Gilded Age Ball Introduces The Big Read

Gilded Age Ball Introduces The Big Read

Tickets remain for the Massillon Museum’s “Gilded Age Ball” on Saturday, February 28. A Canton Symphony Orchestra octet will play music from the late 1800s for dancing in the gallery of the Massillon Museum. Guests can expect a strolling magician—Brent Schneider, a performance by the Ohio Youth Ballet, Ananda Center dancers, dance cards and nosegays, and other Victorian-era entertainment.

The event will launch The Big Read 2009. The event will start at 8:00 p.m. and conclude at midnight, when free copies of The Age of Innocence will be distributed to all who attend. This year’s book selection, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, portrays social life during The Gilded Age—the late 1800s and the turn of the 20th century.

Costumes and period clothing are encouraged, but not required. Massillon Museum Executive Director Christine Shearer, who leads The Big Read project says, “The staff and committee will be in ball gowns and tuxedos. We will evoke enough Victorian atmosphere to make anyone comfortable who wants to come in costume. But we know that many guests will prefer to wear contemporary clothes.”

The Big Read will be a month-long celebration of The Age of Innocence, funded by a competitive grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Massillon Rotary Foundation has provided additional funding to purchase copies of the book for classroom use. 2009 marks the second year the National Endowment for the Arts has granted funding for the Massillon Museum’s ambitious participation in The Big Read—a national initiative to help Americans return to reading for leisure.

The Big Read, the largest federal literature program since the W.P.A., is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents the Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest.

Tickets for The Gilded Age Ball—$25 per person—include refreshments. They are available at the Massillon Museum in person, by phone (330-833-4061), or online at www.massillonmuseum.org. The Museum accepts cash, checks, Visa, and Mastercard.

Gretchen Schrantz chairs “The Gilded Age Ball.” Barb Moran of Moran Interiors in Canton is providing decorations.

For more information about western Stark County’s Big Read project, call the Massillon Museum at 330-833-4061 or visit www.massillonmuseum.org or www.NEABigRead.org.

Media Contacts:

Christine Shearer - Massillon Museum Executive Director - 330-833-4061

Margy Vogt - Massillon Museum PR Coordinator - 330-844-1525