On Jan. 24 local performers vied for the opportunity to perform at this year's Music Fest. Courtesy photo.

LAKEPORT – The Soper-Reese Community Theatre was the site of one of the secret ceremonies of the performer's life on Saturday, Jan. 24.

All day long talented and accomplished musicians came out onto the bare stage, looked into the banks of giant colored lights and performed their pieces.

Under the eyes of the judges with their pens and clipboards and their desk lights, guitarists and sax players and singers and jugglers and piano players gave it their all, and that was quite a lot.

With a sparse audience of other performers, mostly, and with backstage workers carrying microphones around, and the empty seats, it is a fairly intimidating experience.

We're talking about the auditions for the Winter Music Fest, put on for the last 17 years by the Lake County Arts Council. They seem to be learning how to do it right, and the professional atmosphere of the Soper-Reese lends gravitas to the event.

This year there were many more applicants than there is time for in an evenings' entertainment. To keep the pace up and end the evening at a decent hour, it was necessary to limit each act to one number, and still many had to be eliminated.

Those who remain, and will participate in the Music Fest, are a varied and skillful lot, but so were the ones excluded. The judges have had sixteen years to learn to be ruthless, and have learned it well enough to put together a good entertainment.

Shows will be presented on Saturday, Feb. 28, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, March 1, at 2 p.m.

The tickets are already for sale at the Main Street Gallery in Lakeport, Catfish Books in Willow Tree Plaza and Wild About Books in Clearlake.

To get reserved tickets, the Soper-Reese Theatre box office will be open from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Thursdays or by phone at 263-0577.

There is a certain poignancy to this Music Fest. After Winter Music Fest 17, the Soper-Reese will resume construction work, and will be closed until it is finished. There is still a pretty fair amount of work that needs to be done.

An entire new building will go in the parking lot to hold the dressing rooms and the performers' restrooms. The restrooms for the audience will be completely replaced, enlarged and made wheelchair accessible. A new fire exit will be cut in the south wall, with stairs and ramps to ground level. And the stage will be extended sideways to the walls, with a proscenium and a curtain that will open and close. More lights need to be raised, and the same could be said for the funds still needed to do some of this.

Music Fest 16 was the first event to be held in the theater since construction began, and this coming one will be the last before the second stage of construction starts. It has been a pretty good year for performing arts in Lake County at the Soper-Reese. Between the Winter Music Fest bookends, there have been many productions.

There has been theater, “Solid Gold Cadillac” and “Cinderella,” and broadcast drama with “A Christmas Carol” presented free at the theater and carried live on KPFZ-FM 88.1. There have been concerts of jazz, Scottish, classical and singer-songwriter music. The Mendocino College drama class used the hall for rehearsals, classes and performances.

It has been pretty busy, and everyone is sad to see it close now, but it will not be too long before it is buzzing again. Perhaps the next event will be Winter Music Fest 18.

In the meantime, get ready to see a professionally-produced stage show with the professionally-auditioned performing artists of Lake County, and enjoy the biggest entertainment bargain of the year.

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