With any luck, the howling winds will pick up for Halloween, providing a perfect sound track to creep out kids reading R.L. Stine’s latest Fear Street books, the newly resurrected series of horror stories for teenagers.
Begun in 1989 with “The New Girl,” the Fear Street series numbered 53 when Stine suddenly stopped writing them. The series predates his more famous series for younger kids, Goosebumps, though he was cranking those out through the same decade, adding up to more than 100 books in ten years.
Though the Goosebumps books just kept coming in the 2000s, Fear Street appeared to hit a dead end. Then last September to his fans’ delight, Stine resurrected the series and published “Party Games”; in April came “Don’t Stay Up Late,” and a month ago, “The Lost Girl.”
Saturday afternoon – Halloween – the Vero Beach Book Center’s Young Adult/Teen Book Club is having a party to revel in the murderous ghost story, “Don’t Stay Up Late.” The party starts at 3 p.m. giving everybody plenty of time to gear up for the night’s horrors.
If you’ve aged out of that bracket and your idea of horror is a dashed romance, consider another holiday-themed novel, this one by the hugely popular Debbie Macomber, “Dashing Through the Snow.” The neighborly part-time resident of Vero’s Central Beach will be signing her books Monday at 4 p.m. at the Book Center.
Macomber has made an annual Christmas book a tradition since 1987, and that’s in addition to dreaming up enough love stories to generate more than 170 million books in print today. Four have been made into TV movies.
From tap to twist, and bob to beehive, the Vero Beach theater season is starting out so last century – in a good way. With songs from a 1920s speakeasy to a 1950s supper club, Riverside Theatre’s “Swinging on a Star” features the music of Johnny Burke, who wrote so many of the songs that made Bing Crosby famous. The revue, directed and choreographed by DJ Salisbury, runs through Nov. 15.
And where “Swinging on a Star” leaves off, the Vero Beach Theatre Guild’s “Hairspray” takes up, on the 1960s set of a teen TV dance show. The premise – that music is an equal opportunity amusement – evolved through three incarnations, from its 1988 comedy film by John Waters, reworked into a 2002 Broadway musical with pop- and R&B-flavored songs by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman, and followed by a second movie in 2007 movie starring John Travolta and Michelle Pfeiffer.
It is a huge production by Guild standards with a cast that includes college theater majors and a few professionals. Directed by Ben Earman with choreography by Andrew Currie and musical direction by Karen Wiggins, the show runs through Nov. 22.
For a musical journey that spans two centuries: Space Coast Symphony presents Russian romantic composer Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition;” Prokofiev’s “Lieutenant Kije Suite,” a film score for an early Soviet talkie from 1934 (screened in backdrop to the orchestra); and Lowell Liebermann’s 1992 Concerto for Flute and Orchestra. Featured soloist is Sandra Del Cid-Davies, who also plays with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra as well as the Brevard Symphony. Space Coast performs Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Vero Beach High School Performing Arts Center. Advance tickets are $20.
Zac Brown’s new album is mostly old-style storytelling country. But there’s a smattering of electronic music, which he personally loves. The Zac Brown Band Jekyll + Hyde Tour is playing the Perfect Vodka Amphitheatre in West Palm Sunday, Nov. 15. And with his band including mandolin, banjo, ukulele and stand-up bass, there’s a dose of Americana in the mix.
Brown, the 11th of 12 children, grew up amidst the gentle mountains of north Georgia. He took his first guitar lessons from a patient of his dentist stepdad; a woman from his church gave him voice lessons. No telling if joining a fraternity at University of West Georgia had anything to do with his musical tastes but Jekyll + Hyde does see the group morph through not only electronica but grunge and jam band.
The Alabama-born Drake White, an up-and-coming country artist, will be Brown’s opening act. The concert starts at 7 p.m. Tickets range from $27 on the lawn to $75 in the pit.
