Arvada Center Announces 2011-12 Season

The Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities kicks off its 2011-12 theater season on September 13, 2011, with the Tony Award winning musical Ragtime. The production - a regional premiere of the play's 2008 revival - opens a seven-play theater subscription season that reinforces Arvada Center Theater's standing as one of the area's leading theatrical producers as well as its emerging reputation as a catalyst for collaboration with regional theaters. "Ragtime allows our audiences to experience what we do best from the very start of the season," states Arvada Center Artistic Producer Rod Lansberry. "An elaborate musical staged with the greatest ambition and skill in the intimate surroundings of our 500-seat Main Stage Theater."

Three time winner of the Colorado Theater Guild's Henry Award for best musical - and the recipient of 21 Henry Awards in 2009 and 2010 - Arvada Center Theater offers four musicals in the 2011-12 season: Ragtime, The 1940's Radio Hour, Chess: A Musical and Legally Blonde: The Musical, which collectively represent the organization's history of accomplishment as musical producers.

"Ragtime is the type of large-scale production that has become a standard bearer for us," states Executive Director Gene Sobczak. "Chess speaks to our commitment to presenting celebrated musicals, such as Sunset Boulevard and Nine, whose popularity is emerging in regional theater. Legally Blonde is the Center's annual offering of summer fun on the Main Stage." The 1940's Radio Hour - one of the Arvada Center's most popular holiday musicals - was originally produced by the Center in 1992 and then restaged in 2004. "The 1940's Radio Hour is our way of celebrating and commemorating the 35th anniversary of the Center," states Lansberry. "Remounting one of our most popular musicals, however, puts us in direct competition with our own past. Our audiences hold dear the personal relationships and associations they develop with previous productions. The success of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in 2009 showed us, though, that theatergoers were not only willing to go along for a new ride, but also create and embrace new memories."

Rounding out the 2011-12 seven-play subscription series are three productions in the Center's 226-seat Black Box Theater that represent the organization's commitment to the expansion and evolution of stagecraft. Creede Repertory Theater - an award-winning theater companylocated in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado - returns to the Arvada Center with The Road to Mecca from its 2011 summer season. The play's encore production at the Center will mark the first ever production mounted in a semi-thrust configuration in the Black Box Theater. "We met with Maurice LaMee, Creede's Executive/Artistic Director, this winter to discuss the possibility of continuing our partnership, following the success of The Ladies Man in 2010," states Lansberry. "It made sense not only to extend the arrangement into the new season, but to use it as an opportunity to try something new and different. The Center's Black Box was created to host a variety of theatrical environments. The Road to Mecca on a semi-thrust stage will offer audiences a brand new theatrical experience at the Arvada Center."

The Importance of Being Earnest will feature Lansberry in his directing debut in the Black Box Theater. "This is a perfect match of talent, title and venue," states Sobczak. "Rod's direction of Main Stage musicals, including Les Miserables and Miss Saigon, has defined theater at the Arvada Center. The Importance of Being Earnest gives Rod thechance to present his interpretation of a classic play with the same vision and artistic standards that infuse his musicals."

"This is something I have wanted to do since the Black Box opened in 2007," continues Lansberry, "but simply could not make time in the season to do so. The chance to direct Oscar Wilde, however, was one that I was not willing to pass up!"

The third Black Box offering in the 2011-12 season partners the Arvada Center with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival (CSF) in the staging ofTwelfth Night or What You Will, marking the Center's first theatrical co-production and its first staging of a Shakespeare play. "The partnership enables us to mount a production that draws upon the respective strengths of each organization," states Lansberry. "It also gives us an uncommon opportunity to introduce the works of Shakespeare into our subscription series with one of the country's leading figures in this area of theater." Founded in 1958, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival is held annually at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and is regarded as one of the top summer Shakespeare festivals in the country. Producing Artistic Director Philip C. Sneed made his directing debut at the Arvada Center in 2011 with The Lion in Winter, which led to conversations of future collaborations.

"Philip was a hit with staff and audiences alike," states Sobczak. "Twelfth Night enables us to explore new possibilities in stagecraft as well as new opportunities in audience development." Twelfth Night will be remounted by CSF as part of its 2012 Festival series at CU Boulder.

The Arvada Center's partnership with CSF commences this August 19-20, 2011, with two performances of Romeo and Juliet as part of the summer CenterFest series of cultural attractions presented in the Center's amphitheater. Tickets go on sale on May 10, 2011, with the announcement of the CenterFest series.

Completing the Arvada Center's 2011-12 theater season is a return engagement by PHAMALY - the Physically Handicapped Actors & Musical Artists League - for three performances of The Elephant Man, February 24-26, 2012. "PHAMALY has been a part of our family for many years," states Sobczak. "We are honored to offer them the Main Stage Theater for the second consecutive season."

For the 2011 - 2012 theater season, the Arvada Center also is developing a collaboration with the Lone Tree Arts Center, which may present Arvada Center-produced musicals following their initial runs in Arvada. "This is a win-win arrangement for both organizations," states Sobczak, "and the fulfillment of a longtime dream of Rod's to present Arvada Center Theater to a broader, regional audience."

Arvada Center Theater 2011-12 subscription packages range in price from $174 to $384 and go on sale to Arvada Center subscribers and the general public on Monday, April 18, 2011. Orders can be made by phone at (720) 898-7200, online at www.arvadacenter.org/subscribe or in person at the Arvada Center box office. Single tickets for the 2011 -12 theater season go on sale Monday, August 8, 2011. Patrons subscribing and becoming a donor at the $100 level or above by June 3, will receive a free guest voucher for each subscription. These vouchers can be used for CenterFest
concerts, and theater performances or special engagements in the 2011-12 Theater Season.

The Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, celebrating its 35th anniversary in 2011, is one of the nation's largest multidisciplinary arts centers, devoted to all aspects of the arts. It is generously supported by the City of Arvada, the citizens of the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) and individual and institutional donors. For more information, call the Arvada Center box office at (720) 898-7200 or visit arvadacenter.org.

 

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