Ancram Center For The Arts Reveals 2024 Season

Ancram Center for the Arts has announced its 2024 season, an eclectic mix of productions and collaborations that will feature three new works developed during Ancram Center's Summer Play Lab residencies; “Downtown Upstate,” a alternative performance festival bringing the best of NYC downtown theatre artists to the Hudson Valley; Nick Payne's award-winning two-hander Constellations; and a sure-to-be riotous summer concert with cabaret superstar Rizo. Additional events include open houses, workshops and the return of audience favorites Real People Real Stories and Crystal Radio Sessions. Until May 1, patrons purchasing tickets to three or more season events will receive a 15% discount. 

SUMMER PLAY LABS

Now in its fifth year, Ancram Center's SUMMER PLAY LAB (SPL) offers theater artists space, production support, and a budget to develop and present new works during its summer season. This year Ancram Center will support three SPL Residencies:

Centuries, an immersive concert collaboration between Matthew Dean Marsh (You Don't Know the Lonely One), Kate Douglas (The Lucky Few), and singer-composer Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez. Centuries celebrates humanity and the willingness to face the unknown in a changing world. With a score infused with folk, chamber and soul, Centuries will have its SPL showing July 7 @ 4pm. 

 

Conversations. Created and performed by Martha Redbone and Aaron Whitby, in collaboration with The Civilians, this music-theater piece weaves together extensive interviews with multigenerational Native Americans from communities across the country sharing stories about their lives, childhoods, their own multicultural families, preserving the traditions of their homelands, and their perspectives on the world today. August 4 @ 4pm.

The third SPL project, to be announced soon, will feature an artist/artistic team from our region and will be staged June 16 @ 4pm.

SUMMER CONCERT

For the fourth year Ancram Center will present an outdoor concert event at the Circa 1799 Barn in Ancramdale. This year's performance features cabaret superstar Rizo, last seen in 2018's sold-out Red White & Indigo. In her new piece, Home, Rizo uses her trademark blend of “comedy, burlesque, rock 'n' roll, and glamor”(NY Times) to reflect on her artsy hippy Oregon childhood, her life in New York City, and 15 years as an internationally traveling cabaret artist. Ever the prodigal daughter, Rizo explores the gravitational pull of home, asking “Does where you hang your hat define who you are?” July 20 @ 7:30pm. 

SUMMER THEATER PRODUCTION

British playwright Nick Payne's award-winning Constellations (Best Play, 2012 Evening Standard Theatre Awards) follows the romantic relationship of Roland, a beekeeper, and Marianne, a physicist. The familiar essentials of a love story are opened up to encompass multiple possibilities and alternative outcomes in this non-linear love story that poses questions about reality, time, chance, free will, and choice. Aug. 16-18, 22-25.

FALL THEATER PRODUCTION

Centuries, the SPL immersive concert collaboration between Matthew Dean Marsh (You Don't Know the Lonely One), Kate Douglas (The Lucky Few), and singer-composer Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez will return in the fall for a world premiere staging Oct. 25-27, 31 - Nov. 3. 

DOWNTOWN UPSTATE FESTIVAL

The first annual Downtown Upstate festival brings the best of NYC downtown theatre artists to the Hudson Valley from Sept. 7 - 22, 2024, featuring three different shows at two different venues over three consecutive weekends. Downtown Upstate will also include playwriting, acting, and solo performance workshops for local residents. Presented by Ancram Center for the Arts & Stissing Center for Arts and Culture (Pine Plains). Produced by Soho Think Tank with funding from the New York State Council for the Arts. Specific shows to be announced.  

AUDIENCE FAVORITES

Real People Real Stories, Ancram Center's signature event featuring local residents recounting captivating stories that celebrate community and personal connection, will bookend the 2024 season with performances on June 29 @ 7:30pm at the Roe-Jan Park Hilltop Barn and Nov. 17 @ 3pm at the Ancram Center's Opera House Stage.

 

Crystal Radio Sessions, where actors bring to life short stories in this series curated by Hudson Valley writer Ashley Mayne, returns to the Ancram Opera House Theater on July 13 at 7:30pm.

COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS & SPECIAL EVENTS

April 20, 11am-1pm: Free Community Storytelling Workshop led by Paul Ricciardi, vocal coach, Professor of Theatre Arts at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, and Ancram Center Co-Director.

June 1, 3-5pm: Spring Open House Join your friends, neighbors, and the Ancram Center team to kick-off the 2024 season in this free, family-friendly get-together. 

June 8-9: In partnership with The Hillsdale Workshop Alliance, Ancram Center will sponsor three experiential learning workshops: 

Sat. 11am-1pm Freeing Your Natural Voice with Paul Ricciardi, Designated Linklater Voice teacher, vocal coach, Professor of Theatre Arts at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, and Co-Director of the Ancram Center for the Arts.

Sat. 2-3:30pm Dance for the Non-Dancer with Aubrey Lynch, Dean of Faculty and Student Affairs at American Ballet Theatre Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School. Lynch was a principal with Alvin Ailey and an original cast member and associate producer for The Lion King.

Sun. 11am-1pm Playwriting for Everybody with Darrah Cloud, educator, playwright, and poet. Her plays include O Pioneers, Joan the Girl of Arc and What's Bugging Greg. Cloud is on the faculty at Goddard College and is the former Pine Plains Supervisor.

Nov. 24, 2-4pm: Fall Community Open House Join your friends, neighbors, and the Ancram Center team to kick-off the holiday season in this free, family-friendly get-together. 

Ancram Center for the Arts is an award-winning theater located in New York's Hudson Valley. Housed in an historic Grange Hall, Ancram Center has since 2016 presented groundbreaking theater and musical performances by nationally recognized theater artists. Ancram Center for the Arts receives significant annual support from the New York State Council on the Arts and in 2023 was awarded a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. For tickets and information visit www.ancramcenter.org.