ORMOND BEACH, FL – On August 15, 16 & 17, Ocean Art Gallery will transform itself from a popular fine art space into a 50-seat movie theatre showing Taking Woodstock, the 2007 Award-winning film about the 1969 Woodstock Art & Music Festival and the role Elliot Tiber played in this life-changing time in American culture.
Gallery owner-director Frank Gromling is the art agent for Tiber, who saved the day when the producers had the festival’s permit withdrawn by the Town of Walkill, NY, about 30 days before the planned dates when its leaders heard that maybe 50,000 might attend the art and music event. Elliot Tiber, an enterprising businessman in the neighboring town of Bethel, contacted the producers and saved the day by bringing them together with the owner of a 600-acre dairy farm, while also producing a permit for an art and music festival he had been holding in Bethel, granted to very small audiences.
Tiber played a major role in staging the 1969 Woodstock event, including becoming the go-to guy during all of the construction and preparation for the festival. This story is involved, with many twists and turns, but Tiber became well-known from Woodstock and his participation in the Stonewall Inn riot, the beginning of the Gay Pride Movement in 1969.
The film “Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, A Concert, and A Life,” based upon a book by the same name by Elliot Tiber and Tom Monte (Square One Publishers, 2007) was released in 2009. Oscar-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) directed the film that has won wide acclaim for its true-to-life depiction of events at the festival.
Gromling is showing the movie without charge to 50 people each night as an introduction to Tiber’s art, which will be on display. Tickets are required and are available free at Eventrbrite.com. Ticket holders are asked to arrive early. Copies of the softcover Taking Woodstock and a few of Tiber’s artworks will be available for purchase. Popcorn will be served.
