The Sheldon Art Galleries presents the 6th annual Golf the Galleries interactive exhibition, June 9 – August 6, 2023, sponsored by UMB Bank. The playable, artist-designed, nine-hole mini golf installation will again be situated in the beautiful Sheldon Art Galleries space, and is designed to be inclusive, family-friendly and accessible.

The nine unique mini golf holes are designed by St. Louis area artists, architects, organizations and other creatives, and have been curated this season by artists Philip and Kelsey Jordan, whose popular golf holes were featured in 2021 and 2022. Tickets are $12 adults / $10 children 12 and under. Golf the Galleries is open Tuesday – Thursday, 12 – 5 p.m.; Friday, 12 – 8 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. No advanced reservations will be offered this season. Sales will be accepted at the door only for maximum flexibility. Visit TheSheldon.org for more information.


The Sheldon is proud to announce the Golf the Galleries 2023 hole designs:

Take the Factory Tour by Dave Kish finds players putting their balls through the stages of product life: factory, fairway and dump! Creator Dave Kish presents a collection of recycled cardboard wall sculptures to compliment a zany industrial- themed miniature golf hole where players can take the “factory tour.”

Kish is a St. Louis-based designer and builder. Twice a graduate of Lehigh University, he also studied at the design think-tank SCI-Arc and has compiled extensive and overlapping portfolios in the fields of architecture, fine art, illustration and education.

MuseumCeption by City Museum and artists True Mead & Angelina Brown incorporates several exhibits displayed within the confines of City Museum that many who visit are not familiar with. Most know City Museum as a metalworks playground, focused on reuse, where structures and components of other once-upon-a-time buildings become the play place for children and adults of all ages. This new mini golf hole highlights collections and items being shown for the very first time! City Museum is a Maker Sponsor.

MuseumCeption


Sound Moves by the World Chess Hall of Fame is the first golf hole dedicated to the intersection of chess and music! It will include artifacts and media representing a wide range of musical genres, both traditional and contemporary, featuring a selection of the greatest and most influential musicians and chess players the world has seen. A full exhibition on this subject is currently on display at the World Chess Hall of Fame in the Central West End at 4652 Maryland Avenue. World Chess Hall of Fame is a Maker Sponsor.

Candyman by LitShop is based on the beloved Roald Dahl children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the trio of films that followed. The immersive mini golf hole mimics the experiences of the movie characters when they first enter Wonka’s factory. Golfers can take selfies with a life-size cutout of the candyman himself, Willy Wonka. LitShop is a non-profit organization that pairs literacy with hands-on making and building for girls and gender-expansive youth ages 10-16. Founded in 2019, LitShop offers workshops in reading, writing, building and making through modalities such as design, woodworking, carpentry, printmaking and fiber arts.

Putt your way upstream on Wally and Jacob Hauck’s Fly Fishing. Inspired by their love for fly fishing in Missouri’s beautiful streams, the golf hole’s centerpiece features a large sculpture of a native trout. Over the last 15 years, the Hauck’s have been working with a variety of agricultural companies to design and create large-scale sculptures depicting the properties of plants and scientific innovations for display at national trade shows. The Hauck’s are known for turning imaginative ideas into stunning realities, and their talent will be on full display in this unique hole!

In If you hit it, it’s a Drum, artists Kelsey and Phillip Jordan encourage users to explore the act of creating sound and rhythm out of known musical and found instruments. The artists, one a pianist and one a bassist, believe that music is important in child development and exploration, and is beneficial to all ages. Players “make some music” by taking one of the boomwhackers (tuned percussion tubes) around the column to play a little tune – just what they need to make that hole in one!

In A Trip to the Moon by Paul Casey and Sarah Frost, players can choose one of two methods of travel to our favorite celestial body. Starting at adjacent points, one route follows Jules Verne’s 19th century cannon, while the other tracks the 1969 moon landing.

Paul Casey was props master for over 25 years for Opera Theatre of St. Louis and at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and has freelanced for local TV stations, small theaters and trade show companies. Sarah Frost has created sculptures and installation art for 15 years. Originally trained as a painter, she also enjoys working as a set painter at The Muny and other local theaters and returns to Golf the Galleries for a second season after last year’s audience- favorite installation, Hole at the Pole.

The Anatomy of a House by Silas Coggeshall takes inspiration from literature and explores the age-old notion of a haunted house. What happens when the function of architecture and furniture becomes obtuse or even antagonistic to the human experience? What does the history of an object look like when made visible? What sort of presence does a home have when given the attributes of a living organism that has become malignant? Golfers must maneuver through an uncanny, haunting and macabre depiction of the home in this delightfully chilling hole.

Kelsey and Philip Jordan have made the final hole a walk in the park: the dog park! Day at the Dog Park creates a sense of fun and play in one of the most genuinely joyful places for its users. Furry companions remind us to let our stresses go and find excitement in little things like TREATS! BALL! WALKS! There is always something new to explore and a story that’s being created – who was there before them and what were they doing? Together, Phil and Kelsey Jordan are experienced architectural, furniture, construction and graphic designers. They return to Golf the Galleries for a 2nd year.

Hole sponsorships for Golf the Galleries are still available. Call The Sheldon’s Development Department at 314-533-9900 or e-mail sdo@thesheldon.org. For more information about Golf the Galleries call The Sheldon at 314-533-9900 or visit TheSheldon.org.

The Sheldon’s Exhibition series is sponsored by The Bellwether Foundation, Arts and Education Council, Regional Arts Commission, and the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency Golf the Galleries is sponsored by UMB Bank

By Lynn Venhaus

Sympathies shift as does time in the twisty relationship drama “Fiction,” presented by the St. Louis Actors’ Studio as a study in the stories we tell ourselves.

Playwright Steven Dietz explores “What would you do if you had to live with a secret that you thought you would die with?”

That complicates life for sophisticates Linda and Michael Waterman, who are both writers, thus the verbal jousting throughout the two acts.

Their literate lives will be turned upside-down with the diagnosis of a terminal brain tumor (hers) and the revelation of an affair (his).

After Linda’s devastating news, she asks her husband to share his diaries with her. Who can refuse a dying person’s wish, right? He agrees – tearing out a page – and his entries disclose what happened at a writer’s retreat with a young Abby, an administrator at The Drake Colony. Rut-ro.

With his customary witty dialogue, Dietz examines the blurred lines between fact and fiction, truth and lies, reality and imagination. Does discretion spare pain or make betrayal worse? Can couples overcome deceit? Is “memory the better writer” as Michael states?

And what kind of mind game are we exactly in for here?

As cagily played by Lizi Watt as Linda and William Roth as Michael, their carefully constructed worlds come to a head when they are forced into edgy territory – and are backed into a corner.

The very opinionated and glib Waterman defends his journaling by describing it as fiction. A rather stressed Linda conjures up scenarios in her head, as she thinks she knows him well enough to figure out what happened. He described Abby as a lethal combination of beauty, danger, youth and wit.

As they revise facts, trust breaks down. Then Michael reads Linda’s diaries. Well, who is keeping secrets now? And what isn’t disclosed on the hand-written pages?

What a tangled web Dietz has weaved into two hours, adding plot twists – and a few contrivances to make this more confounding rather than easily filling in the blanks.

William Roth, Bryn McLaughlin, Lizi Watt. Photo by Patrick Huber.

What the Watermans have been telling themselves for 20 years is that their longtime relationship is built on honesty and candor. After all, they are writers. But the irony is that sometimes, those adept at the written word aren’t always the best communicators when it comes to expressing feelings and deep thoughts one-on-one.

Confrontations will expose vulnerabilities and appear to be ripping scabs off old wounds. And what’s with this mysterious Abby, and how long was she in contact with Michael? How does she know Linda?

Agile at rapid-fire banter, Watts and Roth are convincing, if not enitrely relatable, as the pair – his character tends to pontificate, and her healthy self can get snippy, but you do feel for her current predicament. His novels are so popular they’re made into movies while her one acclaimed book, “At the Cape,” a fictionalized account of her sexual assault in South Africa, is long in the rearview mirror, and she now teaches creative writing. Linda is tough and confident, not a pushover.

As Abby, Bryn McLaughlin plays her close to the vest when she appears before and present, shading her ambiguously. She holds her own in scenes with the older established characters.

This three-hander, deftly staged by Wayne Salomon, digs deeper into the gray areas of relationships that aren’t so black-and-white. Salomon’s a master at dissecting ordinary people and their motivations, as he has shown in an illustrious career spanning 50 years.

In recent years at STLAS, he’s done sharply defined work with “August: Osage County,” “Three Tall Women,” and “Farragut North.” This one, with its enigmatic premise, is indeed a challenge.

While the actors are smooth and obviously well-rehearsed, given the dexterity on display and their earnest analysis to make the material understandable, the stumbling block is the play’s structure.

The time shifts are not always clear, which is intentional. There are minor changes in costumes to reflect the year depicted, a smart move by costume designer Carla Landis Evans.

When we first meet the couple at a café in Paris (really?), they seem to have a comfy rapport. Dietz’s idea to start with a high-spirited argument on best rock vocal performance is clever, for we immediately ascertain they’re Boomers, with each taking a side – he’s adamant it’s John Lennon in “Twist and Shout,” and she’s making a case for Janis Joplin for “Piece of My Heart.”

Music, being the universal language, helps us size up the characters. But turns out, this is their first meeting, and they eventually marry. It sets up their rhythms, for couples tend to have their own shorthand..

This shift in time will keep us off-guard, particularly with the back-and-forth on the Abby sequences, and perhaps more at a distance that we should be as we’re trying to keep straight what’s accurate.

Then, there is the matter of mortality. The reason she’s reading his diaries is that she’s going to die soon (three weeks, or as she puts it, “twenty meals.”) Spoiler alert: But then, lo and behold, doctors say ‘oops!’ and never mind — due to an “oncological misapprehension,” she’s given a reprieve, so that makes things stickier for what’s out in the open. But then… (won’t spoil the rest). And if she has a malignancy tumor, undergoing treatment, wouldn’t that affect her behavior?

These choices are debatable, and the off-kilter nature can be frustrating, if that’s how you sense it. I can see where deciphering the relationships can become chore-like.

In all narratives, talking about writing can get in the weeds with theatergoers, while showing the writing process is even trickier. I can see responses vary about the two.

Should our lives be an open book in our intimate relationships? Dietz brings up questions, but are his points persuasive?

Are the characters unreliable narrators? Things are open to interpretation, depending on your viewpoint. And given human nature, perspectives will vary.

The setting, designed by Patrick Huber and carried out by Andy Cross and Sarah Frost, is minimally staged to focus on the verbal fireworks. No bookshelves, such as those artfully staged for Zoom, for the backdrop.

St. Louis Actors’ Studio, now in its 15th season, is looking through the lens of life’s fundamentals in several productions this year.

Their selections always bring up provocative issues that make a viewer consider how they think and feel, which results in an interesting experience worthy of discussion.

“Fiction” was produced in a workshop setting through ACT Theatre in Seattle in 2002, then presented at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, N.J., and later, off-Broadway by the Roundabout Theatre in 2004.

Active for 30 years, the prolific Dietz is one of the most widely produced playwrights in the U.S. Locally, his works “Bloomsday” and “This Random World” have been performed by the West End Players Guild. “God’s Country,” “The Nina Variations,” “Lonely Planet,” “Shooting Star” and “Private Eye” are among his many plays, often staged in regional theaters. Always witty and frequently insightful, Dietz’ comedy-dramas intrigue.

This much I know is true – the truth is uncomfortable but lies are worse. Although this brings up thought-provoking topics, whatever Dietz was going for in “Fiction” doesn’t land wholly satisfactorily, although the performances are genuine and the production work sincere.

William Roth, Lizi Watt. Photo by Patrick Huber

The St. Louis Actors’ Studio presents “Fiction” by Steven Dietz from Oct. 7 to Oct. 23, on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 3 p.m. at The Gaslight Theater at 358 N. Boyle in the Central West End.

For tickets, visit https://www.ticketmaster.com/the-gaslight-theater-tickets-st-louis/venue/50324 or purchase at the box office prior to showtime. For more information: www.stlas.org