Cookies, cookies, cookies.

We asked for 700 dozen cookies and you delivered – 8,400 homemade cookies from our friends and supporters. The Dietrich Theater Cookie Walk was a great success and we thank all the bakers who came through for us. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the Cookie Walk support classes and scholarships for children at the Dietrich.

It is such fun to watch people go through the Cookie Walk. Container and glove in hand, the concentration is visible – everyone must make sure to choose just the right cookie from each specially arranged platter. Such excitement. Our volunteers could hardly keep up with the demand, removing empty platters and replacing them with full ones.

The Holiday Workshop brought at least 300 children and families for cookie decorating, ornament making, singing and watching Silly Sally as she created balloon sculptures of their choice. The halls of the Dietrich were full of the joy of simple holiday fun.

Thank you, Ace Robbins for your generous sponsorship of this event.

The Dietrich Theater Radio Players just get better and better and 75 attendees surely will agree. Because the volunteer actors find costumes reflecting the 1930s and 1940s, they really help us get in the mood for sinking back in our chairs to enjoy “theatre of the mind.” It is relaxing to experience radio plays, because they are stories that take us back to a time without all the bells and whistles of today’s technology.

Thank you Rotary Club of Tunkhannock for your sponsorship of this program.

I have to sing the praises of Esther Harmatz, director and sound engineer of Radio Players. She chooses the plays, rehearses the actors, creates the program and makes it all fun at the same time. Seventeen actors have become so professional in their delivery, making the evening truly enjoyable.

All are welcome to be part of Radio Players. Watch for information about the next Radio Players classes in the spring.

There is so much to look forward to in 2018 at the Dietrich.

Because you may need holiday gift ideas, I will tell you about Wyoming County Reads coming up in February. We are so excited about celebrating Stephen King in literature and film. The book we will feature is “Different Seasons.” We will study two novellas in the book: “Rita and the Shawshank Redemption” and “The Body.” Those novellas were made into movies: “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Stand By Me.”

To kick off Wyoming County Reads and to celebrate Stephen King, we are bringing in John Tindell, of Northhampton Community College to talk about “Stephen King in Literature, Film and Pop Culture” at 7 p.m. Jan. 24 at the Dietrich.

Bill Chapla will hold discussions of the novellas in February at the Tunkhannock Public Library, and movie showings will be held at the Dietrich.

Everyone is invited to borrow “Different Seasons” at your library, download the book on your Kindle or e-reader or, if you are lucky, pick up a paper copy at the Dietrich Theater when you come for John Tindell on Jan. 24. Start the new year by learning about one of America’s favorite writers. Join the Wyoming County Reads community of readers. It is fun and enlightening.

Much more to tell you about next week. In the meantime, we at the Dietrich hope to see you soon and often.

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More Than Movies

Margie Young

Reach the Abington Journal newsroom at 570-587-1148 or news@theabingtonjournal.com.