AROUND TOWN
Clinton Street Mural project Shifts will be held at the following times: 9 a.m. – noon, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m., noon – 3 p.m., and 2 – 4 p.m. Sept. 10 and 11. Clinton Street. Visit auroragov.org for more information.
Two blocks of Clinton Street in northwest Aurora will be receiving a colorful face lift with a touch of Eastern Europe this weekend. In coordination with several other city agencies, Aurora’s Art in Public Places Commission last month selected Lakewood-based muralist Yulia Avgustinovich to lead an expansive community art project intended to connect the forthcoming Stanley Marketplace on Dallas Street with the neighboring Aurora Cultural Arts District to the south. Planned to be impermanent, the images will be splashed onto the street itself, totaling up to 40,000 square feet of asphalt. Don’t miss this chance to welcome Aurora’s buzziest addition since the Gaylord Rockies Hotel and Conference Center announced that whole lazy river concept way back when.
The Cherry Creek Schools Fitness Festival Registration opens at 7 a.m., 5k race starts at 8:30 a.m. Sept. 10, The Stutler Bowl on the Cherry Creek High School campus, 9300 E. Union Ave., Greenwood village. Visit ccsdfit.org for more information.
Running at 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday is, well, kind of a drag. Ok, it’s a major drag. But, when it benefits schools and kids right here in Aurora, it becomes quite a bit more tolerable. Get a healthy start to your day and help to support the Cherry Creek School District at this 5k put on by the Community Asset Project, which turns entry fees into grant funds for the CCSD wellness office. The office helps to set up programs to combat bullying, teen suicide and drug/alcohol abuse, as well as promote social-emotional learning programs, among others. After the run, local restaurants will be offering up free tastings of a variety of local fares. So, start your day off with some endorphins and help raise money for a great local cause. Registration prices increase on Sept. 3.
Write Aurora 3 p.m., Sept. 11, Delaney Farm, 170 S. Chambers Rd. Free, but registration is required at auroragov.org/recreation, or by calling 303-326-8650.
Writer’s block is a fickle thing. And we would know — the bulk of the words on this page were vomited into a word processor only a few hours after sweating blood, breaking down self-imposed mental obstacles and staring deadline squarely in the retina. But there are ways, good friends, to avoid that mental iron maiden and spew out delightful prose on command. The first, and perhaps simplest way, is coffee. The second, and perhaps most enjoyable way, is taking a stroll through time. Well, sort of — no, Doc Brown here, however. Employees of the city’s Art in Public Places Commission, along with bad-ass rhymester and poet laureate Jovan Mays, will be leading aspiring scribes through Delaney Farm this weekend as part of the year’s second month-long series called Write Aurora. The series of writing workshops — slated for a couple of Sundays this September — will offer advice and inspiration for local wordsmiths to hone their craft. And, sure, Aurora’s some 125 years of happenings are inspirational and all, but bringing a thermos of joe along probably wouldn’t hurt.
A Mosaic of Cultures: Aurora’s Ethiopian Communities Museum is open 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Tues. – Fri. and 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. on weekends. Closed Mondays. 15051 E. Alameda Pkwy. Call 303-739-6660 or visit museum@auroragov.org for more information.
And just like that, it’s time for a new exhibit at the Aurora History Museum. After about a four-month run, the museum is packing up its “Mosaic of Cultures” exhibit on the city’s burgeoning Ethiopian communities for good this weekend. Sunday, Sept. 11 marks residents’ last chance to learn about the different regions of Ethiopia, as well as how to set up a proper coffee ceremony. Entry to the museum is free.
ONSTAGE
The Glass Menagerie Showtimes vary Tuesday through Sunday Sept. 9 – Oct. 16. No performance on Mondays. The Denver Center for the Performing Arts Ricketson Theatre, 1101 13th St., Denver. Tickets start at $35. Call 800-641-1222 or visit Denvercenter.org for more information.
Based on a Tennessee Williams short story entitled “Portrait of a Girl in Glass,” “The Glass Menagerie” dissects the buttoned-up mayhem of the Wingfield family, a semi-proper southern clan that slowly, but systematically unravels. The tribe consists of Tom, a poet drowning in self-inflicted mediocrity who’s forced to provide for his mother and sister by working for $65 a day in a shoe factory; Laura, a disabled shut-in who is socially paralyzed by her own anxiety; and Amanda, the hen-like southern matriarch obsessed with the opulence of a former life. The plot centers on Amanda’s relentless quest to match her daughter with a gentleman caller, despite her child’s cripplingly anti-social tendencies. Laced with an ongoing skirmish with Tom over his happiness and commitment to the family, the show weaves in and out of different planes of reality and memory in a manner akin to the magical realism spun out by Williams’ Latin American contemporaries.
Find more events at theauroramagazine.com/themix