The statewide celebration MINDS WIDE OPEN: Virginia Celebrates Women in the Arts will have its regional kick-off celebration on March 6 at 7:15 p.m. at The Barter Café. The reception will be followed by an 8:15 p.m. performance of The Diary of Anne Frank.

Everyone is invited to the kick-off reception and tickets are still available for purchase to the performance following the reception. Call Barter Theatre’s Box Office for details at 276.628.3991.

The Diary of Anne Frank, presented by Barter Theatre, is part of Virginia’s statewide initiative MINDS WIDE OPEN: Virginia Celebrates Women in the Arts. This is the first statewide celebration of its kind. Between March and June of 2010, thousands of special programs and events including plays, choreography, compositions, and exhibitions of paintings, photography, or films that have been created by women or feature women as the primary focus, will occur across the Commonwealth to honor contributions by women to arts and culture.

Other Barter Theatre productions part of MINDS WIDE OPEN include Dead Man’s Cell Phone (currently playing at Barter Stage II through April), Violet (a southern musical celebrating the courage and adventures of a young woman as she discovers the true meaning of healing and self), Always…Patsy Cline (a true story celebrating the musical pioneer) and The Blue-Sky Boys (a celebration of the creative and playful genius that landed the first man on the moon and winner of Barter’s Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights) by contemporary, female playwright Deborah Brevoort.