PEMBERVILLE — The Pemberville Opera House on Saturday will continue its Live! In the House concert series with a Silent Movie Night.
Lynne E. Long will accompany “The General” with Buster Keaton.
The show starts at 7:30 p.m. at the opera house, 115 Main St. Tickets are $12 and are available at Beeker’s General Store, at the door, or by calling 419-287-4848.
Long, a cum laude graduate of BGSU in piano performance, started taking lessons at age 7 from her church organist, and she found it was a wonderful way to express herself because she was so shy. Growing up, her parents were at every recital and performance, and her husband and family have taken over as her inspiration. Long has maintained a private piano studio in her home for over 50 years. She has been a member of the Ohio Music Teachers’ Association for many years and holds a Permanent Professional Certificate. Long has performed and accompanied at a variety of functions in the Northwest Ohio area including solo recitals, dedication concerts, and senior recitals (cooperative pianist) at BGSU.
She was a charter member of the Fayette Arts Council and also the Grand Rapids Arts Council. She served as a church organist for over 25 years and worked as a paralegal and court administrator in the Fulton and Wood County Common Pleas courts for 23 years.
As a trustee of the Historical Society of Grand Rapids, she coordinates the “Rhythm on the River” music series in the summers. She has recorded two CDs of sacred music. Currently, she accompanies silent movies at four different venues. She and her husband Joe reside on the Long Sesquicentennial Farm outside Grand Rapids.
Joseph Frank “Buster” Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. He is best known for his silent film work, in which his trademark was physical comedy accompanied by a stoic, deadpan expression that earned him the nickname “The Great Stone Face.”
Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton’s “extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929” when he “worked without interruption” as having made him “the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies.”
In 1996, Entertainment Weekly recognized Keaton as the seventh-greatest film director, writing that “More than Chaplin, Keaton understood movies: He knew they consisted of a four-sided frame in which resided a malleable reality off which his persona could bounce. A vaudeville child star, Keaton grew up to be a tinkerer, an athlete, a visual mathematician; his films offer belly laughs of mind-boggling physical invention and a spacey determination that nears philosophical grandeur.”
In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him as the 21st-greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema.
