Northwestern University News

Strawdog Theatre Company and Interim Artistic Director Hank Boland and Crip Slam, part of Victory Gardens Access Project, announce a fully accessible performance of the world premiere of Philip Dawkins' Miss Marx: or The Involuntary Side Effect of Living directed by Megan Shuchman, Thursday, March 13 at 8 p.m. at Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, in the Prince Charitable Trust Rehearsal Room, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. This performance will be fully wheelchair accessible. Audio description, open captioning and a touch tour of elements from the production will also be provided. Immediately following that night's performance there will be a post show talk back with the playwright and director. This performance is pay what you can at the door with reservations requested. Reservations may be made at boxoffice@strawdog.org or 773.528.9696. In addition to the Victory Garden performance, an ASL performance is scheduled for Saturday, March 16 at 4 p.m. at Strawdog Theatre. The performance schedule for the production running through April 5 at Strawdog Theatre, 3829 N. Broadway St., is Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m. Single Tickets are $28 and are currently on sale. Subscriptions, group, senior and student discounts are also available. Tickets may be ordered online at strawdog.org or by calling OvationTix toll-free: 866.811.4111.

The New York Philharmonic will present its 11th season of Summertime Classics, July 2-6, 2014, featuring five themed concerts with Bramwell Tovey, who has been the host and conductor of the series since its founding in 2004. On the first program, July 2-3, 2014, titled "Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and Friends," the New York Philharmonic will perform Shostakovich's Festive Overture; Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 1, with pianist Joyce Yang as soloist; Musorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain; Rachmaninoff's arrangement of his own Vocalise; and Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker, and Marche slave. The second program, July 4-6, 2014, titled "Star-Spangled Celebration," will feature the New York Philharmonic and United States Marine Drum & Bugle Corps - "The Commandant's Own," which is celebrating its 80th-anniversary year - in a program that includes Copland's Clarinet Concerto, with Associate Principal Clarinet Mark Nuccio as soloist, and Fanfare for the Common Man; Gershwin's "Strike Up the Band" from Strike Up the Band; Sousa marches; and more. In these performances Major Brian Dix, director and commanding officer of "The Commandant's Own," will share conducting duties with Bramwell Tovey.

Yefim Bronfman, the New York Philharmonic's 2013-14 Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence, will be spotlighted in a chamber music concert co-presented with 92nd Street Y. Mr. Bronfman will be joined by Philharmonic Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow; Associate Principal Clarinet Mark Nuccio, replacing Principal Clarinet Stephen Williamson; Associate Principal, Second Violin Group, Lisa Kim; Associate Principal Viola Rebecca Young; and cellist Maria Kitsopoulos for the program, featuring Schubert's Sonatina in A minor; Bartok's Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano; and Brahms's Piano Quintet, Sunday, March 30, 2014, at 3:00 p.m. at 92nd Street Y.

The world premiere production of the brand new musical comedy Bullets Over Broadway, written by Woody Allen and based on the screenplay by Allen and Douglas McGrath for the 1994 film, will begin preview performances tomorrow, March 11 and officially open Thursday, April 10, 2014 at The St. James Theatre (246 West 44th Street). The new musical will be directed and choreographed by five-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman. Scroll down to learn more about the Bullets Over Broadway company, and watch interviews with the cast!

The Smithsonian Institution's Board of Regents announced today it elected Dr. David J. Skorton, president of Cornell University and a board-certified cardiologist, as the 13th Secretary of the Smithsonian, effective July 2015.

Adventure Stage Chicago (ASC) closes their 10th season with the world premiere of SPARK: Chapter One of The Prometheus Project, which completely re-imagines the myths of Prometheus and Pandora. SPARK runs April 5 - May 8, 2014 and is written by Tom Arvetis (ASC Producing Artistic Director) and directed by Rives Collins (Theatre and Drama for Youth Specialist, Northwestern University).

Silk Road Rising to present three staged readings of Rituals of Signs and Transformations, written by Saadallah Wannous, translated from Arabic into English by Nada Saab and Robert Myers, and directed by Sahar Assaf, this weekend, March 8 and 9, 2014.

One of the world's leading Wagnerians, Maestro Donald Runnicles, returns to lead the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in the BNY Mellon Grand Classics program on March 21 and 23.

Southwestern University is proud to present Gypsy, with book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, March 26-30, 2014. Gypsy is directed by Rick Roemer. Performances will run at 7:30pm on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday and 2:00pm on Saturday and Sunday at the Alma Thomas Theater. Tickets are $10-20.

Continuing its 26th Season, Lookingglass Theatre Company presents the World Premiere of In the Garden: A Darwinian Love Story, by Artistic Associate Sara Gmitter and directed by Jessica Thebus. In the Garden runs April 16 - June 15, 2014 at Lookingglass Theatre Company, located inside Chicago's historic Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave. at Pearson. The Press Opening is Saturday, April 26, 2014 at 7:30 p.m..

Court Theatre continues its 2013-2014 season with the Chicago premiere of Water by the Spoonful written by Quiara Alegria Hudes, and directed by Henry Godinez. Water by the Spoonful will run tonight, March 6 - April 6, 2014 at Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Avenue. Press Opening is Saturday, March 15, 2014 at 8:00PM.

Britt McHenry will join ESPN as Washington, D.C.-based bureau reporter, who will serve as correspondent for various news-gathering platforms including SportsCenter, Outside the Lines and sport-specific programs like NFL Live and Baseball Tonight. The move is effective March 17.

Adventure Stage Chicago (ASC) has announced the appointment of Mary Kate Barley-Jenkins as Managing Director. Ms. Barley-Jenkins comes to ASC from the Chicago Humanities Festival, where she served as the Managing Director of Programming and Production. At the CHF, she produced two diverse festivals and year-round humanities and educational programming (150+ events), serving an audience of 55,000 and an online audience of 200,000. She also conceived and was the Artistic Director of Stages, Sights and Sounds, CHF's international performing arts festival for young audiences, which each year reaches thousands of youth and families.

Lorrie Farrelly is proud to announce the release of her novel 'Timelapse' in paperback, eBook, and audiobook formats. A READERS' FAVORITE 5-STAR novel, 'Timelapse' has twists and turns from start to finish. It's a gripping romantic adventure full of action and suspense. The book trailer for 'Timelapse' was revealed today on DGT Book Promotion news. In addition, Farrelly shared her insights in an interview this week on the Reading and Writing Addiction blog about the inspiration for 'Timelapse.' Lorrie Farrelly's interview can be followed at www.readinwritin.blogspot.com and the official 'Timelapse' trailer can be viewed on YouTube. About The Book The accidental death of his beloved wife sent college Professor Alex Morgan into a numbing world of suppressed grief and rage, eased only by a profound bond with his young son. Suddenly his life is shattered again when a chance discovery propels him into a world gone horribly, terrifyingly wrong. Piecing together clues in this new nightmare, Alex suspects a colleague of taking a few, meddling steps back in time, changing the course of history - destroying Alex's family and his world. Desperately clinging to his sanity, he searches for any evidence his son still exists. Jessica O'Neil is fighting a nightmare of her own, captured and facing execution for freedom-fighting heroics in her grim, oppressive world. When Alex rescues the feisty young rebel, she resists her dangerous attraction to him - a man who's clearly crazy, literally in a world of his own. Bound together first by chance and desperation, then by growing purpose, respect, and passion, Alex and Jessie must depend on each other to survive. More than that, they must find a way to prevent a terrible crime from taking place - a crime that plunged both their worlds into nightmare - over a hundred years before. To have a future, they will have to find their way to the past. Praise for 'Timelapse': 'Romance, time-travel and thrilling twists and turns under one cover? There's nothing predictable about the events in Timelapse' - Diane Donovan, Senior Reviewer, The Midwest Book Review, March 2014 'A fascinating book with amazing characters. It is a story of courage, people risking it all to fight for peace. I was hooked from the first page and couldn't put the book down until the end.' - Readers' Favorite About The Author Lorrie Farrelly is the author of a Western historical romance trilogy, contemporary romantic suspense novels, and sci fi/paranomal romantic suspense novels. A graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Northwestern University, she has earned READERS' FAVORITE 5 STARS and been an ORANGE ROSE AWARD finalist. She's been a Renaissance nominee for Teacher of the Year, a ranch hand at Disneyland's Circle D Ranch, and a 'Jeopardy!' champion. She and her family live in Southern California. 'Timelapse' (320 pages, ISBN: 978-1469953501) is available at Amazon.com. To learn more about Lorrie Farrelly and 'Timelapse,' visit her on Facebook at facebook.com/LorrieFarrellyAuthor or Twitter @lorriewrites, or at her website sites.google.co/site/yourbestreads.

The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) and The Johnny Mercer Foundation announced today a partnership on a unique new program, the only of its kind in the country, for 100 Newark and East Orange middle school students. In The Johnny Mercer Foundation /NJPAC Musical Theater Residency Program, students from four schools - Maple Avenue School (Newark), LINK Community School (Newark), Marion P. Thomas Charter School (Newark), and Cicely Tyson School of Performing and Fine Arts (East Orange) - will study the history of the American Musical and the creative, rehearsal and performance process. Each class will then individually create sections of a joint musical, coming together at the finale to perform the full, collaborative musical on May 21, 2014 at NJPAC.

A Chicago Premiere, Love and Understanding by Joe Penhall, will open tonight, March 1, 2014 at Redtwist Theatre, directed by Jaclynn Jutting.

The Johnny Mercer Foundation and the American Music Theatre Project (AMTP) at Northwestern University will present the 9th Annual Johnny Mercer Foundation Songwriters Project. The weeklong songwriting workshop for emerging songwriters and writing teams will take place from June 22 through 28, on Northwestern's Evanston campus.

The House Theatre of Chicago presents DORIAN, a modern adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel 'The Picture of Dorian Gray.' This famous thriller of Dorian's ill-fated portrait is performed in promenade style. This original play is intended for mature audiences only, and is written by Company Members Ben Lobpries and Tommy Rapley. Company Member Kevin O'Donnell provides the score. Rapley directs and choreographs. The production previews April 4 - 13 and opens on Monday April 14 at 7pm at the Chopin Theatre (1543 W. Division St, Chicago). DORIAN will run through May 18, 2014.

The Barrow Group announces its production of The Beautiful Dark by Erik Gernand. The play will run in the TBG Studio Theatre, 312 West 36th Street, floor 3, New York, NY from April 23 through May 18, 2014.

Danceworks 2014: 'HOT BUTTONS,' a rich tapestry of contemporary and modern dance forms, will be presented at Northwestern University from tonight, Feb. 28 through March 9.