NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Tony Adams, Executive Director 

Opera House Arts

1 School Street, Stonington, ME  04681

207-367-2788 | tony@operahousearts.org

DATE: February 15, 2022
TITLE: HALF MOON JUG BAND LIVE AT THE STONINGTON OPERA HOUSE – FEB. 26

Stonington, Maine – Opera House Arts is pleased to welcome the Half Moon Jug Band to the historic Stonington Opera House stage on Saturday, February 26, 2022 at 7:00PM.  This is a “Live! for $5” event, underwritten by the W.F. Whitman Family Foundation. To purchase tickets, visit www.operahousearts.org.  All patrons must show proof of full vaccination at time of entry and are required to wear a mask while indoors.  Face masks are available at the door.

The Half Moon Jug Band is a 21st century jug band rooted in the Downeast humor and dry wit traditions of their home State O’ Maine. Upbeat and positive, the Half Moon Jug Band does whatever it takes to get you singing along and dancing in the aisles. They firmly believe that “Louie, Louie” is every bit as real a folk song as “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.”

The Half Moon Jug Band thrives on interaction with audiences. It’s not just about standing on stage playing songs. It’s about singing, dancing and making people happy. Every performance is studded with jokes, stories and mandatory sing-alongs. No one gets out without singing.  No one.

Before you ask: There’s no jug. It’s implied. Jug band music is the homemade music friends make sitting ’round the kitchen table. You won’t hear it on the radio, you won’t see it on cable TV and you can’t get it at Wal-Mart. Labels don’t apply here. If it sounds fun, if the audience claps in time, if it feels honest, then it’s jug band music.

The Half Moon Jug Band started as a merry band of sidewalk subversives entertaining passersby and annoying shopkeepers on Exchange Street in Portland, Maine 20 years ago. Now, they can be found on the road playing concerts and festivals all over the northeast like New Year’s Portland, the Maine Festival, the Old Port Festival, the Prescott Park Folk Festival, the Oddfellow Theatre, Johnson Hall, Celebration Barn Theater, Stonington Opera House, the Winthrop Performing Arts Center, the Maine Lobster Festival, Burlington’s strange 3rd of July Fireworks extravaganza, the Fryeburg, Deerfield and Cornish Fairs, and many town concerts too numerous to enumerate here.

The Half Moon Jug Band has made many live appearances on television and radio including WCSH’s “207,” WGME’s “Daybreak,” WPFO’s “Good Day Maine,” WMPG’s “Local Motives” and WCTN’s “Shine” and “The Night Show with Danny Cashman.”

In 2018, the Half Moon Jug Band released its sixth full-length album: “Half Live at the Half Moon.” Half the new collection was recorded live, in concert. It joins the band’s other recordings: 2015’s “Don’t Bore Us Get to the Chorus,” 2013’s “North Pond Hermit Sessions,” 2009’s “Get the Show on the Road,” 2005’s “Jug Band Army,” 2003’s “Christmas On Exchange Street” and 2001’s “Space Man in a Jug Band.”

Opera House Arts (OHA) was founded in 1999 to restore the 1912 Stonington Opera House, on the National Register of Historic Places, to its original role as a center for performance and a community gathering space. The non-profit organization just completed its 22nd consecutive season of programming live theater, music and dance, as well as movies, educational experiences, and community events at the Opera House.  The Opera House is normally open 52 weeks a year with a full schedule of film, community events and exciting original performances that serve local audiences of all ages.  With a community-based mission, OHA uses the performing arts to foster and promote excellence in all the ways we perform our lives: Incite Art, Create Community.

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