A. Richards News

Theater Latte Da and Hennepin Theatre Trust have formed a beautiful partnership called 'Broadway Re-Imagined,' in which they combine the resources of the Trust with the creativity and innovation of Latte Da to produce a Broadway-sized musical with all local talent and that special Latte Da twist. After the powerful rock musical Aida and the brilliant Ivey Award-winning Cabaret, they return this year with Oliver!, the 1960 musical based on Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist. But don't let all those adorable moppets dancing around the stage and singing upbeat tunes fool you. Oliver! is not a light and fluffy happy musical, well, not solely anyway. It's also a dark and somber look at such serious issues as child abuse and neglect, the desperation of poverty, and violence. But fortunately, after all the death and darkness, the curtain call ends with a reprise of a happy number, so we can all leave the theater with that happy musical feeling. But perhaps we also leave with a deeper thought about the relevance and seriousness of what we just saw, wrapped up in a gorgeous musical theater package, to ponder further at a later date.

The Rainbow Theatre Project is back to kick off the second-half of its sophomore season with the next installment of its successful Generation Q Staged Reading Series: Bryna Turner's How to Separate Your Soul from Your Body (in ten easy steps) and Steven Korbar's short play, A Quick Stop at the Florist. The reading takes place Monday, February 9, 2015 at 7:30 p.m. at Source in Washington, D.C.

Lynn University and producer Jan McArt, director of theatre arts program development, today announced that the Libby Dodson's Live at Lynn Theatre Series will present three major shows during January and February 2015.

OPERA America, the national service organization for opera, is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2015 National Opera Trustee Recognition Award. Now in its eighth year, this award honors outstanding trustees of U.S. opera companies for exemplary leadership, generosity and audience-building efforts on behalf of their respective opera companies.

Lynn University and producer Jan McArt, director of theatre arts program development, today announced that the Libby Dodson's Live at Lynn Theatre Series will present three major shows during January and February 2015.

The Rainbow Theatre Project launched their sophomore season last month and continues to shine a spotlight on new LGBTQ plays with its schedule for November. Coming next is the company's first fully-staged presentation, Brave Soul Collective's WTF Happened to Baby Sister?, and the next installment of its successful Generation Q Staged Reading Series: Jeffrey Higgins' I'm Just Saying… with Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's short play Swamp Gothic.

I went for a walk today. The sky through the trees caught my eye. The sound of music floated in and out between the calling of the birds, and the smell of the late summer prairie was all around me. I followed Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau through their lives, studies, and friendship. I thought about nature not as something to be visited occasionally, but as something we live in the midst of daily, whether we're aware of it or not. Sometimes her voice is obscured by the busyness of modern life, but she's always there if we take the time and listen hard enough. TigerLion Arts' outdoor walking play, NATURE, is more than just theater, it's an experience. The story of the life of writers, philosophers, scholars, and friends Emerson and Thoreau includes one very important character, nature, as experienced through the beautiful grounds of the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.

After a successful inaugural season, The Rainbow Theatre Project has announced their second season of three evenings of staged readings, two fully-staged productions, a co-production and a cabaret that highlight, reflect and embrace the LGBTQ experience. The company's first season was comprised of five staged readings of early and contemporary works from the LGBTQ theatrical canon, including a concert version of recent Off-Broadway musical sensation YANK!.

League of American Orchestras Chair Patricia A. Richardshas announced the appointment of Douglas M. Hagerman,who also serves as Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra board chair, to the League's Board of Directors. He will serve a three-year term and was elected by the League membership during the organization's annual meeting in June.

The League of American Orchestras' National Conference, hosted by the Seattle Symphony, began with a riveting keynote address by flutist Claire Chase on re-imagining the orchestra, and concluded with a media frenzy and a viral video: Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony's Sonic Evolution concert featuring world premieres by Luis Tinocco, Du Yun, and Gabriel Prokofiev, and spotlighting Sir Mix-A-Lot's now-famous orchestral rendition of "Baby Got Back."

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The League of American Orchestras' Board of Directors has named Patricia A. Richards Chair Elect. Ms. Richards will assume the position of Chair in June 2014, succeeding current Chair Lowell J. Noteboom, and will hold it for a one-year term, until June 2015.

Author Jeffrey A. Richards provides a distinctive, focused, fresh look at the principles of synergism and how they can be applied to high performance teamwork in his unique new book, 'The Principles of Synergism: Radical Empowerment' (published by Trafford Publishing).

The Producer Circle. Co will present a concert reading of Kenneth Jones and Gerald Stocksill's NAUGHTY/NICE in benefit of the The New York Center For Children at Caroline's on Broadway on Dec. 3. The reading features musical direction by David Gardos and direction and staging by Stephen Nachamie. Alexandra Frohlinger, Timatha Kasten, Eric Michael Krop, and George Salazar will star, along with Emily Bindiger, Dennis Deal, Carolee Goodgold, and Jim Vincent.

Utah Symphony | Utah Opera (USUO) has announced the launch of "The Campaign for Perpetual Motion," a $20 million public fundraising campaign that will continue to build and showcase the organization throughout the entire state of Utah and beyond as the Utah Symphony prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary season in 2015-2016.

It's opening night of David Goldstein's SKIING ON BROKEN GLASS at the Guthrie and as the play forms around me, it feels all too familiar-a love that makes no sense, an escort, unsupportive peers, and a constant battle of conscience. The play is just a little expected but in the end it leaves you with something to chat about by the water cooler and captures a few very real moments that make it all worthwhile.

The Guthrie Theater today announced a return engagement for An Iliad, the single-actor storytelling adaptation of Homer's Greek classic about the siege of Troy. The play features Stephen Yoakam (more than 75 Guthrie productions including a lauded turn as Bertolt Brecht in 2012's Tales from Hollywood and as Creon in 2011's The Burial at Thebes) as The Poet and is directed by Benjamin McGovern (The Edge of Our Bodies, Circle Mirror Transformation). An Iliad is written by Lisa Peterson (director of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Guthrie in 2012, as well as this summer's acclaimed production of Clybourne Park) and Denis O'Hare from a translation of Homer by Robert Fagles.

In today's world, we've come to expect action, excitement and big emotion, or displays of it, and it's only getting worse in the age of 'reality TV.' What the public wants, they get. And lots of it. Reality today is oversized, over spent and over wrought.

The Guthrie Theater today announced the cast and creative team for David Goldstein's moving drama Skiing on Broken Glass. The play premiered in the 2010 Minnesota Fringe Festival to sold-out crowds and was selected for the Fringe Encore series. Guthrie Artistic Director Joe Dowling helms a new, expanded version of the play featuring additional characters and accompanying storylines. Skiing on Broken Glass begins performances in the Dowling Studio on October 29.