Smooth Jazz Summer Nights
The Smooth Jazz Summer Nights Concert Series returns for the 14th season every Friday night in Aug. at the Waterfront. An evening summer breeze off the river, the cool sounds of smooth jazz in the air: a perfect way to spend a hot summer night. The Sax Pack, consisting of signature sax players Jeff Kashiwa, Steve Cole, and Kim Waters, arrive Friday, Aug. 12. The talented trio combines their life-long love of music with their passion for performance. The well-known saxophonists are excited to create a show that blends their individual styles and diverse backgrounds for a fresh approach to jazz expression. And Aug. 19, Pittsburgh native Carolyn Perteete will take the stage as part of the Smooth Jazz Series. Currently, she is a member of the Sean Jones Sextet and can be heard on Sean’s album “The Search Within”, released in March 2009. Vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Raul Midon will also perform his dazzling percussion moves on Friday, Aug. 19. Blind since infancy, the New Mexican native of Argentinean descent, combines a variety of different musical styles and elements on his newest album, “Synthesis,” which was released in the spring of 2010.
RiverStage at Penn’s Landing
Friday, Aug. 12 at 7:30 p.m.
www.delawareriverevents.com
Girls Rock Philly Showcase Performance
Girls Rock Philly will showcase 15 all-girl camper bands at World Café Live Aug. 13 beginning at noon. The showcase is the culmination of a weeklong summer day camp for girls ages nine through 17. The junior rockers form bands, practice hard, write their own music and learn jump kicks all week to prepare for this performance experience in a professional music venue. Approximately 80 girls from the Greater Philadelphia region participate in Girls Rock Philly, which is Philadelphia’s first and only rock camp exclusively for girls and is staffed by female volunteers dedicated to teaching girls how to rock out while building self-esteem through music education. Celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, GRP has grown beyond its annual camp week in August to offer other services and programs throughout the year, including year-round practice spaces and workshops. The organization is the winner of the 2010 Women’s Way Powerful Voices Award, as well as a Philadelphia City Paper Big Vision Award, and has partnered with many notable organizations in Philadelphia, including the Food Trust and First Person Arts, for events and programming.
World Café Live at 3025 Walnut Street
Saturday, Aug. 13 at noon
$10 Admission
www.girlsrockphilly.org
The Mediocre Show live podcast
You don’t miss a download. You leave messages on the voicemail. You post to the forums; now see your favorite Philly comedy podcasts live and in-person. Join the hosts of The Mediocre Show, as well as South Philly Paul and Troy Siple, for this only-in-Philly event. Hope Tomorrow (aka The Lady Tomorrow) and Mike Pilot talk music, meat, movies, video games and Internet sensations. Fielding live calls from a diverse audience each week, the trio often interacts directly with fans, a colorful cast of callers from all over the country that has become known as Mediocre Nation. To them and others, the show lends advice to the wayward and pokes fun at the oddities each caller brings to the table. Whether it involves how to talk to the opposite sex or which meat rules them all, the Mediocre Show always seems to have the answer.
World Café Live at 3025 Walnut Street
Saturday, Aug. 13 at 8 p.m.
Admission $15
www.worldcafelive.com
Screenings Under the Stars
Picture it! The RiverStage at Penn’s Landing is transformed into an outdoor theater for another season of Screenings Under the Stars. Every Thursday night in August, a different popular film will be featured on a big screen on the new RiverStage at Penn’s Landing, located on Columbus Boulevard at Chestnut Street. The screenings, sponsored by media partners NBC 10 and B101.1 FM, will begin at dusk, or approximately 8 p.m. As with all events produced by the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation, the screenings are free. Thurs., Aug. 18 will be “Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” followed by an August 25 showing of “Despicable Me.”
RiverStage at Penn’s Landing
Thursday, August 18 at 8 p.m.
www.delawareriverevents.com
PDC Playwright Residency Showcase at Plays & Players
Joy Cutler, Quinn Eli, and Greg Romero share work and artistic discoveries created in the past twelve months at the Inaugural Showcase Performance of PDC Playwrights in Residence at Plays & Players. The PDC Playwright Residency at Plays & Players aims to provide artistic development for Philadelphia’s next generation of professional playwrights. The results of their work will be on display in the PDC Playwright Residency Showcase, including scenes from new plays developed in the residency, personal sharing of the impact of the residency on each playwright’s artistry and a participatory theatrical exercise that asks the audience to all become playwrights for the day. All attendees are requested to bring with them a small personal object, able to fit inside a pocket of their clothes (or inside a closed palm). Ideally, it is an object that expresses themselves in some way.
Plays & Players at 1714 Delancey Place
Saturday, Aug. 20 from 6 – 9 p.m.
www.playsandplayers.org