Errant car strikes market

A 33-year-old Arlington man was hospitalized in satisfactory condition with non-life threatening injuries after a motor vehicle collision in the rear parking lot of the Town & Country Thriftway Sunday.

The driver of the Ford Ranger pickup ran the stop sign on Shannon and Bjune drives and ran up the embankment into the parking lot, where his vehicle struck a parked car, police said.

The driver continued through the parking lot, striking a large commercial trash compactor and a bulkhead wall outside of the store, becoming wedged between the two.

The top of the truck had to be cut off to get to the driver, who appeared disoriented. Several witnesses in the parking lot told police the vehicle was speeding up as it went through the lot.

While the collision is still under investigation, it does not appear at this time as though alcohol was a factor, police said.

See a cabin, deposit coins

Miniature Yeomalt cabins will be popping up all around the island.

In an effort to raise funds for the historic building off Grand Avenue, volunteers have crafted 120 “piggy banks” resembling Yeomalt Park’s historic log structure.

“In the next few days, we want to distribute them to high visibility island sites – banks, schools, offices, businesses, stores – you name it,” said historian Jerry Elfendahl, who has led the cabin’s restoration effort.

Elfendahl commended Sakai’s Boys & Girls Club and Scout Troop 1566 for assembling many of the 6-inch-high cabins.

The cabin was built in 1935 as part of a federal Works Progress Administration project employing jobless Americans. The cabin served most of its years as a Boy Scout camp and gathering place.

Age and infestation took a toll on the building after the Scouts turned the building over to the Bainbridge park district in 1987.

After the cabin was slated for demolition last year, Elfendahl and other members of Team Yeomalt sprang into action to save it.

They hope to raise thousands of dollars to replace old logs, repair the cabin’s roof and make other upgrades.

To recommend a site for a cabin bank, email Elfendahl at gelfenda@earthlink.net

New theater company set

Per Sherwin hung up his hat as director of Bainbridge Performing Arts last April, but he’ll soon be donning a new role as the head of his own theater company.

This one, he says, will be “for actors and directors.”

“The BPA board dissuaded me from doing productions,” said Sherwin, whose background is in acting and directing. “I felt like I was looking through the store window, (saying) ‘I want to do that!’”

Sherwin hopes to launch his new company, Spot Works Theater Group, with a production possibly as soon as this summer.

He is scouting for spaces on Bainbridge Island or in North Kitsap for his productions, but has already started pulling together people from his many contacts among local theater people.

Sherwin envisions Spot Works as an ensemble group with a lot of flexibility in terms of the type of materials it puts on.

The group will also let him do shows that don’t need to be as focused on high profitability or ones that are more technically demanding.

At BPA, Sherwin said, the organization has pressure to produce shows that will pay for the facility.

With his new group, “If someone comes up with a great project, we can say, ‘Let’s just do it,’” Sherwin said. “We don’t have to set out (a schedule) two years in advance of the season.

“I want to do pieces of theater work that people are behind and passionate about, but might not get the opportunity to be done by other groups,” Sherwin said, contrasting that with what he described as BPA’s style of programming by committee.

“We’re lacking handshake deals and talking about what your passion is,” he said. “The creative process has been structured to death. I want art to have a face and voice, for it to breathe.”

A website will soon be available at www.spotworks.org. For more information on Spot Works Theater Group, contact Sherwin at persherwin@yahoo.com.

– Tina Lieu

Strange tunes now on CD9

Island composer Allen Strange and his wife, violinist Patricia Strange are laying down ghostly tracks.

Allen Strange recently released his CD “Ghost Strings,” an overview of his work for electronic sound from 1976 to 2005. Two of the works were heard this past March at the Island Music Guild, Heroes IV: Ghost Tracks and Misty Magic Land.

Patricia Strange, a frequent collaborator of her husband and active in the avant-garde music produced by computers with instruments releases CD “Ghost Strings,” of extended and experimental performance techniques, electronic sound accompaniment and interactive performance with computers.

A panoply of composers wrote these works specifically for Patricia Strange. The composers include Jeffrey Stolet, Pablo Furman, Brian Belet, LaDonna Smith and Allen Strange. Stolet’s work, Ghost Strings, was premiered on Bainbridge Island last year.

Furman’s work, Sureña, which took almost 10 years to complete, was premiered by Patricia at the 2006 Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States Festival (SEAMUS) in Eugene, Ore. in March.

The CDs are being released on the Island Music Guild’s fledgling compact disc label, IMG Media, and will be available for purchase at www.islandmusic.org.

Call 780-6911 for more information.