6/14/2023 0 Comments Candlelight pavilion![]() We’re very proud.”īoth Mindy and Mick used the same word when asked what it was like to mount the final four-week retrospective show, “Candlelight Jubilee.” It filled a need, and it filled it very, very well. “It was very emotional,” Lois said of the last show. Standing onstage at the end of it all, with the crowd still applauding, she was, at 82, the picture of elegance and poise. Matriarch Lois Bollinger, who took over sole ownership of the Candlelight after husband Ben’s death, was among them. Hence the tears.Īmong the sold out crowd of 300 were 50 members of the Bollinger family. The final show was a powerhouse tour-de-force of what the Candlelight did best the stage was bristling with talent, which only served to remind everyone of what we were all losing. On Sunday, performers and musicians from throughout the Candlelight’s history joined together with new faces to close it out in bravura style. “I try and hold it together as best I can, knowing there can’t be two crybabies in the house,” she said. “So, I have kind of learned to be a bit more stoic if that’s the right word, knowing that at any moment I might be stepping in to speak for him.” “I always say the world needs more Micks, because he just loves people, and loves to show his love for things, and through that is usually with a bit of tears,” Mindy said. His years as a self-described class clown in high school, his affable nature, and comfort with the spotlight prepared him well for the role, even if he didn’t see it coming. Mick became a treasured, natural front man for the Candlelight, just like his father. So, interestingly in our family I have assumed that role for Mick, who is just exactly like my dad.” “And he had a brother, who, anytime my dad spoke publicly, would usually stand somewhere behind him and step in and pick up the pieces. “He was a crybaby, an absolute wear your heart on your sleeve crybaby, which was beautiful,” Mindy said of her dad. That Mick broke down Sunday was no surprise to his sister. They were at the helm as general manager/vice president and producer, respectively, from the time their father stepped aside late in his life. “So, to talk about him on his stage, in his house, was the only thing that I didn’t have the strength to muscle through,” he told me Monday.īoth Mick, 58, and his sister, Mindy Teuber, 52, worked at the Candlelight since they were teenagers. I was sure crying, and even my 12-year-old son shed a tear as Mick got to talking about his late father. As Mick Bollinger, his son and successor as master of ceremonies at the Candlelight, stepped up for the final time to thank the cast, crew, staff and audience at the Claremont dinner theater, the emotional weight of the moment was profound. Though he died in 2018, the larger-than-life patriarch’s presence still loomed Sunday. That’s the late Ben Bollinger, co-founder of the Candlelight Pavilion, whose 37-year run officially came to a close Sunday when his much-loved theater went out in style, with a sold out crowd on its feet and tears flowing onstage and throughout the house. By Mick Rhodes | all about Ben, and always has been.
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