At a packed event last night at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, TheatreWorks, the nationally-acclaimed theatre of Silicon Valley, announced its 2009-2010 season to a crowd of enthusiastic patrons and supporters. Under the direction of Founding Artistic Director Robert Kelley, the company is celebrating 40 years of bringing quality theatre, including more than 50 world premieres, to the San Francisco Bay Area. The season announcement, which culminated a day of public activities launching the company's Ruby Anniversary, revealed that TheatreWorks will once again be presenting the area's first looks at several news-making productions, and deepening its commitment to presenting new works. The company announced a vibrant season leading off with an extensive New Works Festival that will draw national artists to the area; a World Premiere musical to be directed by the Tony Award-winning director of Les Miserables; two West Coast Premieres; two Regional Premieres, and two classics brought to the stage.
The Ordway Center For Performing Arts Announces their upcoming events for February and March 2009
FEBRUARY
Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 4pm
VocalEssence WITNESS
Celebrating the 90th anniversary of his birth, the VocalEssence Chorus and Ensemble Singers honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a concert dedicated to music inspired by his life and vision. Influenced by Dr. King, jazz legend Dr. Billy Taylor will perform his composition Peaceful Warrior, written for chorus, orchestra and jazz trio. Join us for this inspirational tribute to one of the greatest leaders of all time.
Music Director Robert Spano will lead the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Chorus in an ASO Theater of a Concert presentation of Haydn's The Creation. Set designer Anne Patterson and Projection Designer Adam Larsen, whose work has enhanced the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's performances of St. John Passion and Gorecki's Third Symphony, return to design Joseph Haydn's The Creation in Atlanta Symphony Hall on February 26 and 28, 2008 at 8:00 pm. Soloists include soprano Janice Chandler, tenor Thomas Cooley, and bass Derrick Parker.
Commemorating both a memorable movie moment and an inspiring real-life triumph, one of the shirt/suit/tie ensembles worn by Sean Penn as Harvey Milk in Focus Features' Milk will be auctioned off to benefit both Variety - The Children's Charity of Southern California and the Hetrick-Martin Institute, home of the Harvey Milk High School, in New York City. The Clothes Off Our Back Foundation will host the online auction of costume designer Danny Glicker's specially created ensemble as seen in Gus Van Sant's Milk, which is nominated for 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Costume Design. Focus CEO James Schamus made the announcement today.
Freud's War tells of the thrilling story of the Freud family's escape from the Nazis in Austria and their exile in Britain.
Based on primary sources, many published for the first time, Helen Fry's Freuds' War begins with Martin Freud's experiences of growing up in Vienna as Sigmund Freud's eldest son. It provides a window onto life in one of the most prominent of Viennese households. The story then spans the turbulent years of the First World War in which three of Sigmund Freud's sons fought. They, like so many Austrians, were fiercely patriotic and did not think twice about fighting for their country. Ironically less than twenty years later that would count for nothing when the Nazis annexed their country.
Despite his worldwide reputation as the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud's security in his native Vienna changed overnight when Hitler's forces annexed Austria on 12 March 1938. His books had already been burned across Germany, and now he and his family were at immediate risk.
Helen Fry opens a window onto the life of a prominent Jewish family in pre-war Vienna and describes how this most famous of families became exiled from its homeland by the Nazis.
On March 12, 2009 at 7:00 p.m., The Collegiate Chorale appears with The New York City Opera Orchestra at the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall in a performance of Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin's 1945 Broadway operetta The Firebrand of Florence. The performance, led by guest conductor Ted Sperling, stars baritone Nathan Gunn, soprano Anna Christy, baritone Terrence Mann, and soprano Victoria Clark. Krysty Swann, David Pittu and Patrick Goss complete the cast, and narration will be provided by Stage Director Roger Rees.
Boasting a score by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and a book by playwright and screenwriter Edwin Justus Mayer, The Firebrand of Florence had a short run on Broadway in 1945. The work was subsequently not heard for over a half-century until three presentations - Ohio Light Opera (1999), the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London (2000) and the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna (2000) - shed new light on the relatively obscure work. The performances were not only accepted, but widely acclaimed, thus giving hope for a new life in a new century. Variety's theater critic Steven Suskin says 'I have long believed that Firebrand in concert should be a dazzling delight.'
Benvenuto Cellini, the great Florentine artist, is sentenced to hang, but he is pardoned when the duke realizes that he has not completed a previously commissioned sculpture. Freed, he is able to turn his attention to his favorite model (and object of his affections), Angela. The Duke also is interested in Angela. In a typical operetta plot, Cellini swashbuckles around the stage, keeping the Duke away from Angela, keeping himself away from the Duchess, and escaping yet another death sentence by fleeing to Paris, as the end of the show recapitulates the beginning.
Filled with colorful criminals, biting social satire and a brilliant score, The Threepenny Opera opens International City Theatre's 2009 Season at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center. Jules Aaron directs Michael Feingold's translation of the trailblazing musical by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill that became one of the most influential plays of the 20th Century. Darryl Archibald is musical director and Kay Cole choreographs the five-week run February 20 through March 22; low-priced previews begin February 17.
First performed in 1928, Brecht and Weill's The Threepenny Opera was a revolutionary musical theater masterpiece that mocked the bourgeois political movement of pre-Hitler Germany. Brecht's brittle, sardonic tale of beggars, thieves and prostitutes, adapted from the 1728 play The Beggar's Opera by John Gay, was a fierce social and political critique, and Weill's innovative score that fused American jazz with German cabaret captured the ironic tone of the lyrics. Part acid social criticism, part bittersweet romance, the now eighty-year old saga of 'Mack the Knife' and his entourage of criminals and whores has never lost its theatrical punch.
'It's a satire on capitalism and corruption told from the viewpoint of the 'little people',' notes Aaron. 'If there was ever time to revive this show, it's now. Michael [Feingold]'s translation is earthy, gritty and very funny. I think it's going to strike a chord with audiences.'
San Jose Repertory Theatre roars into the new year with the Regional Premiere of A Picasso (Barrymore Award for Best New Play), a provocative play by one of America's most widely produced playwrights, Jeffrey Hatcher. Jonathan Moscone, Artistic Director of California Shakespeare Theater, directs this smart and sexy exploration of art, politics and censorship. A Picasso runs January 24 - February 22, 2009 at San Jose Repertory Theatre, 101 Paseo de San Antonio in downtown San Jose. Preview performances are January 24, 25, 28, and 29. Press Opening is Friday, January 30 at 8:00 p.m.
Tickets are available at the San Jose Rep Box Office at 101 Paseo de San Antonio or can be purchased online at www.SJRep.com or by calling (408) 367-7255.
'San Jose Rep has had a long and wonderful relationship with playwright Jeffrey Hatcher, so we're very pleased to be presenting the Bay Area premiere of this very literate, smart and funny play,' comments Artistic Director Rick Lombardo. 'Picasso was a fascinating figure both as an artist and a citizen, and it's a delight to see him square off in Hatcher's play with a representative of the Third Reich - and an art critic to top it off.'
The Open Fist Theatre Company presents Moss Hart's classic and timeless comedy, LIGHT UP THE SKY which will be directed by Bj?rn Johnson. LIGHT UP THE SKY will preview on Saturday, January 10 at 8pm; Sunday, January 11 at 3pm and Thursday, January 15 at 8pm and will open on Friday, January 16 at 8pm and run through Saturday, March 7 at The NEW Open Fist Theatre, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd. (former home of The Actor's Gang) in Hollywood.
The Open Fist Theatre Company presents Moss Hart's classic and timeless comedy, LIGHT UP THE SKY which will be directed by Bj?rn Johnson. LIGHT UP THE SKY will preview on Saturday, January 10 at 8pm; Sunday, January 11 at 3pm and Thursday, January 15 at 8pm and will open on Friday, January 16 at 8pm and run through Saturday, March 7 at The NEW Open Fist Theatre, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd. (former home of The Actor's Gang) in Hollywood.
Virginia Woolf wrote Freshwater in 1923. She returned to it again in 1935. It was performed as a much-needed, unbuttoned, laughing evening for her friends and family.
Rodgers and Hammerstein's 'Flower Drum Song,' the 1961 movie musical based on the Broadway production of the same name, is among the 25 films selected for the National Film Registry.
The holiday season is usually a busy time for moviegoers, but December is also the time of year when attention is focused on the preservation of the nation's movie heritage.
Whats happening at THE OLD GLOBE from January - March, 2009, full season announced.
The upcoming Broadway revival of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit will go on general sale on Saturday, December 20, 2008. Tickets can be purchased by visiting telecharge.com or calling 212-239-6200 in the New York area, and 800-432-7250 outside the New York metro area.
Rehearsals are scheduled to begin Monday, January 26, 2009 with the first performance on Thursday, February 26, 2009 and the official opening on Sunday, March 15, 2009 at The Shubert Theatre (225 West 44th Street).
Women's Project and SITI Company present Virginia Woolf's Only Play, FRESHWATER, directed by Anne Bogart
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