This is Our Youth - 1996 - Off-Broadway Articles Page 13

The International Festival of Arts & Ideas today announced complete details for Festival 2019, which opens on June 8 and continues for two weeks through June 22 in New Haven, Connecticut.

Now celebrating the 24th anniversary in Houston and the 27th season since its inception in Brussels, Belgium, Dance Salad Festival promises another gathering of world-class performers. Famous in their own countries, classical and contemporary dancers share the Dance Salad Festival stage to form a mix of movement and compelling choreography.

DCINY (Distinguished Concerts International New York) presents Vocal Colors, a celebration of choral tradition and innovation, featuring composer and conductor Alexander L'Estrange and his popular work Zimbe!, a choral arrangement of traditional African songs performed by an international choir of children and adults and accompanied by a jazz quintet.  At the second act of the evening, conducted by Matthew Melendez, the Great Bend Chorale performs the world premiere of composer John Muehleisen's Borders, commissioned by the choir, and Andrey Stolyarov's Out of the depths. The concert will be held on Friday, May 24, at 7 pm at Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall. Tickets start at $20 and may be purchased by visiting DCINY.org.

For the third year, The Philadelphia Youth Orchestra (PYO) conducted a nationwide search to name the three winners in the PYO Young Composers Competition. All participants submitted original orchestral scores. The winners were selected by PYO's music director, Maestro Louis Scaglione, and the director of the Young Composers Competition, Sheridan Seyfried, who is a Philadelphia-based composer, a PYO alumnus and a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music where he studied with Richard Danielpour, Jennifer Higdon and Ned Rorem.

Centenary University's Sports Management Department presents Joe Piscopo Sunday, April 14 at 3pm in the Lackland Performing Arts Center. The event is being held as a special fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Clubs of New Jersey. Tickets are $20.00 for general admission.

Citadel + Compagnie presents the world premiere of Canadian dance luminary James Kudelka's Four Old Legs, on stage April 12-13 & 17-20, 2019 at 8pmand April 14 at 4pm at the Citadel: Ross Centre for Dance. Citadel + Compagnie's resident choreographer and Order of Canada appointee Kudelka has created this poignant performance piece celebrating time, memory, and experience.

Edinburgh International Festival returns for its 73rd year on 2 - 26 August 2019, bringing the best of theatre, music and dance from across the world to Scotland's capital.

As his production of Richard Hawley and Chris Bush's Standing at the Sky's Edge opens in the Crucible, Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres, Robert Hastie, announces programming for 2019.

Cara Mia Theatre continues its tradition of creating new and experimental plays that reflect the Latinx experience through Teatro En Fuga: A Festival of New Works (April 12- April 28, 2019).  This one-of-a-kind festival in North Texas features new plays by members of Cara Mia's resident artistic ensemble. All plays are works in progress and allow audience members to experience the development of new work for potential world premiere productions in future seasons.

Ensemble for the Romantic Century (Eve Wolf, Executive Artistic Director) continues the 2018 - '19 season, ERC's 18th, with its final offering of the season, Hans Christian Andersen: Tales Real & Imagined by Eve Wolf. 

TexARTS Musical Theatre Academy is pleased to present Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach, Jr. with words and music by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and book by Timothy Allen McDonald. The production will run April 6-7 & 13-14 at the Kam & James Morris Theatre at TexARTS. 

Bay Area connections abound in Connections, the California Symphony's 33rd season and its seventh under the baton of Music Director Donato Cabrera in a newly expanded season which Cabrera says is a step up artistically compared with previous seasons.

The Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts celebrates the circle of life and numerous other entertainment pleasures with an audience-pleasing assortment of stellar concerts, shows and special events throughout April and May

Chicago Opera Theater's Orli and Bill Staley Music Director Lidiya Yankovskaya and Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson General Director Ashley Magnus today announced the plans for the company's 47th season, to include productions of two exciting contemporary operas, a Chicago premiere by Rachmaninov, and the company's second world premiere commission. Yankovskaya will conduct each of these Chicago Opera Theater (COT) productions.

Tony Award-winner Anna D. Shapiro will direct the upcoming musical The Devil Wears Prada, with music by Sir Elton John, lyrics by Shaina Taub, and book by Paul Rudnick.

It's time to strike up the band for the 7th annual concert by the McCallum Theatre Concert Band, with conductor and McCallum Theatre President & CEO Mitch Gershenfeld, on Sunday, March 24, at 3:00pm. Highlights of this year's concert will be a performance of the beloved "Carnival of the Animals" by Saint-Saens featuring pianist Jeffrey Siegel and a new text written and performed by David Gonzalez, and special guest appearances by Gavin MacLeod (narrator) and former TEN Tenor Chad Hilligus (guest vocalist). And, after the concert, there is free ice cream for everyone!

It's always a joy to take a stroll down 'Avenue Q,' Broadway's Tony Award winning musical soon to be ending a fifteen year run in New York City and currently being presented at the Cultural Arts Playhouse in Syosset. Audiences are still flocking to the numerous productions of this crowd-pleasing sensation popping up all over the globe. The Cultural Arts Playhouse admirably delivers the hysterical 'Sesame Street for adults' musical, faithfully sticking to the original concept and adding it's own special touches here and there keeping it fresh and exciting.

As part of its Dance-mopolitan Featured Artist Series, DANCE NOW is pleased to present acclaimed choreographer Zvi Gotheiner's 2016 work On the Road, a multimedia dance piece inspired by Jack Kerouac's famed novel of the same name. Performances are Thursday through Saturday, April 25-27, at 7pm, at Joe's Pub.

Musical Theatre Guild, the winner of the Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Margaret Harford Award for sustained excellence in the theatre, will present MTG REWIND, a special benefit to support Musical Theatre Guild's extensive youth outreach programs. The event, an intimate celebration of over 20 years of Musical Theatre Guild's best musical moments, will take place at Rockwell Table and Stage on Monday, March 25, 2019 at 8:00 pm.

Four symphonic orchestras, a major heritage museum and one of Los Angeles' leading performing arts centers will join forces in 2020 for an ambitious collaborative initiative that will bring to life the sounds of music once lost. 

Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's CSC 2 Series for Young Audiences is pleased to announce that it received a grant from the Youth in Philanthropy at Foundation for MetroWest to support its Stage2 production of Romeo & Juliet. CSC2 presents an annual production of Shakespeare's plays for students from over 20 local schools, as well as a Community Performance, taking place this spring from May 23-31 at the Carling-Sorenson Theater at Babson College, 231 Forest Street, Wellesley, MA.

General Director Ken McConnell and Artistic Director Tobias Picker today announced Tulsa Opera's 72nd season comprising classics such as Bizet's Carmen and Puccini's Madama Butterfly, and a new production of Mr. Picker's 1996 opera Emmeline, to be performed in Oklahoma for the first time, and led by Mr. Picker in his opera-conducting debut.

Casita Maria Center for Arts & Education, in partnership with Pregones Theater, is proud to present 'We Have Ire,' a free excerpt performance of the multi-disciplinary theater project, on March 9, 2019, 2 - 2:45 p.m. The performance combines spoken word and theater produced by Cuban-American writer, performer, Doris Duke; Artist and San Francisco resident Paul S. Flores; with live jazz music from artist Yosvany Terry; modern dance from Ramon Ramos Alayo; video projection by Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi; and hip-hop beats from DJ Leydis. Directed by Rosalba Rolon.

The McCallum Theatre presents the 20th Anniversary Tour of Rent for five performances, Friday, February 8, through Sunday, February 10. In 1996, an original rock musical by a little-known composer opened on Broadway and forever changed the landscape of American theatre. Two decades later, Jonathan Larson's Rent continues to speak loudly and defiantly to audiences across generations and all over the world. I had the chance to chat with Lencia Kebede who plays Joanne in this current production, as the tour is making its way to The McCallum, about her personal journey and her journey with Rent. Here are a few excerpts from that conversation.

The personal becomes the political when passionately-opinionated African American women speak their minds on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Black Lives Matter, missing black women and girls, black-on-black crime, and male/female relationships in a soul-stirring mix of song, dance, poetry, and prose. The interrelated dramatic monologues range from tragedy to comedy in a 'newsical' revue that examines pressing social issues from an African-American female perspective. Sistas on Fire! A Newsical uses theatre to provoke thought, encourage social activism, and build bridges that cross race, class, gender and culture. In short, it's For Colored Girls for the New Millennium.