SpongeBob the Musical hits the stage

Friday to Sunday, April 25-27, Edmonds Heights K-12, 23200 100th Ave. W., Edmonds

Plunge into this all-singing, all-dancing, dynamic stage show. When the citizens of Bikini Bottom discover that a volcano will soon erupt and destroy their humble home, SpongeBob and his friends must come together to save the fate of their undersea world. With lives hanging in the balance and all hope lost, a most unexpected hero rises. The power of optimism really can save the world.

Tickets are available online for $11. All proceeds from ticket sales and donations support the Edmonds Heights Performing Arts Program, covering costs such as costumes, sets, sound and other production expenses.

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Cascade Symphony Orchestra presents season finale, “The Devil’s Violin”

7:30 p.m., Monday, May 5, Edmonds Center for the Arts, 410 4th Ave. N., Edmonds

The event will be the orchestra’s final 2024-25 season concert—its 63rd in Edmonds. KING-FM radio personality Dave Beck will give a pre-concert lecture at 6:30 p.m. to preview the musical highlights for the evening. Violinist Tokuji Miyasaka, a nationwide Music Teachers National Association Strings Competition winner, will be the featured soloist.

Michael Miropolsky, Cascade Symphony Orchestra’s (CSO) maestro and musical director, notes that the orchestra will present “four outstanding, yet stylistically different, compositions” during the evening’s performances. The symphonic poem by Russian composer Alexander Borodin – “In the Steppes of Central Asia”–has been a concert favorite since its first performance in 1880, Miropolsky said. Borodin’s creation will lead off the concert.

“About 60 years before (Borodin’s creation), Italian violinist Niccolo Paganini premiered his finger-breaking First Violin Concerto, causing an uproar of excitement in the audience,” Miropolsky explained. “Paganini’s demonic appearance and electrifying performances quickly made him a living legend,” hence the concert title, “The Devil’s Violin.”

“We’ll have with us a young virtuoso violinist, Tokuji Miyasaka, who will show off in this dazzling Paganini concerto,” Miropolsky added. It will be the second musical offering of the evening.

The 18-year-old Miyasaka, winner of the CSO’s “Rising Star” competition in 2018, was named a Seattle Symphony Young Artist in 2023 and has been awarded more than 20 first prizes at competitions, including the Festival Medal at the Seattle Young Artists Music Festival Concerto Competition. He was also a first prize laureate at the 2021 Kocian International Violin Competition, where the jury chairman, Pavel Hula, attributed Miyasaka’s success to “precise virtuosity (and a) beautiful variety of colors.”

Miropolsky promises “a big surprise” for the audience after the intermission when the orchestra plays “a unique piece by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara titled Cantus Arcticus, Concerto for Birds and Orchestra. It incorporates tape recordings of bird songs recorded near the Arctic Circle.”

The final musical offering of the concert and the season will be Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s “brilliant” Capriccio Italien. The piece was inspired by sounds he heard during a visit to Rome around 1880 and begins with the trumpet fanfare that the composer heard as the Italian military practiced maneuvers nearby.

Concert ticket prices are: $30 for adults, $26 for seniors (ages 60 and older), and $10 for youth (12 and under).

Tickets can be purchased online through the ECA website or by phone at 425-275-9595. 

Additional information about the CSO is available here. Keep your eyes peeled: The CSO will soon announce its concert schedule and musical offerings for the 2025-26 season, which begins in October.

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Edmonds Driftwood Players present “Drinking Habits”

May 16 – June 8, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m., Wade James Theatre, 

Edmonds Driftwood Players announced their upcoming production of “Drinking Habits.” Accusations, mistaken identities, and romances run wild in this traditional, laugh-out-loud farce. Two nuns at the Sisters of Perpetual Sewing have been secretly making wine to keep the convent’s doors open, but Paul and Sally, reporters and former fiancées, are hot on their trail. They go undercover as a nun and a priest, but their presence, combined with the arrival of a new nun, sparks paranoia throughout the convent, leading them to believe that spies have been sent from Rome to shut them down. Wine and secrets are inevitably spilled as everyone tries to preserve the convent and reconnect with lost loves.

Purchase tickets online here from $25 to $28.

Content warning: This production includes depictions of alcohol use, intoxication, intimacy in the form of kissing and family loss.

Run time: This production is anticipated to be two hours with a 15-minute intermission.

“Edmonds Driftwood Players is a volunteer-based nonprofit community theatre that is proud to have been entertaining audiences in the Pacific Northwest since 1958, making EDP one of the oldest operating community theatres in Washington State. As we celebrate our 66th Season in Edmonds, we would like to thank the community for their continued support of local theatre,” said Managing Director Katie Soulé.

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Sip, shop, socialize and support – Get your tickets now before they sell out!

5 – 8 p.m., Saturday, July 5 and Aug. 2

Come sip local wines, shop small, socialize with good friends, and support the Arts in Edmonds! Buy your tickets soon – this event often sells out.

Art Walk Edmonds, in partnership with Seattle Uncorked, is bringing a variety of local Pacific Northwest wineries to your favorite downtown Edmonds business locations. Meet the local winemakers who will be pouring tastes of their hand-crafted wines in various shops. These award-winning boutique wineries will each have a few options for our wine-loving public to taste. 

Tickets can be purchased online now for $30. If available, remaining tickets will be $40 at the door. A ticket gets you a tasting glass, 10 tickets for one-ounce pours, and a wine tote bag. Extra tasting tickets are available online or at the event from tasting tables.

You can purchase bottles of wine directly at the tasting tables or the Pop-Up Wine Shop, tax-free for the evening. (Note the new location: It’s at the Edmonds History Museum this year.) The proceeds from every purchase go back to Art Walk Edmonds to fund the Arts in Edmonds.

Elizabeth Murray is a freelance writer thankful to call Edmonds home. When she’s not busy wrangling her two kids (and husband), you can find her playing ukulele. She can be reached at elmm22@gmail.com.