There are tons of festive events happening in the area this weekend, including one of the biggest local shopping events of the year, a new restaurant grand opening party, a craft show opening, a big FREE holiday family event, a dance party supporting a local non-profit, and more. More information about these and other upcoming events is below. If you want to buy a Christmas tree or holiday wreaths, greens and decorations this weekend, check out this post. For local gift ideas and more holiday shopping opportunities, visit our “Buy Local for the Holidays” page.

Friday, Dec. 4

• University City Arts League Holiday Craft Show Opening Reception, 6 – 8 p.m., 4226 Spruce St.

Thirty local artists will present their wares—just in time for the holidays! This is a great opportunity to shop for hand-made gifts for you and the whole family, such as cards, pottery, soaps, t-shirts, and more! Complimentary drinks and eats will be offered while you shop during the opening reception this Friday. The Craft Show is open daily Dec. 4-20. Monday-Friday, 5-8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 12-6 p.m. Closing reception will take place on Dec. 20, 4-6 p.m. The list of 2015 vendors is available here.

• Clarkville Grand Opening Party, 5 p.m., 43rd and Baltimore

New Baltimore Avenue bar and restaurant, Clarkville, is opening this Friday. The grand opening party kicks off at 5 p.m.

• West Philly jeweler Amy Neukrug presents her holiday collection at Hello World, 5 – 9 p.m., 3610 Sansom St.

• The Bald Soprano opens at Curio Theatre, 8 p.m., 48th and Baltimore  Continue Reading

From back row left to right: Aetna Gallagher, Ken Opdenaker, Maria Konstantinidis, Brandon Pierce, Rachel Gluck and CJ Keller (Photo by JR Blackwell)

The Curio Theatre Company will stage a play opening this Friday that should resonate deeply in our ever-connected, hyper-talkative social media saturated world, a place where everyone talks but few communicate.

The Bald Soprano, the first work by Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco, makes us laugh at all of this absurd small talk run amok. Originally set in the London home of the fictional couple The Smiths, who are having their friends, The Martins, over for dinner, the play has been updated to include – through clever screen projections –  all of that online gibberish that we all know too well. The play’s script stays true to the original set in the 1950s, but works in modern takes on the non-sequitur.

“Every day we are trapped in the web (pardon the pun) and we argue, sell, cajole, entertain and most of all, cross our wires on the internet,” said director Charlotte Northeast. “This show has pieces of that layered in to illustrate that whether we are speaking in the 1950’s or today, we haven’t mastered this whole talking and REALLY communicating thing.”  Continue Reading

Shopping local is a way to keep more of your dollars in your own community. Our 2015 local holiday shopping guide, “Buy Local for the Holidays,” is here. Check out this page for information on holiday specials and events and for some great local gift ideas from a variety of West Philly businesses – bookstores, jewelers, gift shops, art galleries, bars, cafes and restaurants, and more!

This Week’s Holiday Specials include:

• Monday, Nov. 30: Cyber Monday? How about “Cider Monday” at Penn Book Center, 130 S. 34th Street. Enjoy hot cider and holiday treats as you spend a cozy Monday shopping locally. 25% off sale on select Random House titles kicks off today! The store is open until 6 p.m. Mon-Fri.

• Thursday, Dec. 3 – Saturday, Dec. 5: Holiday Kick-Off at Hello World, 3610 Sansom Street – Featuring jewelry designed by West Philly jeweler Amy Neukrug. Thursday and Friday: 5-9 p.m.; Saturday: 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

• Friday, Dec. 4: Opening reception for the University City Arts League Annual Holiday Craft Show, 6-8 p.m., 4226 Spruce Street. The show features hand-crafted one-of-a-kind gifts by 30 local artists.

• Saturday, Dec. 5: The Baltimore-Lancaster Avenue Shoppers’ Trolley (BLAST), 12-5 p.m. Featuring: great gifts and discounts galore from dozens of local businesses and free trolley shuttle service between Baltimore Avenue and Lancaster Avenue. The event is organized by the Baltimore Avenue Business Association (BABA) and People’s Emergency Center Community Development Corporation (PEC-CDC).

For more information about these and other local holiday events and specials, visit: www.westphillylocal.com/buy-local-for-the-holidays-2015

A new mural was unveiled on Monday at 40th and Chestnut, a result of a year-long collaboration between the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS). The mural art project, titled Building Brotherhood: Engaging Males of Color, was designed to inspire males of color to build supportive relationships with one another as a mechanism for coping with – and overcoming – the hardships they face in society, often in regards to accessing education, jobs, and behavioral health services.

Building Brotherhood is the 27th mural created under the Porch Light program, an ongoing collaboration between the Mural Arts Program and DBHIDS. Porch Light public art projects, which focus specifically on mental health, are an expression of community resilience and a vehicle of personal and community healing. A new virtual tour of the Porch Light murals can be found here: www.porchlightvirtualtour.org.

For 10 months, selected local and international artists have worked in a newly-renovated storefront space at 4017 Lancaster Avenue as part of the “Neighborhood Time Exchange” Artists-in-Residence Program. This Friday, the artists along with the Mural Arts Program, The People’s Emergency Center, Broken City Lab, and The City of Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy will present their culminating exhibition, Reciprocity: Exhibiting Moments and Momentum from Neighborhood Time Exchange.

Three cohorts of artists participated in residencies between January and September 2015 and worked for one to three months: The first cohort of residencies, which took place between January and March, included artists Ian Sampson, Betty Leacraft, Kandis Friesen, and Philippe Leonard. The second cohort, between April and June, included Macon Reed, Camae Dennis and Rasheedah Phillips, Matt Neff, and Sasha Phyars-Burgess. The third included Pato Hebert, Lucy Pistilli and Brian Bazemore, John Phillips, Mark Clare, and Meredith Degyanski.  Continue Reading

UPDATE (11/10/2015): Curio Theatre’s Benefit scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 14 has been postponed to a later date. Stay tuned for more announcements.

Two local arts organizations, University City Arts League (UCAL) and Curio Theatre, are holding delicious and fun events soon, which will help them raise some cash.

The annual Chili Bowl fundraiser supports the Arts League’s pottery studio. (Photo courtesy UCAL)

• UCAL’s annual Chili Bowl event will be held this Sunday (Nov. 8), from 1 – 4 p.m. at 4226 Spruce Street. Everyone is invited to purchase a hand-crafted bowl for $20 and fill it with chili (kids eat free with a bowl-purchasing adult).

The chili, including vegetarian and vegan, is donated by local restaurants: Corner Bakery, Tortas Frontera, City Tap House, Rx the Farmacy, Harvest, Renata’s Kitchen, Milk and Honey Market, Qdoba, Distrito, The Restaurant School, and the Green Line Cafe. After guests stuff themselves with chili they can vote for their favorite.

All of the proceeds from the Chili Bowl supports UCAL and its beloved ceramic studio. Guests are encouraged to get to the Arts League early to insure that they get a ceramic bowl. Each bowl is individually crafted, a unique piece created by a potter, and they are in limited supply. For more information about the event, visit the UCAL website.  Continue Reading