rep people have suggested that they will stress the fantastic, theatrical, and epic qualities of the work, which promises to be a great feast for all of the senses. It is rarely performed, since it is usually upstaged by Shakespeare’s more famous romances like The Winter’s Tale or The Tempest, giving us a chance relatively few people in history have had to see it live on stage.

The bus will leave MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road (behind the Music Building) at 9:30 pam. for arrival in Berkeley around 11:30. The play begins at 2:00 pm. You will be dropped off near the theater where there are numerous restaurants for lunch prior to the play as well as a number of interesting shops and book stores. A list of possible lunch options will be provided on the ride to Berkeley.The bus will pick you up in front of the theater for our return to Monterey.

The cost is $72.00 per person which includes bus transportation, play tickets, and the class given by Grant Voth. Please make your check payable to the “MPC Gentrain Society” and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please put your telephone number on your check. Questions? Call him at 375-2371.

Grant Voth, former Gentrain Coordinator and Professor Emeritus from MPC will provide an introduction to the play designed to enhance understanding and appreciation on Friday, April 19, from 1-3 pm in LF102.


>Saturday February 9, 2013 3:00 - 5:00 PM
Annual Valentine's Day Potluck
Pacific Grove Community Center
515 Junipero Avenue, Pacific Grove

Don’t miss our popular annual “just for fun” get-together to celebrate good food and good friends. Take a look at the guideline below, and then get out your favorite recipe. All members and guests are welcome. Beverages will be provided. RSVP sign up sheets will be at the registration table in class starting in February, or you may RSVP by email or call Terry Blum: 372-0895.

Appetizers A-F
Salad/Side Dishes G-M
Hot Dishes N-R
Desserts S-Z

Saturday, October 13, 2012 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
2012 Gentrain Society's Annual Picnic


Whispering Pines Park
Pacific and Alameda Streets
Monterey
$20 Per Person

This is a great opportunity for prospective and current Gentrain members, faculty, staff and friends to enjoy a relaxing afternoon in the park. Come welcome our new officers, and dine on a delicious picnic dinner.


 

 

 

 

Saturday, August 11, 2012 2:00 PM
Santa Cruz Shakespeare Festival
Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

Additional Gentrain Society Theater Trip Announced
When this year’s Gentrain Society regional theater trips were announced, the third and final one was scheduled to be a production of Shakespeare’s TWELFTH NIGHT at A.C.T. in San Francisco in May. A.C.T. subsequently cancelled that play and substituted for it a pair of Samuel Beckett one-act plays that in our judgment would have been considerably less attractive to our members than the originally scheduled offering; so we cancelled the ticket order, the bus, and the entire trip. Then, when the Santa Cruz Shakespeare Festival announced its summer schedule, we discovered that its indoor theater offering was going to be TWELFTH NIGHT, directed by Marco Barricelli, a brilliant actor himself and now Artistic Director of the entire festival. We saw this as an act of God or Nature, or at least a serendipitous chance to complete our season with the same play we had originally scheduled. 

TWELFTH NIGHT is Shakespeare’s last “high” or “happy” comedy before he moved to the more difficult and ambiguous “problem comedies” that followed. This one features more music than any of his plays except THE TEMPEST; his very best fool in Feste, Olivia’s melancholy jester; a lovesick count; a Falstaff facsimile in Sir Toby Belch and his dull-witted gull, Sir Andrew Aguecheek; and besides that, a shipwreck, a pair of twins (male and female) who look so much alike that they are mistaken for each other; and Olivia’s famous steward, Malvolio, whose severity and attacks on other characters—especially in a play titled after one of the important festival moments in the year—set him up for one of the greatest come-uppances in all of Shakespeare. All this performed at a venue by now considered a world-class Shakespeare Festival!

We have reserved tickets for the 2:00 pm matinee on Saturday, August 11. The bus will leave the MPC Music Hall parking lot at 10:30 am. There will a stop in Capitola, on the Esplanade, where there will be a chance to shop or walk on the beach or eat lunch - or all three. The bus will leave Capitola at 1:00 to arrive at U.C. Santa Cruz in plenty of time for the play, and it will depart from Santa Cruz immediately after the play, arriving back at MPC by about 6:00 pm.

The cost is $65 per person which includes bus transportation, play ticket, and the class given by Grant Voth the day prior. Please make your check payable to the "MPC Gentrain Society" and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please put your telephone number on your check. Questions? Call him at 831-375-2371

Dr. Grant Voth, Professor Emeritus at MPC and former Gentrain Coordinator, will be giving an introduction to the play on Friday, August 10, in LF102, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm, designed to enhance your understanding and appreciation of what is perhaps Shakespeare’s greatest comedy. We look forward to seeing you on August 10 and 11.


Saturday April 21 2012
The Cult of Beauty: Victorian Avant-Garde, 1860-1900

Palace of The Legion of Honor, San Francisco
Nancy Johnson preview lecture 1:30PM Wednesday April 18
The Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Garde, 1860–1900 is the first major exhibition to explore the unconventional creativity of the British Aesthetic Movement, tracing the evolution of this movement from a small circle of progressive artists and poets, through the achievements of innovative painters and architects, to its broad impact on fashion and the middle-class home. The superb artworks on view encompass the manifold forms of Victorian material culture: the traditional high art of painting, fashionable trends in architecture and interior decoration, handmade and manufactured furnishings for the “artistic” home, art photography and the new modes of dress.

The Cult of Beauty showcases the entirety of the Aesthetic Movement’s output, celebrating the startling beauty and variety of creations by masters as diverse as artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti, James McNeill Whistler, and Edward Burne-Jones and designers E.W. Godwin, William Morris and Christopher Dresser. The Legion of Honor is the only U.S. venue on the world tour that includes the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

Bus will leave from MPC Lot B 8:30AM, returning about 5:00PM. Snacks provided on the bus. Museum cafe is open all day.$55.00 for the exhibit trip and Nancy's lecture.


Saturday March 10 2012 2:00 PM
Berkeley Rep Theater
Molier's The Doctor in Spite of Himself


(Grant Voth preview lecture
Friday March 9 1:00 PM MPC LF102)
Gentrain members are invited to the second and final regional theater trip of the academic year. Molière’s The Doctor in Spite of Himself premiered in 1666, in the middle of a period that produced such masterpieces as Tartuffe, The Misanthrope, and The Imaginary Invalid. In genre our play is a farce, with plenty of slapstick action (Molière played the lead role, and he gave himself abundant room for schtick and clowning) and a slew of jokes, including some about enemas and breasts. It is also an all-out satire on doctors, one of Molière’s favorite targets throughout his career.
The basic situation is that Sganarelle, a woodcutter, is maneuvered by his angry wife into playing a doctor charged with curing a young woman who has become inexplicably mute when her father tries to force her into a marriage she refuses to accept. Sganarelle, once driven into the role, takes comfortably to doctoring and decides to give up woodcutting altogether. As he reasons, the dead are the most discreet of clients and never complain about a botched job. The play has been in repertory ever since its first production, and almost every night, somewhere in the world, it is played to amused audiences.
The bus will leave the MPC Parking Lot B on Fishnet Road (behind the Music Building) at 9:30 am for arrival in Berkeley around 11:30 am. The play begins at 2:00 pm. You will be dropped off near the theater where there are numerous restaurants for lunch prior to the play. We will provide a list of possible lunch options on the ride up to Berkeley. The bus will pick you up in front of the theater for our return to Monterey.
The cost is $65.00 per person which includes bus transportation, play ticket, and the class given by Grant Voth the day prior. Please make your check payable to the "MPC Gentrain Society" and mail to Wayne Cruzan, 75 Via Chualar, Monterey, CA 93940. Please put your telephone number on your check. Questions? Call him at 375-2371.
Grant Voth, former Gentrain Coordinator and Professor Emeritus from MPC, will provide an introduction to the play Friday, March 9, from 1:00-3:00 pm in LF102, designed to enhance understanding and appreciation of the play.