Kristin Salaky - Page 1

With the release of Wah-Wah, Torben's 4th CD on New York based ArtistShare, the groundbreaking company where also Maria Schneider and Jim Hall releases music, Torben Waldorff has found a new sound. Guitar based quartet, very interactive, with intricate and lyrical melodic lines, lush harmonies, staggering virtuoso interplay and excitement.

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) Music Director Marin Alsop leads the BSO in a performance of the film score from Bernstein's legendary West Side Story tonight, June 13 at 8 p.m. at the Music Center at Strathmore, Friday, June 14 and Saturday, June 15 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, June 16 at 3 p.m. at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. Bernstein's brilliant score will accompany a screening of the 10-time Academy Award-winning motion picture. Watch the webumentary here.

EMMY, TONY, and Golden Globe-nominated star Matthew Morrison previously announced that he is partnering with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) in support of LGBT equality. Partial proceeds from the pre-sale of his new studio album, Where It All Began, will benefit HRC. The album, which will be released today, June 4, 2013, features an assortment of classic standards, many of which were first made famous in Broadway musicals.

Merit School of Music invites the public to enjoy Stringtacular, a free concert today, June 2 at 2 p.m. at Harrison Park Fieldhouse, 1824 S. Wood Street in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. This awe-inspiring celebration of string instruments brings together over 200 young players from throughout Chicago, all enrolled in Merit's Suzuki-Alegre Strings music education program. For more information, visit meritmusic.org or call 312.786.9428.

The 34th Kritzerland show is a tribute to a unique, one-of-a-kind original - Noel Coward. Coward did it all -he wrote plays (Blithe Spirit, Hay Fever, Present Laughter, Private Lives), musicals (The Girl Who Came to Supper, Sail Away and others), divertissements (Tonight at 8:30 - a cycle of nine short plays performed over three nights), he starred in and directed most of his shows, and he was posessed of an incredible "talent to amuse" - a brilliant wit with a brilliant way with words and music, a romantic who could melt the heart, and someone who was the very epitome of sophistication and style.

Don Bender and Vincent Lonergan make their side project debuts under the direction of Adam Webster in the world premiere of National Book Award finalist Sherod Santos' Lives of the Pigeons, opening tonight, June 1. With shades of Pinter and Becket, and splashes of Mamet and Albee, Santos weaves a tale in which Gus and Max spend a day in the park, like every other day, on a day that, with the arrival of a mysterious man with a cane, is like no other. Santos' 70-minute, 3-character play is a poetic and darkly comic take on individual identity and purpose in life and the nature of absolution, if and when it exists.

Death and the Maiden, written by Argentine-Chilean playwright Ariel Dorfman, and directed by Olivia Blocker will run from tonight, May 29th - 31st.

The Theatrical Management Association (TMA), the UK's largest and longest established theatre trade association, announced today that the results of the elections to its ruling council mean that for the first time it will be governed by a female majority. The organisation President Rachel Tackley begins a second three-year term as President. Anna Williams succeeds John Stalker as elected Vice President.

It has been a year since Mercury – The Orchestra Redefined rebranded its image in the public, increasing the scope of the orchestra's repertoire and expanding accessibility to music for audiences across Houston.

The Philadelphia Dance Company (Philadanco) founder Joan Myers Brown will be featured in a student-produced book, "Leading Healthy Change in Our Communities 2013. The book, written and illustrated by Healthy NewsWorks student journalists, profiles a dozen prominent leaders who have something important to say about health and are giving back to the community.

Merit School of Music invites the public to enjoy Stringtacular, a free concert on Sunday, June 2 at 2 p.m. at Harrison Park Fieldhouse, 1824 S. Wood Street in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. This awe-inspiring celebration of string instruments brings together over 200 young players from throughout Chicago, all enrolled in Merit's Suzuki-Alegre Strings music education program. For more information, visit meritmusic.org or call 312.786.9428.

The Castillo Theatre production of Carmen's Place (A Fantasy), called "an aria to behold" by critics in this opera-within-a musical running through June 16. Carmen's Place features an original pop score by Annie Roboff and Fred Newman, and in its show-within-the-show, some of the best-known and best-loved operatic numbers ever performed. Director Gabrielle L. Kurlander received the AUDELCO "Viv" Recognition Award for Excellence in Black Theatre as Best Director of a Musical Production in 2012 for Newman-Roboff's Sally and Tom (The American Way).

Battersea's Theatre503 has announced the full line-up of writers contributing to THATCHERWRITE - a series of short plays in response to the life and death of one the UK's most divisive Prime Ministers - Margaret Thatcher. Literary Manager Steve Harper has invited a diverse range of writers including established playwrights, members of the venues 503Five writers in residence scheme, and a newly discovered first time playwright, to contribute. THATCHERWRITE will run from 11 - 15 June at Theatre503, above the Latchmere pub in Battersea.

Don Bender and Vincent Lonergan make their side project debuts under the direction of Adam Webster in the world premiere of National Book Award finalist Sherod Santos' Lives of the Pigeons, opening June 1. With shades of Pinter and Becket, and splashes of Mamet and Albee, Santos weaves a tale in which Gus and Max spend a day in the park, like every other day, on a day that, with the arrival of a mysterious man with a cane, is like no other. Santos' 70-minute, 3-character play is a poetic and darkly comic take on individual identity and purpose in life and the nature of absolution, if and when it exists.

Death and the Maiden, written by Argentine-Chilean playwright Ariel Dorfman, and directed by Olivia Blocker will run from May 29th - 31st.

Cast members, George Hamilton (Chicago, La Cage aux Folles) , Maree Johnson, Todd Lattimore (42nd Street, La Cage aux Folles), Gabriela Garcia (Chicago) and Ashley Kate Adams (La Cage aux Folles) begin to develop a new work based on the life of stage and screen actor, George Hamilton at Pearl Studios in NYC May 14 through June 2, 2013.

Ladies and gentlemen. In the course of this evening's performance, the following physical objects will appear onstage: a boxing bag, four golf clubs, a newspaper, two small targets, an oversized golf ball plus snake, a bloody towel, a duck mask, a white spider with spots, a watering can, three boulders wrapped in twine, a yellow suit, two imitation row boats, one tray of fruit, one rolling table, six highball glasses, two white pillows, one large roll of plastic tape, a jeweled wristwatch, one package, gift-wrapped, one jeweled container, plus one blank container, three mirrors with numbers painted on the reverse side, two bows and arrows, one duck in a small cage, one stuffed small mouth plug.

A couple of years ago I went to The Flea Theater and had a fun time with A.R. Gurney's then newest play, Post Mortem. It was a clever little piece taking place in the future about a college student writing his thesis on a long-forgotten playwright named A.R. Gurney, and was filled with self-referential zingers based on his reputation for writing 'middle class comedies of manners' that made him popular with WASP theatergoers.

It's perfectly understandable if years from now, or maybe fifteen minutes after leaving the theatre, the only thing you clearly remember about the Roundabout's new production of A Man For All Seasons is Frank Langella's extraordinary performance as the highly-principled Chancellor of England, Sir Thomas More, who refused to support Henry VIII's wish to separate from the Vatican and form the Church of England in order for him to divorce the aging Catherine of Aragon and wed Anne Boleyn in hopes of their union producing a son and heir.  Not that director Doug Hughes' sturdy mounting of Robert Bolt's 1960 historical drama doesn't contain fine work from the rest of the ensemble, but in a play where the central figure so dominates the proceedings - especially with this production's removal of the narrator/commenter character known as The Common Man - Langella linguistically feasts on the dense, wordy text and gracefully conveys the complexities of a family man who refuses to betray his conscious, no matter the cost to his loved ones or his own head.While Bolt leans on portraying More a bit more on the saintly side than reality dictates, Langella never strikes a false note as he spares philosophically with the self-involved king (Patrick Page), the slickly elegant Spanish ambassador (Triney Sandoval) and the arch Oliver Cromwell (an almost dastardly Zach Grenier).  His distain for the corruption of the men surrounding him is expressed by both roaring bursts and faintly exasperated glances.  To see the actor's transformation of More from a righteous lion to a fragile, quietly defiant prisoner in the Tower of London, awaiting execution, is a heartbreaking experience.  Also very touching is the work of Maryann Plunkett as his long-suffering but devoted wife.

While riding the uptown Broadway local train from Times Square around 1am on Saturday night after enjoying post-A Man For All Seasons cocktails with my Tudor-geek friend who vigorously detailed all the play's historical inaccuracies for me (more on that one later in the week) I found myself in a car nearby a group of adolescents having a loud and just as vigorous discussion about how all boys were dogs.