Andrew W. Mellon News

The Houston debut of Jessica Lang Dance will kick off Society for the Performing Arts' 2013-2014 season on Friday, Sept. 20, 2013, at 8 p.m. in Wortham Center's Cullen Theater.

Germany's Hildesheim Cathedral in Lower Saxony has one of the most complete surviving ensembles of ecclesiastical furnishings and treasures in Europe, including many medieval masterpieces made between about 1000 and 1250. The cathedral was designated a UNESCO world cultural heritage site in 1985. Major renovations that are currently underway provide the opportunity for Medieval Treasures from Hildesheim—an extraordinary selection of about 50 medieval church treasures, most of which have never been shown outside Europe—to travel to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they will be on view beginning September 17.

Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500-1800 is the first major exhibition to explore the international transmittal of design from the 16th to the early 19th century through the medium of textiles. It will highlight an important design story that has never before been told from a truly global perspective. Beginning in the 16th century, the golden age of European maritime navigation in search of spice routes to the east brought about the flowering of an abundant textile trade, causing a breathtaking variety of textiles in a multiplicity of designs and techniques to travel across the globe. Textiles, which often acted as direct currency for spices and other goods, made their way from India and Asia to Europe, between India and Asia and Southeast Asia, from Europe to the east, and eventually to the west to North and South America. Trade textiles blended the traditional designs, skills, and tastes of all of the cultures that produced them, resulting in objects that are both intrinsically beautiful and historically fascinating.

The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) has announced details for its 2013-14 Studio Series of opera, musical theatre, drama and dance productions.

The NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK (NNPN), the country's alliance of non-profit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, announces three new At Large Board Members: Mark Bly, Gary Heisserer, and Manny Strauss will join the thirty-two member Board of Directors effective immediately.

Theatre Development Fund (TDF) and Theatre Bay Area (TBA) are pleased to announce that they have received a grant in the amount of $78,750 from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation's Fund for National Projects to support a consortium project, Triple Play. Triple Play will explore the crucial relationship between playwrights and other generative artists, theatres and audiences. This exploration aspires to create a paradigm shift in the way the field thinks about audiences and the way audiences experience new work, and in so doing will help to restore theatre's relevance as a national art form.

Long Beach Opera (LBO) takes opera onto the shores of Long Beach for Peter Lieberson's King Gesar. One of the greatest adventure stories ever told plays out atop galloping flourishes, prayerful melodies and percussive battle cries in this1991 chamber work recounting the desert trials, grand horse race and fierce battles of the legendary Tibetan warrior King Gesar's journey toward enlightenment. Douglas Penick's libretto is drawn from the 12th century epic poem of the same name. The setting sun and crisp sea air of Harry Bridges Memorial Park augments LBO Artistic and General Director Andreas Mitisek's marriage of the oral rituals of the past with LBO's look at opera of the future. King Gesar arrives in Long Beach September 7, 13, 14 at 8:00PM.

The NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK (NNPN), the country's alliance of non-profit theatres that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, proudly announces a grant of $600,000 from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its programs over the next three years. The gift - the largest received by NNPN in its 15-year history - was approved by the Trustees of the Foundation.

The Michael Schimmel Center for the Performing Arts at Pace University today announced its 2013|2014 Pace Presents Season, under the Executive Direction of Martin I. Kagan, is a world-class performing arts series with an emphasis on music superstars from around the globe, charismatic and innovative dance performances, stunning opera stars in recital and spectacular contemporary cabaret. The Pace Presents season begins on September 21 with a big band tribute to the late, great lounge legend Esquivel from Mr. Ho's Orchestrotica, culminating onJune 1 with the reunion performance of Tina Croll and Jamie Cunningham'sdance/theatre piece From the Horse's Mouth.

New York City Center will celebrate the 10th Anniversary of its Fall for Dance Festival with two FREE evenings of dance at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, hosted by The Public Theater, on September 16 and 17 at 8 p.m.(rain date, September 18).

Lawrence Edelson, Producing Artistic Director of American Lyric Theater (ALT), announced today that the company has been awarded a $150,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support capacity building and the national expansion of the company's Composer Librettist Development Program (CLDP), the only full-time professional mentorship initiative for emerging operatic writers in the country.

Dance master Margaret Jenkins celebrates the 40th anniversary of her company at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center onSeptember 13 and 14 at 8:00pm with the world premiere of Times Bones.

The NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK (NNPN), the country's alliance of non-profit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, announces its 40th Rolling World Premiere: Carson Kreitzer's Lasso of Truthwill receive three productions through the Network's Continued Life of New Plays Fund in the 2013/14 season. Lasso of Truth will begin its Rolling World Premiere at Marin Theatre Company (Mill Valley, CA, February 20 - March 16, 2014), followed by performances at Synchronicity Theatre (Atlanta, GA, March 20 - April 13, 2014) and Unicorn Theatre (Kansas City, MO, January 21 - February 8, 2015).

World Wide Lab presents 'A DIRECTOR'S FEAST.' Twelve members of the 2010 Lincoln Center Directors Lab who have continued to collaborate with one another these past three years have conceived two separate anthology programs exploring moments in the life of a woman as well as a study of community.

PlayMakers Repertory Company is celebrating the award of several significant national grants in support of upcoming projects and productions.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded $300,000 to a consortium of orchestras led by Pacific Symphony and Music Director Carl St.Clair for Phase Two of "Music Unwound," providing continued support for a multi-year commitment to integrate humanities content with live concert performances. The joint recipients include the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Austin Symphony, the North Carolina Symphony, the South Dakota Symphony and the Louisville Orchestra. (The University of Texas is also a principal recipient of the grant.) Conceived and directed by New York-based author, scholar and Pacific Symphony advisor Joseph Horowitz, the consortium of orchestras, in collaboration with local universities, is engaged in a multi-season exploration of aspects of the American musical experience. The project takes the form of cross-disciplinary festivals that also link to high schools, museums and two South Dakota Indian reservations.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded $300,000 to a consortium of orchestras led by Pacific Symphony and Music Director Carl St.Clair for Phase Two of “Music Unwound,” providing continued support for a multi-year commitment to integrate humanities content with live concert performances. The joint recipients include the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Austin Symphony, the North Carolina Symphony, the South Dakota Symphony and the Louisville Orchestra. (The University of Texas is also a principal recipient of the grant.) Conceived and directed by New York-based author, scholar and Pacific Symphony advisor Joseph Horowitz, the consortium of orchestras, in collaboration with local universities, is engaged in a multi-season exploration of aspects of the American musical experience. The project takes the form of cross-disciplinary festivals that also link to high schools, museums and two South Dakota Indian reservations.

The NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK (NNPN), the country's alliance of non-profit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, announces its 39th Rolling World Premiere: Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's The Totalitarians will receive three productions through the Network's Continued Life of New Plays Fund in 2014. The Totalitarians will begin its Rolling World Premiere at Southern Rep (New Orleans, LA, January 29 - February 23, 2014), followed by performances at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (Washington, DC, June 2 - 29, 2014) and Z Space (San Francisco, CA, November 17 - December 14, 2014).

Cutting Ball Theater opens its 15th season with the World Premiere of Basil Kreimendahl's SIDEWINDERS, beginning Oct. 18 and running through Nov. 17. SIDEWINDERS owes as much to Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot as it does to SF Pride. In this absurdist-Western romp through gender queerness, Dakota and Bailey find themselves lost, possibly upside down, in a strange world with even stranger characters. Their journey to getting right side up provokes questions of sex anatomy, transgenderism, and who we really are from the inside out. M. Graham Smith makes his main stage directing debut at Cutting Ball with SIDEWINDERS, featuring DavEnd, Sara Moore, Donald Currie, and Norman Munoz.

New York City Opera's 2013-14 season and BAM's 2013 Next Wave Festival begin with the U.S. premiere of Anna Nicole, an opera by composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Richard Thomas based on the flamboyant life and tragic death of Anna Nicole Smith. This highly anticipated co-production includes seven performances at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, on September 17, 19, 21, 24, 25, 27, and 28 at 7:30pm. Individual tickets are on sale August 12 (August 5 for Friends of BAM) at BAM.org or through BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100.