Weekend Brings Opportunities to Go Green

By Vanessa Wolf

This isn’t a scene from the play, but by golly it sounds like it could be. Courtesy photo.

It’s Earth Hour is on Saturday, yo.

With that comes a veritable rainbow of opportunities to go green, fight the power, or sit in the dark at a fabulous resort and eat a picnic of some sort.

What’s not to love?

Best Chance to See the Next Generation of Maui Theater

Maui Academy of Performing Arts’ (MAPA) Advanced Play Production students will be performing “Lockdown” beginning this evening.

The plot centers on students enjoying a typical day in the local high school library… until a siren sounds, the doors automatically lock, and the students discover they are trapped.

Without knowing what caused the “lockdown,” this diverse group of high schoolers are forced to deal with each other in very real ways that strip away the normal stereotypes governing the school’s social structure.

Think of it as “The Breakfast Club” but with the threat of something really bad happening (not that the whole thing with the dandruff wasn’t really bad).

Featuring the student actors of Maui Academy of Performing Arts’ Advanced Play Production Troupe, this motley crew of hackers, delinquents, surfer dudes, and prom queens must rise above the chaos to help each other. And as any good after-school special commands, inadvertently discover the meaning of tolerance along the way.

“Lockdown” will be performed March 22, 23, 29 & 30 at 7:30 p.m. and March 24 at 2 p.m. at Steppingstone Playhouse in Queen Ka’ahumanu Center.

Tickets are $12 for adults and $8 for seniors and students 18 and under.

Tickets can be purchased online, by calling MAPA at 244-8760 or by visiting the Customer Service Kiosk at Queen Ka’ahumanu Center.

Best Opportunity to Recycle Some Exotic Trash

Saturday, it seems, is Earth Hour, but the recycling starts early.

The first of many events occurs at the Lahaina Cannery Mall from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Green for Good is an organization that promotes efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle.

The event will be a day of promoting green initiatives to help in sustaining the health of our earth: its soils, ecosystems and people.

There will also be educational display and sales of native Hawaiian plants, succulents and organic vegetable starts.

Community recycling stations will be set up in the parking lot for E-cycling, scrap metal, green waste, household goods, cardboard, newspaper, batteries, paint, books and lots more.

Best Opportunity to Fight the Power… and Meet Your Neighbors

The anti-GMO protest on Piilani Hwy near Monsanto headquarters, October 2011. File photo by Madeline Ziecker.

On Saturday at high noon, 600+ Maui residents will be marching from the War Memorial Stadium to Whole Foods (and back, presumably) in protest of GMO farming and testing done by Monsanto here on Maui.

In addition to the facility located in Central Kihei, the Hawaii GMO Justice Coalition claims that Monsanto has drilled six wells in Paia and is “poisoning our land, our water, and our families.”

If you see it this way – or want to learn more – you now know where to go.

Best (Free!) Opportunity to Hone Your Acting Chops

On Saturday from 3 – 5 p.m. in the McCoy Studio Theater at the MACC, Kumu Kahua Theatre of O‘ahu will present a free opportunity for actors to hone their character development skills in a workshop environment.

Visiting Maui with performances of the show Fishing for Wives from Kumu Kahua Theatre, Kumu Kahua Managing Director, award winning actor and director, Donna Blanchard; and Mid-Pacific Institute School for the Arts Educator, director and playwright, John Wat will present The Monologue Workshop for Maui theater artists.

The workshop is open to the public and the organizers request that you bring a prepared, memorized, 2-3 minute monologue to work on, though you may use a script if necessary. If you do not have a monologue, you’ll be given material to work with.

At the workshop you will receive assistance meeting your level of experience/education, including character, motivation and relationship development.

To register, email [email protected] by 5 p.m. on Friday, March 22.

Best Way to Participate in Reducing What Must Be One Hell of an Electric Bill

Fairmont Kea Lani in Wailea, Maui. Photo courtesy of Fairmont Hotels & Resorts.

For the fifth consecutive year, The Fairmont Kea Lani, Maui will be participating in Earth Hour, a global environmental awareness event organized by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). On Saturday, March 23 at 8:30 p.m., all of Fairmont’s world-class hotels and resorts will go dark to draw attention to one of the world’s single largest environmental issues: climate change.

In addition to switching off non-essential lighting, The Fairmont Kea Lani, Maui will mark the eco-friendly event with its first annual Lights Out Picnic. Over 200 floating candles will also be placed in the lobby fountain and outdoor paths will be lit with candle luminaries.

Maui residents and visitors are invited to pick up their locally-sourced picnic dinner and picnic blanket at the resort’s Caffe Ciao Bakery & Deli beginning at 6 p.m. and walk down to the oceanfront Polo Lawn. The picnic will begin with hula and Samoan fire dancing at 8 p.m., followed by an hour-long stargazing session with Astronomer Becky Sydney, founder of Maui Astronomy Club, at 8:30 p.m.

Picnics will cost $45 for two people and will include a reusable shopping bag, use of a picnic blanket and entertainment. A portion of the proceeds from the Lights Out Picnic will benefit the World Wildlife Fund.

Pretty freaking cool any way you slice it.

Aware of something cool or amazing or incredible or jaw-dropping or WTF that’s happening or going to be happening on Maui? Why are you still sitting there reading these words!? LET US KNOW ABOUT IT: [email protected]