K. Smith News

The Act One Short Play Festival July 10 - August 6 2022 is returning after a nearly three-year hiatus!

This July 6 through 10, Cincinnati Opera continues its 2022 Summer Festival with two uplifting productions: the world premiere of Fierce (July 6, 9, 10 at SCPA's Corbett Theater), with music by William Menefield and libretto by Sheila Williams, and Gilbert and Sullivan's hilarious The Pirates of Penzance (July 7, 8, 10 at Cincinnati Music Hall).

After celebrating its ten-year anniversary in 2021, HowlRound Theatre Commons announces its first published anthology, featuring essays from each year of the last decade, available for preorder now.

National Sawdust and Paola Prestini and Chelsea Factory have announced the first companies to take the stage in the organizations’ programmatic partnership. Grammy-winning composer and pianist Arturo O’Farrilland his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra with special guest Emeline Michel take over the landmarked site June 16-17.

92Y’s Unterberg Poetry Center will present readings and conversations featuring acclaimed actors, authors and poets in May, including: Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Egan, Ocean Vuong, as well as Maggie Siff, Eisa Davis and Tracy K. Smith, among others.

In anticipation of its world premiere this July at Cincinnati Opera, former U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith and composer Gregory Spears (Fellow Travelers) will discuss their new opera Castor and Patience in a free performance preview event at the Library of Congress's Coolidge Auditorium, 101 Independence Avenue SE, Washington DC, on Thursday, May 12 at 7 pm.

Rejoice will feature an epic performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, accented by a reimagined libretto set by former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith and Berkeley-based composer Jimmy Lopéz Bellido will present the World Premiere commission of Rise, a celebratory work written in honor of the Symphony's milestone anniversary season.

PEN America convenes an Emergency World Voices Congress to address the invasion of Ukraine and the role of the writer in times of turmoil and brutality, and Ukrainian author and PEN Ukraine President Andrey Kurkov delivers the 2022 Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture, on May 13.

The New Jersey Symphony and Music Director Xian Zhang announce the Symphony's landmark 2022–23 centennial season—and an extension of Zhang's music director contract through the 2027–28 season.

March literary events have been announced at 92Y. Events will presented both in person and online.

Cincinnati Opera is proud to announce that the company has been awarded a $1.3 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (“Mellon Foundation”).

Five new members were elected to the board of trustees at Westport Country Playhouse, bringing the total to 33, led by Ania Czekaj-Farber of Westport, chair.

Originally commissioned for Cincinnati Opera's 100th anniversary in 2020 and postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Castor and Patience receives its much-anticipated world premiere in July 2022.

Cincinnati Opera today shared updated cast, production, and schedule details for its 2022 Summer Festival, which will take place June 18 through July 31, 2022. After two seasons away, the company returns this summer to its longtime performance venues, Cincinnati Music Hall and the School for Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA).

The Nasher Sculpture Center announces 'SCULPTING SOUND: Twelve Musicians Encounter Bertoia', a series of six historic concerts, from February 22–27, 2022, bringing together twelve master musicians to explore the expressive range of Harry Bertoia's sounding sculptures, in complement to the exhibition Harry Bertoia: Sculpting Mid-Century Modern Life on view at the Nasher January 29 – April 23, 2022. 

New York City Center just kicked off the 2022 Encores! Season with The Tap Dance Kid, featuring music by Henry Krieger, lyrics by Robert Lorick, and a book by Charles Blackwell. Directed by Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon (A Raisin in the Sun), the production also includes new tap sequences by choreographer Jared Grimes (After Midnight) and a concert adaptation by Lydia Diamond (Stick Fly). Broadway's Joseph Joubert (Caroline or Change) will guest music direct The Tap Dance Kid.

New York City Center just kicked off the 2022 Encores! Season with The Tap Dance Kid, featuring music by Henry Krieger, lyrics by Robert Lorick, and a book by Charles Blackwell. Directed by Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon (A Raisin in the Sun), the production also includes new tap sequences by choreographer Jared Grimes (After Midnight) and a concert adaptation by Lydia Diamond (Stick Fly). Broadway's Joseph Joubert (Caroline or Change) will guest music direct The Tap Dance Kid.

New York City Center just kicked off the 2022 Encores! Season with The Tap Dance Kid, featuring music by Henry Krieger, lyrics by Robert Lorick, and a book by Charles Blackwell.

It took longer to read the notes for Joan Tower’s “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, No. 1” than it did for the New York Philharmonic under Jaap van Zweden to kick off the first program in its current concert series, “Authentic Selves: The Beauty Within”. But it was a fitting opening for the evening, which featured countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo (the Phil's current James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence) and cabaret diva Justin Vivian Bond--not only exciting in the piece itself but for what lay ahead in the evening.

New York City Center will soon kick off the 2022 Encores! Season on February 2 - 6 with The Tap Dance Kid, featuring music by Henry Krieger, lyrics by Robert Lorick, and a book by Charles Blackwell. Directed by Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon (A Raisin in the Sun), the production also includes new tap sequences by choreographer Jared Grimes (After Midnight) and a concert adaptation by Lydia Diamond (Stick Fly). Broadway's Joseph Joubert (Caroline or Change) will guest music direct The Tap Dance Kid.