Calendar of Events

Exhibition and Public Programming

Vera B. Williams, an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books, started making pictures almost as soon as she could walk. She studied at Black Mountain College in a time where summer institutes were held with classes taught by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Williams studied under the Bauhaus luminary Josef Albers and went on to make art for the rest of her life. At the time of her death, The New York Times wrote: “Her illustrations, known for bold colors and a style reminiscent of folk art, were praised by reviewers for their great tenderness and crackling vitality.” Despite numerous awards and recognition for her children’s books, much of her wider life and work remains unexplored. This retrospective will showcase the complete range of Williams’ life and work. It will highlight her time at Black Mountain College, her political activism, and her establishment, with Paul Williams, of an influential yet little-known artist community, in addition to her work as an author and illustrator.

Author and illustrator of 17 children’s books, including Caldecott medal winner, A Chair for My Mother, Vera B. Williams always had a passion for the arts. Williams grew up in the Bronx, NY, and in 1936, when she was nine years old, one of her paintings, called Yentas, opens a new window, was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. While Williams is widely known for her children’s books today, this exhibition’s expansive scope highlights unexplored aspects of her artistic practice and eight decades of life. From groundbreaking, powerful covers for Liberation Magazine, to Peace calendar collaborations with writer activist Grace Paley, to scenic sketches for Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s Living Theater, to hundreds of late life “Aging and Illness” cartoons sketches and doodles, Vera never sat still.

Williams arrived at Black Mountain College in 1945. While there, she embraced all aspects of living, working, and learning in the intensely creative college community. She was at BMC during a particularly fertile period, which allowed her to study with faculty members Buckminster Fuller and Josef Albers, and to participate in the famed summer sessions with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, M.C. Richards, and Robert Rauschenberg. In 1948, she graduated with Josef Albers as her advisor and sculptor Richard Lippold as her outside examiner. Forever one of the College’s shining stars, Vera graduated from BMC with just six semesters of coursework, at only twenty-one years old. She continued to visit BMC for years afterward, staying deeply involved with the artistic community that BMC incubated.

Anticipating the eventual closure of BMC, Williams, alongside her husband Paul Williams and a group of influential former BMC figures, founded The Gate Hill Cooperative Artists community located 30 miles north of NYC on the outskirts of Stony Point, NY. The Gate Hill Cooperative, also known as The Land, became an outcropping of Black Mountain College’s experimental ethos. Students and faculty including John Cage, M.C. Richards, David Tudor, Karen Karnes, David Weinrib, Stan VanDerBeek, and Patsy Lynch Wood shaped Gate Hill as founding members of the community. Vera B. Williams raised her three children at Gate Hill while continuing to make work.

The early Gate Hill era represented an especially creative phase for the BMC group. For Williams, this period saw the creation of 76 covers for Liberation Magazine, a radical, groundbreaking publication. This exhibition will feature some of Williams’ most powerful Liberation covers including a design for the June 1963 edition, which contained the first full publication of MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Williams’ activism work continued throughout her life. As president of PEN’s Children Committee and member of The War Resisters league, she created a wide range of political and educational posters and journal covers. Williams protested the war in Vietnam and nuclear proliferation while supporting women’s causes and racial equality. In 1981, Williams was arrested and spent a month in a federal prison on charges stemming from her political activism.

In her late 40’s, Williams embarked in earnest on her career as a children’s book author and illustrator, a career which garnered the NY Public Library’s recognition of A Chair for My Mother as one of the greatest 100 children’s books of all time. Infinitely curious and always a wanderer at heart, Williams’ personal life was as expansive as her art. In addition to her prolific picture making, Williams started and helped run a Summerhill-based alternative school, canoed the Yukon, and lived alone on a houseboat in Vancouver Harbor. She helped to organize and attended dozens of political demonstrations throughout her adult life.

Her books won many awards including the Caldecott Medal Honor Book for A Chair for My Mother in 1983, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award– Fiction category– for Scooter in 1994, the Jane Addams Honor for Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart in 2002, and the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature in 2009. Her books reflected her values, emphasizing love, compassion, kindness, joy, strength, individuality, and courage.

Images:

Cover of Vera B. Williams’ A Chair for My Mother, published in 1982.

Vera B. Williams, Cover for Liberation Magazine, November 1958.

Gwenda Bond shares her new romantic, magical heist novel, The Frame-Up, in conversation with Megan Shepherd.

The event is free but registration is required for both in-person and virtual attendance. 

Please click here to register for the VIRTUAL event. The link required to attend will be emailed to registrants prior to the event. 

Please click here to register for the IN-PERSON event. Note the important event details on the RSVP form.

The Frame-Up
Dani Poissant is the daughter and former accomplice of the world’s most famous art thief. There was no job too big for Maria and her loyal crew. The secret to their success? A little thing called magic, kept rigorously secret from the non-magical world. They seemed unstoppable . . . until a teenage Dani turned her mother over to the FBI.

Ten years later, with Maria still in prison, Dani finds herself approached for a job that only Maria and her crew could pull off . . . if any of them were still speaking to her. But it’s the job of a lifetime and might just be the lure Dani needs to reconcile with her mother and be reunited with her mother’s old gang—including both the love of her life and her former best friend.

The problem is, it’s an impossible task—even with the magical talents of the people she once considered family backing her up. It’s a heist that needs a year to plan, and Dani has just over a week. Worse, the more Dani learns, the more she understands that there’s far more at stake in this job than she ever realized.

Gwenda Bond is the New York Times bestselling author of many novels, including the first official Stranger Things novel, Suspicious Minds, as well as the Match Made in Hell, Lois Lane, and Cirque American series. She lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband, author Christopher Rowe, and a veritable zoo of adorable doggos and queenly cats.

New York Times bestseller and Carnegie Medal-nominated author Megan Shepherd grew up in her family’s independent bookstore in the Blue Ridge Mountains. She is the author of many acclaimed novels for readers of all ages. She now lives and writes on a haunted 130-year-old farm outside Asheville, North Carolina, with her husband and children, cats, chickens, bees, and an especially scruffy dog.

This event includes a book signing. If you would like a signed book but can’t attend in person, you may order a signed copy online below. If you would like to have your book personalized, please order online or call the store at least two hours before the start of the event. When ordering online, use the comments field to provide a name for personalization, e.g. “To Paul.” NOTE: We do our best to get books personalized when requested but personalization is not guaranteed.

If you decide to attend and to purchase books, we ask that you purchase from Malaprop’s. When you do this you make it possible for us to continue hosting author events and you keep more dollars in our community. You may also support our work by purchasing a gift card or making a donation of any amount below. Thank you!

In the tradition of The Vagina Monologues and For Colored Girls…, The Glorious World of Crowns, Kinks, and Curls is a collection of monologues and scenes exploring the often complex relationship Black women have with their hair. From Afros to braids, weddings, and funerals, falling in love to grieving a loss, these stories serve as a powerful reminder that for Black women in particular, hair is both deeply personal and political. These heartbreaking, heartwarming, and hilarious stories will take audiences on an unparalleled journey into the world of Black womanhood.

Purchase the Different Strokes! 23-24 Season 4 Production Package! Buy two tickets to each production and get two additional half-price tickets to every show in your package. Purchase your 4 Production Package through the link below and then call the box office at 828-257-4530, ext 1, to purchase your half price tickets.

Exhibition and Public Programming

Vera B. Williams, an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books, started making pictures almost as soon as she could walk. She studied at Black Mountain College in a time where summer institutes were held with classes taught by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Williams studied under the Bauhaus luminary Josef Albers and went on to make art for the rest of her life. At the time of her death, The New York Times wrote: “Her illustrations, known for bold colors and a style reminiscent of folk art, were praised by reviewers for their great tenderness and crackling vitality.” Despite numerous awards and recognition for her children’s books, much of her wider life and work remains unexplored. This retrospective will showcase the complete range of Williams’ life and work. It will highlight her time at Black Mountain College, her political activism, and her establishment, with Paul Williams, of an influential yet little-known artist community, in addition to her work as an author and illustrator.

Author and illustrator of 17 children’s books, including Caldecott medal winner, A Chair for My Mother, Vera B. Williams always had a passion for the arts. Williams grew up in the Bronx, NY, and in 1936, when she was nine years old, one of her paintings, called Yentas, opens a new window, was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. While Williams is widely known for her children’s books today, this exhibition’s expansive scope highlights unexplored aspects of her artistic practice and eight decades of life. From groundbreaking, powerful covers for Liberation Magazine, to Peace calendar collaborations with writer activist Grace Paley, to scenic sketches for Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s Living Theater, to hundreds of late life “Aging and Illness” cartoons sketches and doodles, Vera never sat still.

Williams arrived at Black Mountain College in 1945. While there, she embraced all aspects of living, working, and learning in the intensely creative college community. She was at BMC during a particularly fertile period, which allowed her to study with faculty members Buckminster Fuller and Josef Albers, and to participate in the famed summer sessions with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, M.C. Richards, and Robert Rauschenberg. In 1948, she graduated with Josef Albers as her advisor and sculptor Richard Lippold as her outside examiner. Forever one of the College’s shining stars, Vera graduated from BMC with just six semesters of coursework, at only twenty-one years old. She continued to visit BMC for years afterward, staying deeply involved with the artistic community that BMC incubated.

Anticipating the eventual closure of BMC, Williams, alongside her husband Paul Williams and a group of influential former BMC figures, founded The Gate Hill Cooperative Artists community located 30 miles north of NYC on the outskirts of Stony Point, NY. The Gate Hill Cooperative, also known as The Land, became an outcropping of Black Mountain College’s experimental ethos. Students and faculty including John Cage, M.C. Richards, David Tudor, Karen Karnes, David Weinrib, Stan VanDerBeek, and Patsy Lynch Wood shaped Gate Hill as founding members of the community. Vera B. Williams raised her three children at Gate Hill while continuing to make work.

The early Gate Hill era represented an especially creative phase for the BMC group. For Williams, this period saw the creation of 76 covers for Liberation Magazine, a radical, groundbreaking publication. This exhibition will feature some of Williams’ most powerful Liberation covers including a design for the June 1963 edition, which contained the first full publication of MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Williams’ activism work continued throughout her life. As president of PEN’s Children Committee and member of The War Resisters league, she created a wide range of political and educational posters and journal covers. Williams protested the war in Vietnam and nuclear proliferation while supporting women’s causes and racial equality. In 1981, Williams was arrested and spent a month in a federal prison on charges stemming from her political activism.

In her late 40’s, Williams embarked in earnest on her career as a children’s book author and illustrator, a career which garnered the NY Public Library’s recognition of A Chair for My Mother as one of the greatest 100 children’s books of all time. Infinitely curious and always a wanderer at heart, Williams’ personal life was as expansive as her art. In addition to her prolific picture making, Williams started and helped run a Summerhill-based alternative school, canoed the Yukon, and lived alone on a houseboat in Vancouver Harbor. She helped to organize and attended dozens of political demonstrations throughout her adult life.

Her books won many awards including the Caldecott Medal Honor Book for A Chair for My Mother in 1983, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award– Fiction category– for Scooter in 1994, the Jane Addams Honor for Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart in 2002, and the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature in 2009. Her books reflected her values, emphasizing love, compassion, kindness, joy, strength, individuality, and courage.

Images:

Cover of Vera B. Williams’ A Chair for My Mother, published in 1982.

Vera B. Williams, Cover for Liberation Magazine, November 1958.

Spring Musical

Finding Nemo KIDS

2nd-4th Grades

Fridays

2:30pm-4:00pm

2/2, 2/9, 2/16, 2/23, 3/8, 3/15, 3/22, 4/12, 4/19, 4/26, 5/3, 5/10

No Class: 3/1 TWD, 3/29 Early Release, 4/5 Spring Break

Dress Rehearsal: 5/3 2:30-4:00pm

Performance: 5/10/2024 3:30pm

Tuition: $270

Students will learn all about teamwork as they work together with their classmates and a professional Teaching Artist to perform scenes and songs from a short musical. Each actor will receive their own part with lines and songs to learn. Class time will be used for rehearsal and a performance complete with costumes and props will take place on the final class day.

In Person at Avery’s Creek Elementary School

15 Park S Blvd, Arden, NC 28704

Wilde’s most successful and enduring play is a wonderful and witty comedy of deception, disguise and misadventure. Two bachelors, Jack and Algernon, create alter egos in an effort to avoid tedious social obligations and win the hearts of Gwendolen and Cecily, the two women they adore.

By  Bob Larbey
Directed by Mark Colbenson
Feichter Studio

Step into the world of Cooper and Aylott, residents of “Paradise House” retirement home, as they plot their escape and navigate the rocky road of aging with humor, grace, and… trepidation. Watch as Cooper charmingly flirts with his nurse, engages in witty banter with the cleaning lady, and attempts to bridge the gap with his somewhat estranged daughter. Don’t miss out on this uplifting winter production—it’s a celebration of life, love, and the enduring spirit that connects us all.

Rated PG-13

Flyin’ West is a  compelling, crowd-pleasing drama by esteemed playwright Pearl Cleage. Set in the 1890s, the story unfolds in the historic town of Nicodemus, Kansas, one of the many all-black towns established in the American West following the Civil War. Through the eyes of four African-American women, the play delves into their journey of resilience and aspiration as they navigate their lives against the backdrop of the harsh realities of the frontier and the societal constraints of the era. With themes of community, racial pride, and female empowerment, Flyin’ West is a powerful portrayal of the determination and grit of black pioneers, offering audiences a captivating glimpse into an often overlooked chapter of American history.

A talkback with the cast & crew of Flyin’ West will be held following the performances on February 11th and 18th.

In the tradition of The Vagina Monologues and For Colored Girls…, The Glorious World of Crowns, Kinks, and Curls is a collection of monologues and scenes exploring the often complex relationship Black women have with their hair. From Afros to braids, weddings, and funerals, falling in love to grieving a loss, these stories serve as a powerful reminder that for Black women in particular, hair is both deeply personal and political. These heartbreaking, heartwarming, and hilarious stories will take audiences on an unparalleled journey into the world of Black womanhood.

Purchase the Different Strokes! 23-24 Season 4 Production Package! Buy two tickets to each production and get two additional half-price tickets to every show in your package. Purchase your 4 Production Package through the link below and then call the box office at 828-257-4530, ext 1, to purchase your half price tickets.

Exhibition and Public Programming

Vera B. Williams, an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books, started making pictures almost as soon as she could walk. She studied at Black Mountain College in a time where summer institutes were held with classes taught by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Williams studied under the Bauhaus luminary Josef Albers and went on to make art for the rest of her life. At the time of her death, The New York Times wrote: “Her illustrations, known for bold colors and a style reminiscent of folk art, were praised by reviewers for their great tenderness and crackling vitality.” Despite numerous awards and recognition for her children’s books, much of her wider life and work remains unexplored. This retrospective will showcase the complete range of Williams’ life and work. It will highlight her time at Black Mountain College, her political activism, and her establishment, with Paul Williams, of an influential yet little-known artist community, in addition to her work as an author and illustrator.

Author and illustrator of 17 children’s books, including Caldecott medal winner, A Chair for My Mother, Vera B. Williams always had a passion for the arts. Williams grew up in the Bronx, NY, and in 1936, when she was nine years old, one of her paintings, called Yentas, opens a new window, was included in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. While Williams is widely known for her children’s books today, this exhibition’s expansive scope highlights unexplored aspects of her artistic practice and eight decades of life. From groundbreaking, powerful covers for Liberation Magazine, to Peace calendar collaborations with writer activist Grace Paley, to scenic sketches for Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s Living Theater, to hundreds of late life “Aging and Illness” cartoons sketches and doodles, Vera never sat still.

Williams arrived at Black Mountain College in 1945. While there, she embraced all aspects of living, working, and learning in the intensely creative college community. She was at BMC during a particularly fertile period, which allowed her to study with faculty members Buckminster Fuller and Josef Albers, and to participate in the famed summer sessions with John Cage, Merce Cunningham, M.C. Richards, and Robert Rauschenberg. In 1948, she graduated with Josef Albers as her advisor and sculptor Richard Lippold as her outside examiner. Forever one of the College’s shining stars, Vera graduated from BMC with just six semesters of coursework, at only twenty-one years old. She continued to visit BMC for years afterward, staying deeply involved with the artistic community that BMC incubated.

Anticipating the eventual closure of BMC, Williams, alongside her husband Paul Williams and a group of influential former BMC figures, founded The Gate Hill Cooperative Artists community located 30 miles north of NYC on the outskirts of Stony Point, NY. The Gate Hill Cooperative, also known as The Land, became an outcropping of Black Mountain College’s experimental ethos. Students and faculty including John Cage, M.C. Richards, David Tudor, Karen Karnes, David Weinrib, Stan VanDerBeek, and Patsy Lynch Wood shaped Gate Hill as founding members of the community. Vera B. Williams raised her three children at Gate Hill while continuing to make work.

The early Gate Hill era represented an especially creative phase for the BMC group. For Williams, this period saw the creation of 76 covers for Liberation Magazine, a radical, groundbreaking publication. This exhibition will feature some of Williams’ most powerful Liberation covers including a design for the June 1963 edition, which contained the first full publication of MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Williams’ activism work continued throughout her life. As president of PEN’s Children Committee and member of The War Resisters league, she created a wide range of political and educational posters and journal covers. Williams protested the war in Vietnam and nuclear proliferation while supporting women’s causes and racial equality. In 1981, Williams was arrested and spent a month in a federal prison on charges stemming from her political activism.

In her late 40’s, Williams embarked in earnest on her career as a children’s book author and illustrator, a career which garnered the NY Public Library’s recognition of A Chair for My Mother as one of the greatest 100 children’s books of all time. Infinitely curious and always a wanderer at heart, Williams’ personal life was as expansive as her art. In addition to her prolific picture making, Williams started and helped run a Summerhill-based alternative school, canoed the Yukon, and lived alone on a houseboat in Vancouver Harbor. She helped to organize and attended dozens of political demonstrations throughout her adult life.

Her books won many awards including the Caldecott Medal Honor Book for A Chair for My Mother in 1983, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award– Fiction category– for Scooter in 1994, the Jane Addams Honor for Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart in 2002, and the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature in 2009. Her books reflected her values, emphasizing love, compassion, kindness, joy, strength, individuality, and courage.

Images:

Cover of Vera B. Williams’ A Chair for My Mother, published in 1982.

Vera B. Williams, Cover for Liberation Magazine, November 1958.

Wilde’s most successful and enduring play is a wonderful and witty comedy of deception, disguise and misadventure. Two bachelors, Jack and Algernon, create alter egos in an effort to avoid tedious social obligations and win the hearts of Gwendolen and Cecily, the two women they adore.

Step into the enigmatic world of “Til Death Do We Part” – an enthralling Interactive Murder Mystery Dinner, presented by SKYLARANNA in collaboration with JJ Brown Productions

Whether you yearn for an unforgettable evening of dinner alone or desire the full immersive experience, including an overnight stay, the choice is yours to make.

Price: From $349 to $449 Per Couple (Excludes tax and gratuity)

For any inquiries, call (828) 919 – 7777

TIL DEATH DO WE PART Valentine Weekend Package:

Continental Breakfast

Lodging for 2 guests

Cocktail Reception

Five-Course Dinner

Interactive Murder Mystery Show

Bonfire and S’mores Kit

Date: February 17 – February 18, 2024

SKYLARANNA Resort and SPA

February 17 – Hotel check-in @3pm, Cocktail Reception @5pm, Dinner + Show @6pm, Bonfire @9pm.

February 18 – Breakfast between 9am-11am, Hotel check-out @11am.

Reserve your spot now for a weekend that will linger in your memory!

Act fast, as our exclusive packages are selling out quickly!

Secure your spot now before it’s too late!

What happens when Washington, D.C.’s premiere, political satire group – The Capitol Steps – call it quits after nearly 40 years? Most folks would agree that it was a great run, and the story would end there.

But an intrepid group of cast members and a co-writer would not go quietly into that good night. This band of fools reflected on a world without musical, political satire, and didn’t like what they saw. And just like that The Capitol Fools were born.
While foolish enough to embark on this new journey, they were smart enough to not reinvent the wheel. Fast-paced, laugh out loud show…check. Equal opportunity offenders…check. Skewering both sides of the aisle…check. If a “Steps-style show” is wrong, they don’t want to be right.

The Capitol Fools hold up a mirror to our crazy political culture, providing hilarious song parodies and foolish reflections that continue to inspire belly-laughter. Audiences will continue to see cast members from past seasons of the Capitol Steps performing all the beloved bits, the mind-boggling backward talking spoonerisms, break-neck costume changes, over-the-top impressions, and all-new song parodies reflecting the day’s news. They will give you a memory that will last a lunch time. The spirit, irreverence and D.N.A. of The Capitol Steps lives on with The Capitol Fools!

By  Bob Larbey
Directed by Mark Colbenson
Feichter Studio

Step into the world of Cooper and Aylott, residents of “Paradise House” retirement home, as they plot their escape and navigate the rocky road of aging with humor, grace, and… trepidation. Watch as Cooper charmingly flirts with his nurse, engages in witty banter with the cleaning lady, and attempts to bridge the gap with his somewhat estranged daughter. Don’t miss out on this uplifting winter production—it’s a celebration of life, love, and the enduring spirit that connects us all.

Rated PG-13

Flyin’ West is a  compelling, crowd-pleasing drama by esteemed playwright Pearl Cleage. Set in the 1890s, the story unfolds in the historic town of Nicodemus, Kansas, one of the many all-black towns established in the American West following the Civil War. Through the eyes of four African-American women, the play delves into their journey of resilience and aspiration as they navigate their lives against the backdrop of the harsh realities of the frontier and the societal constraints of the era. With themes of community, racial pride, and female empowerment, Flyin’ West is a powerful portrayal of the determination and grit of black pioneers, offering audiences a captivating glimpse into an often overlooked chapter of American history.

A talkback with the cast & crew of Flyin’ West will be held following the performances on February 11th and 18th.

In the tradition of The Vagina Monologues and For Colored Girls…, The Glorious World of Crowns, Kinks, and Curls is a collection of monologues and scenes exploring the often complex relationship Black women have with their hair. From Afros to braids, weddings, and funerals, falling in love to grieving a loss, these stories serve as a powerful reminder that for Black women in particular, hair is both deeply personal and political. These heartbreaking, heartwarming, and hilarious stories will take audiences on an unparalleled journey into the world of Black womanhood.

Purchase the Different Strokes! 23-24 Season 4 Production Package! Buy two tickets to each production and get two additional half-price tickets to every show in your package. Purchase your 4 Production Package through the link below and then call the box office at 828-257-4530, ext 1, to purchase your half price tickets.

By  Bob Larbey
Directed by Mark Colbenson
Feichter Studio

Step into the world of Cooper and Aylott, residents of “Paradise House” retirement home, as they plot their escape and navigate the rocky road of aging with humor, grace, and… trepidation. Watch as Cooper charmingly flirts with his nurse, engages in witty banter with the cleaning lady, and attempts to bridge the gap with his somewhat estranged daughter. Don’t miss out on this uplifting winter production—it’s a celebration of life, love, and the enduring spirit that connects us all.

Rated PG-13

Flyin’ West is a  compelling, crowd-pleasing drama by esteemed playwright Pearl Cleage. Set in the 1890s, the story unfolds in the historic town of Nicodemus, Kansas, one of the many all-black towns established in the American West following the Civil War. Through the eyes of four African-American women, the play delves into their journey of resilience and aspiration as they navigate their lives against the backdrop of the harsh realities of the frontier and the societal constraints of the era. With themes of community, racial pride, and female empowerment, Flyin’ West is a powerful portrayal of the determination and grit of black pioneers, offering audiences a captivating glimpse into an often overlooked chapter of American history.

A talkback with the cast & crew of Flyin’ West will be held following the performances on February 11th and 18th.

Wilde’s most successful and enduring play is a wonderful and witty comedy of deception, disguise and misadventure. Two bachelors, Jack and Algernon, create alter egos in an effort to avoid tedious social obligations and win the hearts of Gwendolen and Cecily, the two women they adore.