The Broad Stage Presents Red Hen Press: The Figure of Orpheus in Poetry and Performance

The Broad Stage continues their collaboration with Red Hen Press for their final event of the season, Red Hen Press: The Figure of Orpheus in Poetry and Performance on Sunday, April 28 in The Edye at The Broad Stage. Poets selected by Poetry Society of America Director Alice Quinn will perform contemporary poems on the Orphic theme. A film clip from Marcel Camus' Black Orpheus will be shown to represent the theme in cinema, and pianist Paul Barnes will captivate the audience with The Orphée Suite for Piano, his amazing transcription of Philip Glass's symphony Orphée for solo piano. This event is sponsored in partnership with The Poetry Society of America and Red Hen Press.

The Broad Stage and Red Hen Press have a history of bringing music, poetry and performance together in The Edye. Last season, Red Hen Press events featured GRAMMY Award winners Hila Plitmann and Eric Whitacre, as well as California Poet Laureate Dana Gioia, Brendan Constantine, and t'ai freedom ford. The Edye at The Broad Stage also hosted the Los Angeles premiere of Samuel Beckett's Imagination Dead Imagine, set to music composed by Michael Roth.

Tickets are available now at www.thebroadstage.org or by calling 310.434.3200.

About The Artists
Alice Quinn is Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America and an adjunct professor at Columbia University's graduate School of the Arts. She was poetry editor at The New Yorker from 1987-2007 and at Alfred A. Knopf, Publishers, from 1976-1986, and she is the editor of Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments by Elizabeth Bishop. Her articles on and interviews with writers, poets, and artists have appeared in Artforum, the Canadian National Post, The Forward, Poetry Ireland, The New Yorker, and The New Yorker Online, and she is currently at work editing the journals and notebooks of Elizabeth Bishop.

Paul Barnes has been praised by the New York Times for his "Lisztian thunder and deft fluidity," and the San Francisco Chronicle as "ferociously virtuosic," pianist Paul Barnes has electrified audiences with his intensely expressive playing and cutting-edge programming. He has been featured seven times on APM's Performance Today, on the cover of Clavier Magazine, and his recordings are streamed worldwide.

Celebrating his twenty-three-year collaboration with Philip Glass, Barnes commissioned and gave the world premiere performance of Glass's Piano Quintet "Annunciation" with the Chiara Quartet at the Lied Center for Performing Arts on April 17, 2018. The work is Glass's first piano quintet and first work based on Greek Orthodox chant. For more, visit paulbarnes.net

About The Poetry Society of America
The Poetry Society of America, the nation's oldest poetry organization, was founded in 1910. Its mission is to build a larger and more diverse audience for poetry, to encourage a deeper appreciation of the vitality and breadth of poetry in the cultural conversation, to support poets through an array of programs and awards, and to place poetry at the crossroads of American life.

About Red Hen Press
Red Hen Press, one of the few literary presses in the Los Angeles area, was founded in 1994 by Kate Gale and Mark E. Cull with the intention of keeping creative literature alive. Our focus as a literary press is to publish poetry, literary fiction, and nonfiction. Red Hen Press is committed to publishing work of literary excellence, supporting diversity, and promoting literacy in our local schools. We seek a community of readers and writers who are actively engaged in the essential human practice known as literature.

Red Hen Press offers several literary awards each year, including the Benjamin Saltman Award. The winner of the Benjamin Saltman Award receives a cash prize in addition to publication of the winning poetry collection. Past judges include: Claudia Rankine, Robin Becker, Wanda Coleman, B.H. Fairchild, Nick Flynn, Eloise Klein Healy, David St. John, Dorianne Laux, Thomas Lux, Philip Levine, Alicia Ostriker, James Ragan, Peggy Shumaker, and Quincy Troupe. Other awards offered include the Red Hen Press Short Story Award and the Ruskin Art Club Poetry Award, both for publication in the Los Angeles Review.

Red Hen Press is also committed to promoting literacy in the community. Beyond developing an appreciation of literature, we believe it is essential to our society to promote a readership that remains open and critically engaged in reading a variety of well-written, thought-provoking work. Our Writing in the Schools program brings writers into schools to run writing workshops and to read and discuss their work-promoting both literacy and creative expression among young people. We organize readings in schools, universities, libraries, and literary organizations. We donate books to a variety of organizations, including schools and facilities that educate at-risk youth.