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Photos: First look at Evolution Theatre Company's SONS & LOVERS

The winner of the 2018 Emanuel Fried Award for Outstanding New Play, SONS & LOVERS by Donna Hoke is an engaging comedy about Ellen, a middle-aged woman at a crossroads in her life. Ellen knows the score – her son is gay, and her husband is cheating – but it’s so much easier to pretend than to talk about it. It takes fantasy, farce, and one fabulous mother and son discover just how makeover before the truth flies free, much they have in common, and Ellen realizes the reality she’s been avoiding most is her own. Performances run July 22th thru the 31st, 2021 at the Abbey Theater of Dublin, 5600 Post Road, Dublin, OH 43017. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit: https://www.evolutiontheatre.org/

Palo Alto Players Presents Original Solo Play AREN'T YOU…?

Palo Alto Players for the first time in its recent history will premiere an original one-man show by Bay Area actor Fred Pitts. AREN’T YOU…? recounts Pitts’ hilarious journey to visit all 21 California Mission churches, where he discovers being black makes him an instant celebrity – the question is which one?

MATILDA Will Be Performed at Theatre Tulsa in August

Theatre Tulsa's production stars Gigi Jenkins as Matilda Wormwood, Sean Rooney as Miss Agatha Trunchbull, Tatum Nelson as Miss Honey, Travis Guillory as Mr. Wormwood, Claire Schroepfer as Mrs. Wormwood, Spencer Loeffler as Michael Wormwood, and Kara Staiger as Mrs. Phelps.

BWW Feature: ONLINE VIRTUAL OPERA TOUR at Home Computer Screens

Los Angeles Opera’s new Signature Recital Series gives vocal music fans  exclusive access to astounding performances in intimate settings—filmed in stunning venues across this country and in Europe—streamed directly to home screens. Tenor Russell Thomas partners with pianist Mi-Kyung Kim for Schumann's Dichterliebe (Poet's Love).

Collection From The Columbus Museum Goes To Auction

Beloit Auction & Realty, one of the country's most respected full-service auction companies has announced The Columbus Museum & Chicago 1893 World's Columbian Exposition (World's Fair) Online Auction.

VIDEO: Little Wretches Release Music Video for 'All Of My Friends'

According to Robert Wagner: 'ALL OF MY FRIENDS is a celebration of people who don't even have a voice, much less a voice that can be silenced. Every line and couplet in ALL OF MY FRIENDS speaks specifically about very real people in my past who have resided in a voiceless and silent community,'

BWW Feature: ONLINE VIRTUAL OPERA TOUR No. 45 at Home Computer Screens

In April, 2019, Pacific Opera Project performed Puccini’s Madama Butterfly 蝶々夫人 in Japanese and English at the Aratani Theatre, part of the Japanese-American Cultural Center of Los Angeles’s “Little Tokyo. With a new libretto by Josh Shaw and Eiki Isomura. See the film in which ll Japanese roles were sung in Japanese, English roles in English.

BWW Interview: Maya Kherani of THREE DECEMBERS at Opera San Jose Brings a Complex Terrance McNally Character to Life

Opera San José hits it out of the park with its immensely moving new virtual production of Three Decembers, the chamber opera by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer, based on an unpublished play by Terrance McNally. Due to popular demand, streaming access has now been extended through January 31, 2021. It’s about a family of three – diva Maddie, played by world-renowned mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, and her two adult children Bea and Charlie, played by Opera San José Resident Artists Maya Kherani and Efraín Solís. In a swift 90 minutes, the three journey from a place of disconnect to a place of understanding and ultimately healing. BroadwayWorld spoke with Ms. Kherani shortly after she had completed filming 'Three Decembers.'

BWW Feature: ONLINE VIRTUAL OPERA TOUR at Home Computer Screens

This holiday week the Virtual Opera Tour’s Magic Opera Flying Carpet is making its first stop at Opera San Jose for their magnificent online performance of Three Decembers. It costs $40 to watch on demand.The price is a bit steep, but the story is affecting, the music is fabulous and the performances are riveting. 

BWW Interview: Khori Dastoor of THREE DECEMBERS at Opera San Jose Is Up to the Job of Making Art That Is Relevant for Our Times

Talking to Khori Dastoor, General Director of Opera San José brings to mind that old quote from Elizabeth Taylor when she was faced with unimaginable adversity, “Now is the time for guts and guile.” Just one year into her tenure as GD, Dastoor is faced with an almost impossible situation due to the Covid pandemic. Out of all the arts, opera, the artform which she has made her life’s work, arguably has the biggest challenges. After all, the act of singing operatically produces enormous amounts of aerosols, the core audience is older and thus especially at risk for Covid, and the population at large may not consider opera to be essential to their lives. Since creating new works is practically impossible, many GD’s are offering a sort of greatest hits of former glories, video snippets from past years that were already in the can. Or maybe something like a “reading” of an old holiday chestnut like Der Rosenkavalier, presented Brady-Bunch style on Zoom. So what does Dastoor do instead? She goes bravely programs a brand-new, beautifully-produced production of Jake Heggie’s Three Decembers, starring no less than world-renowned opera star Susan Graham, alongside two of Opera San José’s super-talented Resident Artists, soprano Maya Kherani and baritone Efraín Solis. This immensely moving chamber work is based on an unpublished play by Terrance  McNally, adapted by librettist Gene Scheer, and tells the story of a family struggling to connect during the early years of the AIDS pandemic. The work premiered in 2008, yet somehow feels more relevant than ever, given the parallels with what we’re all going through today, as evidenced by McNally’s death from Covid earlier this year. The opera is currently available for streaming through the end of December. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit operasj.org. BroadwayWorld spoke with Dastoor shortly after the filming of Three Decembers had been completed. Dastoor was remarkably open and forthcoming about the challenges of the opera world right now, even as her passion for growing the artform burns stronger than ever. We talked about how she managed to produce Three Decembers during Covid, her successful earlier career as a lyric soprano, and the imperative to keep the arts alive during these difficult times. Her responses to my questions were invariably thoughtful, often surprising and not without humor. And, as a rare woman of color leading an opera company, her understanding of the need to open up her artform runs deep. Above all, though, she is just plain fun to talk to - effortlessly engaging, whip-smart, emotionally transparent, and without an ounce of pretension.

BWW Review: THREE DECEMBERS at Home Computer Screens

Faced with the inability to perform live opera because of COVID, Opera San Jose opted to film an opera that could be made to fit California health regulations in its new Fred Heiman Digital Media Studio. General director Khori Dastoor chose Jake Heggie’s three-person chamber opera, Three Decembers. Since it’s an opera that needs a big star to play famous actress Madeline Mitchell, Dastoor engaged Susan Graham.

BWW Interview: Efraín Solís of THREE DECEMBERS at Opera San Jose Loves Performing Works That Reflect Who We Are Now

While performing arts organizations around the world are dusting off existing productions of the usual chestnuts during the month of December, Opera San José is taking a more audacious approach with its holiday programming. They are presenting a new, fully-staged production of Jake Heggie’s immensely moving chamber opera, Three Decembers, featuring world-renowned mezzo-soprano Susan Graham in the central role, alongside celebrated Opera San José Resident Artists soprano Maya Kherani and baritone Efraín Solís. Based on the unpublished play Some Christmas Letters by Tony-winning playwright Terrance McNally, Three Decembers follows the story of a famous actress, Madeline Mitchell, and her two adult children, Beatrice and Charlie over three decades (1986, 1996, and 2006). With a witty and touching libretto by Gene Scheer and a soaring musical score by Jake Heggie, Three Decembers is a 90-minute fullhearted American opera about family – the ones we are born into and those we create. The world-class digital production is offered via on-demand streaming through December 31, 2020. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit operasj.org or call (408) 437-4450. BroadwayWorld speaks with charismatic baritone Efraín Solís, who plays son Charlie.

Museum Of Jazz And Art Announces Executive Leadership Appointments

As momentum grows in the creation of the Museum of Jazz and Art (MoJA), the institution's Founder and Chief Executive Officer, David Allen, announced today that the organization has appointed Terry Stewart as Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Tony Calzaretta as Chief Experience Officer (CXO). The Oakland-based nonprofit organization, which was recently given site control to Lake Merritt waterfront property on which to build its cultural center, will be dedicated to disrupting the way jazz music and its history have traditionally been presented by situating the art form within the broader American narrative to teach national history from a cultural perspective.

BWW Interview: Lorri Holt of WHO KILLED SYLVIA PLATH? at MarshStream Brings the Iconic Writer to Life

If you've attended theater in the Bay Area with any degree of regularity over the past few decades, chances are you've seen actress Lorri Holt - a lot! Since the 1980's, Holt has become a veritable local treasure, performing with theater companies large and small across the Bay Area, creating roles in scores of new plays along the way. Among many career highlights, she was part of the fabled Eureka Theatre Company that commissioned Tony Kushner to write Angels in America where Holt originated the role of Harper Pitt. Holt's latest performance, in Who Killed Sylvia Plath? by award-winning playwright Lynne Kaufman, is enjoying a virtual return engagement on MarshStream November 28th and 29th after winning the award for Best Full Length at the recent MarshStream International Solo Fest. The play had premiered at The Marsh in 2019 before being adapted into a virtual offering for Solo Fest. For further details on the livestream, visit the MarshStream website. BroadwayWorld speaks with Holt from her home in Nevada City, California where she relocated just prior to the Covid pandemic.

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