Spring and Summer, Arts & Culture Rock the Bath House

By Ed Sholty, board member, Friends of the Bath House Cultural Center

We like to say that “Art happens everyday at the Bath House.” And this spring and summer, several exhibitions are installed and plays presented for your enjoyment at the Bath House Cultural Center (BHCC):

• “Fifteen Minutes to Curtain!” complements the 15th Annual Festival of Independent Theatres (FIT).
• “Nature in My Art: Recent Artwork by Pavlina Panova” continues through September 29.
• “Return to Fantasy: Paintings by Sergey Chernomorets” is extended to June 29.
• “Curate + Collaborate Exhibition Series” by Rita Barnard and Jacque Forsher launches the fall season, August 24-September 28.
• Churchmouse Productions, “Hate Mail” by Bill Corbet and Kira Obolensky, July 31-August 17.
• Teatro Centro Argentino Pedro Paez, August 22-31.

The art exhibitions in the BHCC galleries, always draw diverse groups of arts lovers. For example, when “Nature in My Art” and “Return to Fantasy’ opened in April with “Shadows and Ether,” we had more than 200 people viewing three wholly different shows installed at the same time. A reporter and photographer from a Russian-language newspaper, which is published for expats in Dallas, interviewed artists, patrons, and me! That night Bath House was a center for new friends from far-flung places. In August new exhibition “Curate + Collaborate will bring together two curators presenting two different sets of artists.

That convening power is just as strong in the black-box theatre. This summer, the FIT one-act plays are giving audiences lots of theater in less than two hours. In August, new resident theater Churchmouse Productions will present “Hate Mail” by Bill Corbet and Kira Obolensky. And veteran resident theater, Centro Argentino de Dallas/Fort Worth will present a Spanish-language production to be named.

Whether at an exhibition or a play, people mingle and talk; they’re not in a hurry to leave. I use the old bartenders’ announcement “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” It always gets a knowing smile. Even so, everybody moves out slowly, as though they don’t want the evening to end. It’s the closest thing I’ll ever find to the 19th-century salons in London, Paris, Rome or St. Petersburg. It’s gratifying to have a place like the Bath House Cultural Center where folks come to an arts or cultural event and want to stay.

Come on over.