Walt Whitman News

Wheeler In The Sky presents a pre-recorded benefit performance of Booth's Ghost to raise money for Twin Cities' theatre artists and organizations, April 24th a?" May 3rd, 2020.

In creatively adapting to the current COVID-19 crisis, Southwest Shakespeare Company has announced an initiative featuring alternative online productions in its STANDING O SERIES and VIRTUAL CLASSICS LIVE!a??

The Academy of American Poets has announced that Harryette Mullen has selected Threa Almontaser as the recipient of the 2020 Walt Whitman Award, the nation's most valuable first-book prize for a poet, for her manuscript, The Wild Fox of Yemen, which will be published by Graywolf Press in April 2021.

In our current enforced state of isolation thanks to the nationwide lockdown, creatives across the country have been engaged in a tornado of generosity sharing their existing work on line and producing theatre at home. One such giver is London's Hampstead Theatre who have released their 2018 production of Lauren Gunderson's I and You starring Maisie Williams and Zach Wyatt via Instagram for a limited period of time.

When was the last time you saw a contemporary coming-of-age story that featured a pair of compelling and complex teenage characters that in its final moments left you breathless? I and You, is that play - youthful, humorous, powerful and profoundly moving. Some reviewers have called it, a?oethe most life-affirming play you'll ever see onstagea??.

MSR Classics presents a concert of music by award-winning composer Sunny Knable in celebration of his album 'Song of the Redwood-Tree: Bassoon Works of Sunny Knable'. Featured performers include bassoonist Scott Pool and pianist Natsuki Fukasawa who commissioned Song of the Redwood-Tree and The Busking Bassoonist. Also included are new works for New York ensembles Parhelion Trio, Trio Cabrini, and Elizabeth Pitcairn, violinist of the 'Red Mendelssohn' Stradivarius, with pianist Barbara Podgurski.

Eight new half-hour episodes of Poetry in America will begin airing on public television stations nationwide (check local listings) and on the World Channel starting this April and continuing through the spring and summer. Also in April, which is National Poetry Month, the series will be available to stream on pbs.org and individual episodes will be available on poetryinamerica.org.

For its 2020 Spring Puppet Forum Series, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will host four free scintillating discussions with nationally and internationally acclaimed puppeteers, scholars, and artists on Wednesday and Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. in February through April in the Ballard Institute Theater, located at 1 Royce Circle in Downtown Storrs. The forums will illuminate new perspectives on the creation, history, aesthetics, and performance of puppetry today.

At the University of Arizona's Centennial Hall. on January 28, 2020, the Tucson Desert Song Festival presented Thomas Hampson, baritone, with Lara Downes, piano, and the Beyond Liberty Players: Stephen Buck, synthesizer; Judy Kang, violin; Jesus Morales, cello; and Alex Laing, clarinet; The show libretto was based on an original work by Royce Vavrek which first appeared in a Francesca Zambello production at the 2018 Glimmerglass Festival in upstate New York

The Strand Theater Company continues its 12th consecutive season as the only brick-and-mortar company in Baltimore exclusively celebrating women's diverse voices and perspectives, with an OBIE award-winning production of Fabulation or, the Re-Education of Undine by Lynn Nottage, directed by Christen Cromwell.

The Long Island Music Hall of Fame has announced that it is accepting applications for the 2020 School Recognition Program.

The Phoenix Chorale, under the direction of new Artistic Director Christopher Gabbitas, performs its first concert of the new decade with achingly beautiful music inspired by the beauty of the night sky. Cosmos will be performed February 28 - March 1, 2020 in venues around the Valley; see detailed schedule below.

Tony Award-winning La MaMa is currently presenting the world premiere of VIRGO STAR, an intimate interactive performance, written and devised by the Pioneers Go East Collective - Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte and Daniel Diaz, in collaboration with Philip Treviño, Anabella Lenzu and Agosto Machado, and directed by Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte.

Choreographer Beth Soll will present her Beth Soll & Company, an ensemble of dancers and musicians in Dances of Passion and Peace, A Concert of New Dance, Music, Poetry, and Translation, an evening of all premieres, set to new music by composers Thomas Addison, Nuria Divi, Wendy Griffiths, Josh Rosen, and Stan Strickland, and poetry, both sung and spoken, of Robert Frost, Lin Haire-Sargeant, Langston Hughes, Rumi, and Walt Whitman.  Poems will be recited in English, French, Catalan, German, French, and American Sign Language.  Performances November 22 & 23 at 8 PM at University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street.

Composer, conductor, writer, pianist, and 2018 MacArthur Fellow Matthew Aucoin is a?oeone of the most sought-after young voices in classical musica?? (Wall Street Journal). Next February, he conducts the world premiere production of his third opera, Eurydice, in six performances at LA Opera, where he has served since 2016 as the inaugural Artist-in-Residence.

The world premiere of VIRGO STAR begins previews tonight, November 14. An intimate interactive performance, the show is written and devised by the Pioneers Go East Collective - Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte and Daniel Diaz, in collaboration with Philip Treviño, Anabella Lenzu and Agosto Machado, and directed by Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte.

As 2019 comes to a close, St. John's in the Village, an Episcopal Church in the heart of Greenwich Village, New York is completing an enriching year of art, music, drama, literature, and comedy with its curated presentations throughout December. Each program is thoughtfully planned out by the church's respected and exuberant rector, Father Graeme Napier, and his devoted staff of clergy's, students, volunteers and interns. 

Hudson Valley-based roots-rockers the Felice Brothers will entertain for a rollicking, roots-rocking New Year's Eve at Club Helsinki Hudson on Tuesday, December 31, at 9pm, with their Woodstock-bred fusion of rock, country, folk, soul and gospel, that is often compared to their Catskills-based predecessors, the Band.

The first New York City Master Chorale (NYCMC) concert of the 2019-2020 season, A Procession Winding Around Me, will be held on Saturday, November 16, at St. Peter's Chelsea. The concert features three rarely heard works for guitar and chorus, with poetry by two of history's most-beloved poets - Federico García Lorca and Walt Whitman - and will open with an anonymous Renaissance text set to music by Catalan composer Mateo Flecha. The choir will be joined by Giacomo Baldelli on guitar.

The UofSC Department of Theatre and Dance will present Lauren Gunderson's award-winning play I and You at the Lab Theatre, November 20-23, 2019.