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Literary festival offers free events

Several free events open to the public will be a part of Lit Youngstown’s 9th Fall Literary Festival, which runs today through Saturday. Authors David Huebert and Sean Prentiss will read from their work and do a book signing at 7 p.m. Friday at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 323 Wick Ave., Youngstown. Huebert, a highly acclaimed author of short story collections and the novel “Oil People,” teaches at University of King’s College in Halifax, Canada. Prentiss is the author of a memoir, “Finding Abbey: the Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave,” which won ...

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Playhouse Youth Theatre stages Shakespeare Playhouse Youth Theatre will perform the William Shakespeare comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” this weekend. Isa Foltz directs the comedy about four young lovers who get entangled in a series of mishaps and unexpected connections caused by a band of mischievous fairies and their enchanted love potions. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the Playhouse, 600 Playhouse Lane, Youngstown. Tickets range from $11 to $17 for adults and $6 to $11 for children ages 12 and younger and are available online at ...

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Easy Street’s ‘Miracle’ coming to Powers Easy Street Productions’ “Miracle on Easy Street” returns to Powers Auditorium from Dec. 19 to 21. The annual holiday production will be co-hosted by Easy Street co-founders Todd Hancock and Maureen Collins and feature a cast of more than 100 singers, dancers and Little Rascals performing seasonal favorites. Don Yallech will lead the Easy Street Little Big Band, and featured performers will include Colleen Chance, Katy Collins, Candace Campana, Cortney MacKay, Natalie Kovacs and Finn O’Hara. Megan Cleland will choreograph the ...

Play shows perils of addiction

When a loved one dies due to addiction, many people try to hide those details. Donna Guerriero McAuley put it in the opening sentence of her daughter’s obituary — ”Amanda Marie McAuley, 27, of Poland, passed away at her family home Wednesday morning, April 5, 2023, from street-laced fentanyl.” Now she is putting that story on the Powers Auditorium stage in hopes that other families won’t have to experience the pain that her family has. The woman who described herself as “not a play girl” created “Amanda — She Didn’t Mean to Die” and is funding a massive stage ...

Packard band celebrates 70 years with Sunday’s concert

The W.D. Packard Concert Band will celebrate its 70th anniversary with the debut of a newly commissioned work. Jerry Ascione, a 1975 Dana School of Music graduate who spent 31 years as a musician, composer and arranger with the U.S. Navy bands, composed “We, Are Packard” and will conduct the work at Sunday’s concert at Packard Music Hall. Ascione has written several pieces for the band and knows the ensemble well. “I went to college with a lot of those folks,” Ascione said. “I know pretty much everybody.” He drew upon those connections as he was writing. The first ...

Gray Areas: Local band signs deal; double release planned for 2026

Youngstown band Kitchen Knife Conspiracy now shares a record label with some Rock & Roll Hall of Famers. The metal band — Ian Pethtel, vocals; Jeremy Cibella and Rickie Palmer, guitars; Fred Whitacre, Jr., drums; and Johnny Kihm, bass – that describes its music as “stompcore” signed a deal with the independent distribution label Deko Entertainment, whose roster includes Slash of Guns N’ Roses, the late John Entwistle of The Who, John Lodge of the Moody Blues, Rik Emmett of Triumph and such acts as The Dictators, Dokken, Brian Setzer Orchestra, Slaughter, Warrant and ...