A Rare Look: North Korea To Cuba And Shakespeare's Long Lost First Play Take The Stage

Overture Presents and community programs provide engagement, entertainment and educational opportunities for all ages in the month of April.

Ticketed events feature a lecture with National Geographic Live photographer David Guttenfelder, who will offer a look inside Cuba and North Korea, where he helped the AP open a bureau. Madison favorite Reduced Shakespeare Company returns with a strangely familiar, yet excitingly new, comic misadventure. Justine Murdy and Gregory Kozak, married couple and creative team behind SCRAP ARTS MUSIC, bring their brand-new show (using instruments made from repurposed and recycled materials) to Madison following its world premiere on March 22, 2018.

Free and low-cost programs continue with an Artists' Talk in Overture's Galleries, the final Duck Soup Cinema and MadCity Sessions of the season in April, along with four Saturdays filled with Kids in the Rotunda (KIR), offering families a look at an antique artform, an opportunity to dance and experience the arts together.

Schedule and information:

Artists' Talk: Cultural Dualities Through a Contemporary Lens | Wednesday, April 4, 6 p.m. | FREE

Join us for an artists' talk and community conversation with Erika Herrera, Dakota Mace and David Dexheimer. Gallery II, Redefining Narratives, explores cultural dualities and divides through a contemporary lens. Herrera's ethereal black and white photographs express her duality as a Mexican American. The intricate weavings of Mace re-contextualize traditional Diné (Navajo) practices, while creating a dialogue on cultural appropriation. Dexheimer's expressive paintings chronicle recent conflicts between police & the public.

Duck Soup Cinema - Three Ages | Saturday, April 7, 2 & 7 p.m. | $3 children, $7 adults

This comedy, which was the first film Buster Keaton wrote, directed, produced and starred in, takes place in three different periods - prehistoric, Ancient Rome and "modern times" (the 1920s). This take on DW Griffith's hit Intolerance, which looked at the human condition over three periods in human history, follows Keaton as he competes for a woman's heart, showing that love remains mostly unchanging, and at times humorous, throughout the ages. (PLEASE NOTE: This film replaced Sherlock Jr., as the rights were no longer available.)

KIR - David Landau | Saturday, April 7, 9:30 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m.* | Rotunda Stage | FREE

*Each 1 p.m. KIR performance will be American Sign Language interpreted.

National Geographic Live - A Rare Look: North Korea to Cuba with David Guttenfelder | Tuesday, April 10, 7:30 p.m. | $35+
In 2011, David Guttenfelder made history when he helped the Associated Press open a bureau in North Korea-the first-ever Western news agency in the politically isolated country. For the first time in North Korean history, images of daily life there were sent to the world, while Guttenfelder himself acted as an unofficial ambassador. In 2016, he broke through another wall when he boarded the first cruise ship in decades to travel from the United States to Cuba, and returned to the island to cover Fidel Castro's four day funeral procession. His talent for crossing long-closed borders has led to some of National Geographic's most revealing geopolitical photo essays, as well as connecting people around the world through social media platforms like Instagram. (Ticketholders can stay after for 'Meet the Artist' immediately following the lecture.)

MadCity Sessions | Thursday, April 12, 7:30 p.m. | FREE

First up is Kyle Megna & The Monsoons, an original Wisconsin band with an ever-growing following locally and beyond. A tight-knit group of accomplished, charismatic musicians with diverse backgrounds, these guys know how to have fun while always keeping it professional. Best seen live, they feed off the vibe of the crowd as well as each other. Their "dark-indie-blues-folk-rock feel" is a magnetic force that's ever-charged with surges of creativity and artistic experimentation. Fused with a healthy dose of spontaneity and humor, Kyle Megna & The Monsoons channel can't-get-enough energy that's good for the soul.

The second act of the evening is The Lucas Cates Band. From New York to Los Angeles, Madison native Lucas Cates has toured the country in support of five full-length studio albums and been awarded a plethora of music industry awards. His mix of original folk/pop/rock has been a Madison mainstay for over 10 years and has gained the attention of local, regional, and national fans.

William Shakespeare's Long Lost First Play (abridged) | Saturday, April 14, 8 p.m. | $30+

Madison favorite Reduced Shakespeare Company returns with a strangely familiar, yet excitingly new, comic misadventure. In this "tale told by idiots," a brand-new Shakespearean smorgasbord erupts when Puck & Ariel hijack the plot of Comedy of Errors, creating such new and strange bedfellows as Kate and Beatrice, Hamlet and master motivator Lady Macbeth, Dromio and Juliet, as well as King Lear and his three daughters who turn out to be the three weird sisters from Macbeth. (Ticketholders can stay after for 'Meet the Artist' immediately following the performance.)

KIR - Davey Doodle & The Red Hots | Saturday, April 14, 9:30 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m.* | Rotunda Stage | FREE

KIR - Magic of Isaiah | Saturday, April 21, 9:30 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m.* | Rotunda Stage | FREE

Overture Center/Red Cross Blood Drive | Monday, April 23, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. | Overture Hall Main Lobby | FREE

SCRAP ARTS MUSIC: Children of Metropolis | Thursday, April 26, 7:30 p.m. | Capitol Theater | $35+

Take some old bike parts, shiny construction salvage, PVC pipes, and other recycled odds and ends. Add five hyperactive hipsters and a set of drumsticks, and the result is a dizzying shower of beats. Children of Metropolis is the greatly anticipated new production by the creative team of Gregory Kozak and Justine Murdy (founders of SCRAP ARTS MUSIC, a project that started with zero money and an ambitious, quirky dream). Featuring all-new invented instruments, original melodic music and the same outstanding athletic multi-instrumentalists for which Scrap Arts Music has rightly gained world-wide acclaim since 2001.

KIR - Laura Doherty | Saturday, April 28, 9:30 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m.* | Rotunda Stage | FREE

Tickets are available at the Overture Center box office (201 State Street), by visiting overture.org, or by calling 608.258.4141. Group orders of ten or more may be eligible for a discount and can be placed by calling 608.258.4159.

Overture Galleries Artist Talk is sponsored by Madison Community Foundation. Funding for Kids in the Rotunda is provided by American Girl's Fund for Children, Madison Gas & Electric Foundation, Nancy E. Barklage & Teresa J. Welch, the Kuehn Family Foundation, Ian's Pizza, UnityPoint Health - Meriter, Dental Health Associates, Madison Swim Academy and by contributions to Overture Center for the Arts. Duck Soup Cinema is sponsored by Goodman's Jewelers and underwritten with a generous gift from Robert N. Doornek. National Geographic Live series is sponsored locally by Exact Sciences and nationally by The Great Courses Plus. Reduced Shakespeare is sponsored by Mirror34 Productions.

Overture Center for the Arts in Madison, Wis., features seven state-of-the-art performance spaces and five galleries where national and international touring artists, ten resident companies and hundreds of local artists engage people in nearly 700,000 educational and artistic experiences each year. Overture.org.

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