Mae Figura – community impresario & teacher of the dance

By TOM KANE

HONESDALE, PA - She’s been at it for 40 years and she’s showing no signs of slowing down.

Mae Figura, 75, has been working on the Summer Festival of Events from the Wayne County Creative Arts Council for 40 years.

And for just as long, Figura has had a dance studio in Honesdale with a long line of happy hoofers?adults and children.

The musical festival, held during the summers at Honesdale’s Central Park on Church Street on Monday and Thursday evenings, was begun by the late Art Fasshauer, the first owner of Arts for Him men’s store on Main Street in Honesdale, when he started the arts council and was its president for a number of years. Figura has been carrying on what Fasshauer began. She makes the events happen, handles public relations and advertising, books the park, lines up the performers and emcees the performances.

Why at her age does she do it?

“It gives a lot of people a lot of pleasure,” she said. “Can you think of a better reason?”

The events were not begun as an economic development project, although they now serve that function because people come to the town from far away.

“We just want to give people the chance to hear their talented neighbors perform,” she said. All of the acts are the efforts of local singers, musicians, dancers and performers. “There’s an unbelievable amount of talent here,” she said.

If an individual or a group wants to perform, all they need do is contact her and send a CD of their performance. “We’ve had a great many hits and a couple of bombs,” she said.

The concerts highlight a wide variety of performing arts groups and individuals in genres such as barbershop, blue grass, country, full-sized bands, small duos and trios, polka bands, choruses, rock groups, dance performances, ragtime, family singers and balladeers.

Figura related to a bumper sticker that recently impressed her.

“It read: ‘In this time of universal deceit, the truth is a revolutionary act,’” she said. “It made me understand what we are doing here in Honesdale at our music events. We tell the truth. We’re not flashy and commercial, like a lot of things you see on television. We make no pretense. We are ordinary people expressing what our community is all about. We give what we have and what we can afford and we give it with love.”

As for dance, she has taught all forms of dance over the years.

“I taught tap, jazz, ballet, point, samba, rumba, fox trot, line dancing, ball room and waltz among others,” she said. “I had to quit when I got down on the floor, and it took three kids to lift me up.”

Figura’s protégé, Jennifer Florence, continues where Figura left off at her old studio in the Odd Fellows building on Main Street across from CVS.

“Florence’s students are scheduled to perform on July 26 in the park,” she said.

The concerts are free.

“All you need is a folding chair,” she said.