Entertainment

The Arkansas Valley Community Concert Association will be bursting on the musical scene on Oct. 3 with Backtrack Vocals, a five-person a cappella group which features familiar tunes with a modern sound, including beatbox. This show is bound to appeal to the younger audience, which makes the tickets a better buy for the family. This year, the tickets are for the adults 18 and over and are $58, but the younger members of the family may come to the audience free with an adult.

Last weekend in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at a local Unitarian Church patio, “El Boorthday Parti” was performed for the first time. The play was also once entitled “Maria y su sidekick.” It was written by Tencha Avila, who was a cheerleader at Las Animas High School several years ago, as well as an ambassador for the United States and a published playwright. Her previous play, “No Number Home,” was produced at Otero College in La Junta and, later, at a Santa Fe theater.

If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again. That’s the motto for Otero College’s Student and Community Choir as they prepare an upcoming concert entitled “Broadway Lights: Songs 2000-present.” A previous incarnation of the choir was preparing some of the same music when rehearsals stopped midway through the semester in March of 2020. Covid-19 affected so many things, including arts organizations across the country and world.

“If a squirrel chews through the line, we’re in trouble,” John Mellencamp says by way of introduction. • He’s calling from “on top of the mountain” in northern California – not literally, but in his home – and for a guy often pegged as prickly, he’s immediately disarming. Funny. Blunt. Exactly the type who would make an ideal conversationalist over a few drinks. Or, as it turns out, on the other end of the phone for an hour. • Mellencamp’s is a rightfully celebrated career. From the early days of Johnny Cougar – a name he says “was forced on me... and I don’t like anybody telling me what to do” – through ’80s MTV staples (“Pink Houses,” “Hurts So Good,” “Small Town”); rootsy zigzags (“Paper in Fire,” “Get a Leg Up,” “Wild Night”); a shadowy musical written with Stephen King (“Ghost Brothers of Darkland County”); and voluminous accolades (the Songwriters Hall of Fame, ASCAP Founders Award and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are but a few), his accomplishments overwhelm. • On Jan. 21, Mellencamp unveiled his first album in five years. “Strictly a One-Eyed Jack” features a dozen songs packed with themes of mortality and dense lyrics, guided by the album’s protagonist, “a dangerous old man” (i.e. the one-eyed Jack, which Mellencamp will further explain).