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Tuesday, 26 March 2024
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Written by Sam Olsen
With the spring season comes many things. From spring cleaning to camping, there are yearly things we all do throughout our daily lives. This year, like many before it, the local Masonic Temple Kindah Temple No. 62 is hosting its annual Spring Ceremonial.
Happening April 13th, a fezzing ceremony and night of celebration for the individuals being honored will be taking place. Up & Coming Weekly was able to sit down with Assistant Rabban Adrian Davis and Oriental Guide Shakoor Mitchner to learn more about the local temple, the masonic lodge, fezzing, and other exciting things about the pseudo-secretive nature of the Freemasons and Shriners.
The Kinda Temple No. 62’s Spring Ceremonial is a great opportunity to support the local Masonic Temple and meet the people involved in many community projects. The temple is itself deeply involved in community outreach projects and events on a regular basis.
Charity, fundraising, and youth engagement are some of the core tenets found in the basis of membership at the local temple and in most Freemason temples and Shriner lodges. One such event is the PTSD Awareness Motorcycle event the group has coming up on June 8th, with the proceeds going back to the Wounded Warrior Project.
“We also sponsor Ferguson-Easley Elementary School and work with the kids year-round with mentorship programs, easter egg hunts, Halloween trick or treats, and scholarships at the end of the year. We also sponsor young gentlemen and ladies on how to begin their journey through adolescence and present themselves in a way that garners respect and makes them feel confident.”
The Freemasons and Shriners pride themselves on being an organization focused on the continual improvement of the community. Through determined and focused efforts, the groups curate their members and offer developmental opportunities to one another in the pursuit of accumulating the skills, knowledge, and resources to fund and execute plans both large-scale and local to implement positive change within their communities. But how can someone get involved with their local temple?
“There are qualifications any individual must meet to join. There are important things to learn. Like any organization they need to understand the foundation of that group that they’re choosing to be a part of, what we do, the different groups within our local temple, and to let them get a feel for who they’ll be around and understand why these individuals set their feet in the community and strive to better things.”
Those being honored can have their fezzes donned by their friends, family, wives, or other loved ones. You may have noticed that we have yet to mention who exactly is being fezzed.
This is intentional, as the identities of those being fezzed at the Spring Ceremonial will remain hidden until the night of celebration to all but those directly involved in their leadership and individual training; a way to entice the local community to find out for themselves who they’ve deemed to have done the necessary community and self-work to earn the honor of donning their fez.
However, Davis and Mitchner were able to tell U&CW that ten individuals will be receiving their fezzes at the ceremony and they believe they were confident in presenting the best they have to offer to the community regarding the individuals being fezzed.
“When it comes to this Spring Ceremonial, to me it’s like a once-in-a-lifetime celebration. It’s like graduating high school; you only get one time to do so. There are certain elements in life where achievements are met and goals are set for someone, and those moments are a great thing. But within all of it, you can have all the different organizations, but with us, it is about what ‘you’ can bring with you. We aren’t just a ‘goody boys club.’ Everyone pays their dues in giving back. Quality over quantity is a frequent motto,” said Mitchner.
The pair invite the community out to this year’s Spring Ceremonial and fezzing at Kindah Temple No. 62 with the great pleasure of presenting their newest Shriners. Tickets start at $20 and are available through Assistant Rabban Adrian Davis or Oriental Guide Shakoor Mitchner.
To attend please call them at 910-587-3434 or 910-760-1136. The dress code is business casual, and the festivities will run from 8 p.m. to midnight. Clifford Duell Masonic Lodge #756, where the event is taking place, is located at 2860 Village Drive.
For more on how to get involved, reach out to Assistant Rabban Adrian Davis or Oriental Guide Shakoor Mitchner for more information.
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Tuesday, 26 March 2024
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Written by Kathleen Ramsey
The folks at Cape Fear Regional Theatre know a good hit when it happens. For The Play That Goes Wrong, however, it was in the people on social media asking them to extend the multiple sold-out shows and the general community’s question about more showtimes for the play that made them know they had a hit on their hands. So, naturally, they decided that the show had to return — The Play That Goes Wrong, again.
“It was our highest attended play in the history of the theatre,” Ashley Owen, the Marketing Director for Cape Fear Regional Theatre, said.
The members of Cape Fear Regional Theatre are gearing up for a large renovation and Owen said the fly system that The Play That Goes Wrong requires wouldn’t be possible for another two years. They knew, she said, it had to be brought back before the renovations, which explains the closeness of the return of the production to its original run.
“There is no way we can do this show not in our own setting,” she said.
The Play That Goes Wrong is about a play, The Murder of Haversham Manor, going from “bad to utterly disastrous” and gives the comedic vibes of Gene Wilder with accident-prone actors and a corpse that has a hard time remembering to play dead. The show will hinge on comedic timing.
As far as actors are concerned, most of the original cast was able to return for the second run of the play. Just two actors had conflicts and had to be recast. And although this is the second run, Director Laura Josepher said the show will include plenty of subtle changes the cast and crew have been fine-tuning.
“They are still finding new things,” she said. “It is different. It feels a little bit different.”
The theatre admins had to apply for the rights to do the production the first time around and had to place new applications in to get the rights for this second run. Thankfully, Owen said, they were approved. They hope the community will come back and experience new laughs and maybe some of the magic from the first run as well.
“I would encourage people who saw it before to come again and bring people,” Josepher said.
For Josepher, she feels like comedy shows like this one get influenced by people coming together and being able to laugh together.
“It’s really cathartic. I see it every day and it still makes me laugh,” she said. Josepher has previously admitted that farce is hard. “It’s such specific timing. The world is a tough place that [it’s nice to have] an evening of just laughing.”
Tickets are on sale at CFRT.org, or call the box office at 910-323-4234. The show will run until April 7th. It will include military and teacher appreciation nights.
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