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| Vol. 17, No. 1 | Sept. 4, 1997 |
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| Vol. 17, No. 1 | Sept. 4, 1997 |
It's been said that describing the Chenille Sisters is like trying to explain double chocolate swirl ice cream-something so delightful you really have to experience it firsthand.
Local audiences can do just that on Sunday, Sept. 14, when the group presents a children's program at 2 p.m. and an adult performance at 8 p.m., both in Mitchell Hall.
The shows will open the University's 1997-98 Performing Arts Series and the Junior Series.
The popular trio's appearances also mark the first offerings in the Blue & Gold Club Series, which offers meals before and after some events to audience members at a special price.
The Chenille Sisters have brought heavenly harmonies and loads of laughs to audiences from coast to coast. Their adult performances include a diverse song list of folk parody laced with the Chenille's brand of zany humor.
Writing about both their youth and adult performances, People Magazine applauded their "quixotic music mixed with warmth and wit," while The Chicago Sun Times praised them for their "sensational, super-tight harmony and clever, campy tunes." The Utne Reader proclaimed the Chenilles the hottest thing to come out of Detroit since Motown, and the Washington Post summed it up by saying The Chenille Sisters offer "plenty of reason to both listen and laugh."
In a spoof on the names of girl groups like the Nylons, the Chiffons and the Four Satins, the Chenilles take their name from that soft cotton fabric used in bedspreads and bathrobes-the kind that, they say, "makes you want to put on your jammies and ask your grandmother to read you a story."
Claiming they are really sisters who just have different parents, group members include Cheryl Dawdy, a former library assistant and self-described "folkie" who has written ballads and performed in coffee houses; Connie Huber, a former solo artist who sang with rock and country-western bands and plays both guitar and drums; and Grace Morand, who has performed in musical theatre and studied opera and has as one career goal "the hope of hitting a note so pure and strong it will shatter Tupperware."
The Chenilles have recorded nine albums and appear in The Chenille Sisters: Makin' Rhythm, an Emmy-award winning PBS special that first aired in 1995 and if frequently repeated on stations around the country.
Read To Me, their radio book review for kids, is carried nationally on more than 40 public radio stations.
Tickets for their adult evening performance are $15 for the general public, $10 for UD faculty, staff, alumni and senior citizens and $6 for students or children.
The Blue & Gold Club dinner planned prior to the show will include Pennsylvania Dutch corn chowder, homemade country biscuits, smoked beef brisket, chicken Kennett Square and sautéed parsnips.
Cost for the performance and dinner is $30 for the general public, $25 for UD faculty, staff, alumni and senior citizens and $21 children 12 and over. Children ages 5-11 can eat for $7 and children under 5 eat free. UD students pay adult prices.
Tickets for the children's performance in the afternoon are $10 for the general public, $8 for UD faculty, staff, alumni and senior citizens and $5 for children and students.
Prices with the Blue & Gold Club lunch, served at 12:30 prior to the show, with menu similar to the one listed above, are $25 for the general public, $23 for UD faculty, staff, alumni and senior citizens and $12 children 12 and over.
Children ages 5-11 eat for $7 and children under 5 eat for free. UD students pay adult prices.
Also scheduled in this year's series are
The series is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency committed to promoting and supporting the arts in Delaware.
-Beth Thomas
