Don't Be a Ding-Dong

and how to get your gourmet popcorn needs met 🍿

Author

Ben Thietje
November 13, 2025 • Est. Reading Time: 7 minutes

Hello! I’m Ben, executive director at the Phipps.

Welcome to The Flying P, a weekly newsletter covering your Phipps Center for the Arts and anything else I might want to throw your way.

This issue has…

  • 🎟️ A Friendly Warning
    you probably won’t get another one

  • 🎹 Golden Pipes
    the pops were yummy, too

  • 🩰 A Field Trip
    PCA students are the best students

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MUSIC

Striking gold

Dennis James doing his thing while Charlie does his

The PCA’s first Pipes & Pops event of the season was last Sunday. “Ben, can you please remind me what Pipes & Pops is?” I can imagine you saying right about now.

Pipes & Pops is one of the 2025/26 specialty season passes. In addition to seeing 3 very fun organ concerts, you also get a bag of free gourmet popcorn at each event. To honor Charlie Chaplin’s “Gold Rush” (which was the silent film Dennis James so brilliantly accompanied), Pipes & Poppers were given a bag of Gold Nugget Cheese (everyone else could buy one).

Check out the next Pipes & Pops organ event or risk losing out on yet another bag of delicious gourmet popcorn.

Should it have been called Charlie Chaplin Cheddar? Arguably yes :(

PHIPPS TOP 10
best-selling upcoming events this season by tickets sold…

1. It’s a Wonderful Life (previously: 1)🔥
2. Deathtrap (previously: 2)
3. Colleen Raye’s New Year’s Eve (previously: 3)
4. A Brass & Organ Holiday (previously: 5)
5. Broadway, Big Bands, Beatles, and Beyond (previously: 6)
6. Sideways Stories from Wayside School (previously: 7)
7. Wonderland Jazz Jam (previously: 9)🔥
8. Uptown Brass (previously: 8)
9. Songs by Boys by Girls (previously: 10)
10. Judy Moody & Stink (previously: unlisted)

BETTER HURRY LIST
best-selling upcoming events this season by percent sold
(i.e., closest to being sold out)…

1. It’s a Wonderful Life (previously: 1)🔥
2. Wonderland Jazz Jam (previously: 2)🔥
3. A Brass & Organ Holiday (previously: 5)
4. Colleen Raye’s New Year’s Eve (previously: 4)
5. Broadway, Big Bands, Beatles, and Beyond (previously: unlisted)

as of 11/13/25

DANCE

Creativity sparked

what a crew!

A handful of students in Greta Lewis’ choreography workshop recently took a trip to see Collide Theatrical’s production of Dracula to check out some pros in action.

We had a great time watching a professional show and the [student] dancers are so inspired to create their own pieces!

Greta Lewis, PCA Dance Council Chair

The students will showcase some of their work at the Phipps on Friday, January 9th @ 6pm. 😊

artist: Lora Fandrey

👆
my favorite gallery piece of the week
The Members Spotlight Exhibition opened last Friday and IT IS SOLID. Make sure you get out and see some of the fantastic work being done by OUR VERY OWN PHIPPS MEMBERS, which includes Lora Fandrey who created this piece that I’m in love with.

THEATRE

A friendly warning to my Flying P friends

Potter’s gonna be pretty crabby if you miss this show

Hey, ummm…just putting this out there because I like you and I want you to succeed in obtaining tickets to It’s a Wonderful Life: THINGS ARE GETTING DICY.

As of right now, we’ve got 5 performances with less than 50 tickets remaining and another 7 with less than 100. If your family is really excited about seeing the show on December 7th, I hope there aren’t five of you. In other words: get your tickets ASAP cuz they’ll be gone very, very soon — and then you’ll be sitting on the waitlist twiddling your thumbs like a holiday ding-dong.

Don’t be a holiday ding-dong.

PS - check out that deck paint job by our insanely talented scenic charge, Julie Lasonczyc. Julie! How do you do that?!

wow Julie wow

Do you like puzzles? Do you like the Phipps?
Then you’re gonna love this Phipps-related puzzle.
It’s The Flying P(uzzle)!
👇

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Talk to you next week!

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