Since late 1995, we have been privileged to be able to use a performance space at Wesley College called “The Underground”. As you likely know, it’s a space we had to convert to a concert venue every month by moving furniture, setting up a stage area and sound system, etc. This space is more-or-less controlled by Wesley students, thus the several rounds of remodeling over the past 11 years. They intend to remodel yet again, and this time it will make the room largely unusable as a performance space, no matter how much stuff we move around.

So, with the generous help of two concerned folks at Wesley, Dean of Arts & Sciences Paul deGategno and Executive VP Bette Coplan, we’ve managed to find a new home on the Wesley campus. We have been offered the use of the “educational addition” to the Wesley College Chapel. This is NOT the sanctuary with pews and a cool pipe organ, but rather the room beside it. There is a stage, a large open space to move furniture into, stained glass windows, and the opportunity to get a fresh start in a fresh venue. We won’t have couches, but will have tables and those metal folding chairs, so you may want to think about bringing some padding if your back reacts badly to such seating. It’ll be an experiment the first few times, but as A. Einstein once noted “If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be science.”

Access to the coffee house will be from the “middle door” that faces Division St. just east of the corner of Division and Bradford. The venue is also accessible via a ramp at the northwest corner of the building. There is a good deal of on-street parking nearby, and the large parking lot just north of the Chapel is also available. You can best get to the lot from Fulton St.

So the experiment begins Saturday, July 15 with our usual July open mic night. It was at a Friends of Folk event more than several years ago that Rick Schuman met ‘Tish Murzyn. ‘Tish had been coming to open mics and pick-ins for a while before Rick found his way to us.

Wesley Chapel. Do not enter the doors at the corner of Division & Bradford. Use the door down further on Division St.

Playing guitars led the two to conversations and it seems they had more than music in common. At the open mic coffee house on July 19th, 2003, they got a lot closer and did the wedding thing in front of family, friends, and fellow musicians.

For those of you that missed it (or don’t remember that far back), Judge Bob Wall made it all legal and proper, a lot of people played in some very unusual combinations, and the music and good times flowed, as is befitting a wedding. It only seemed right to try for a repeat, so Rick and ‘Tish hosted last July’s open mic too.

Given how it’s sometimes easy to establish a tradition, we’ll have a third anniversary open mic, hosted by that “old” couple, Rick and ‘Tish Schuman.

Consider this your officially official invitation to come to the open mic to play or listen, and help celebrate Rick and ‘Tish’s first three years. It all starts at 7:30 pm, July 15, in the Wesley College Chapel, corner of Division and North Bradford in Dover. Admission is only $3 for members, $5 for non-members, half price for teens and free if you’re younger than 13. You KNOW there’s nothing else like this in Dover.