WHAT: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES
WHERE: SHUBERT THEATRE
WHEN: DECEMBER 5-18
TICKETS: (866)523-7469
INFO: Jerry Herman out did himself with La Cage. It was recently revived on Broadway with Kelsey Grammer. This musical stands up no matter how you produce it. The songs “I AM WHAT I AM,” “SONG ON THE SAND,” and “THE BEST OF TIMES IS NOW,”
has one hit after another.
The ever-tanned George Hamilton plays George in La Cage Aux Folles.
The show tells the story of Georges (Hamilton) the owner of a glitzy nightclub in lovely Saint-Tropez, and his partner Albin (Sieber), who moonlights as the glamorous chanteuse Zaza. When Georges’ son brings his fiancée’s conservative parents home to meet the flashy pair, the bonds of family are put to the test as the feather boas fly! LA CAGE AUX FOLLES is a tuneful and touching tale of one family’s struggle to stay together… stay fabulous… and above all else, stay true to themselves!
LA CAGE AUX FOLLES recently made Tony Awards history as the first show to ever win the Tony Award three times for best production. The classic musical comedy by Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein originally won six Tony Awards in 1984, including Best Musical. A Broadway revival won two 2005 Tony Awards including the Best Revival of a Musical prize. The new, freshly reconceived
LA CAGE won three 2010 Tony Awards including Best Revival of a Musical and Best Director of a Musical (Terry Johnson).
The production is also the winner of three Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Revival of a Musical, four Outer Critics Circle Awards, including Outstanding Revival of a Musical and Outstanding Director of a Musical (Terry Johnson) and the Drama League Award for Distinguished Revival of a Musical.
LA CAGE AUX FOLLES features music and lyrics by Jerry Herman and book by Harvey Fierstein, based on the play by Jean Poiret.
Shorter, Jr., Trevor Downey, Logan Keslar, Terry Lavell, Todd Thurston, Todd Lattimore, Christophe Caballerro, and SuEllen Estey.
WHAT: PETER PAN
WHERE:THE 360 THEATRE on CITY HALL PLAZA
WHEN:OCTOBER 18-DECEMBER 30
TICKETS: Tickets are available online at www.peterpantheshow.com/boston by phone at 888-PPANTIX (1-888-772-6849) and at the box office on City Hall Plaza
INFO:
More than 500,000 people on two continents have enjoyed this theatrical experience. Conceived by an award-winning creative team and featuring 23 actors, stunning puppets, epic music, dazzling flying sequences performed in the world’s first 360-degree CGI theater set, PETER PAN is an extraordinary experience. The Boston engagement of the timeless masterpiece is presented by threesixty° entertainment.
One of the most striking elements of this new production is the setting in which it is presented. The threesixty° Theatre, a 1,300 seat theater tent, allows for performance “in the round” and stands on City Hall Plaza, Boston.
The entire interior of the tent is lit with more than 15,000 square feet of Hi-Resolution video – three times the size of Imax screens – so that both cast and audience are immersed in a CGI Neverland. When Peter and Wendy fly to Neverland, the audience flies with them over 400 square miles of virtual London and beyond.
threesixty° entertainment, a theatrical production company based in London with Charlie Burnell, Matthew Churchill, and Robert Butters as principals, commissioned a first class creative team to develop this production of PETER PAN. The cast of PETER PAN features members of the original London production joined by American actors, making it a truly international company.
PETER PAN, directed by Ben Harrison and designed by William Dudley, is adapted by Tanya Ronder from the Barrie story, with music composed by Benjamin Wallfisch. Dudley has received more theatre awards and accolades in the United Kingdom than any theatre artist save Judi Dench. Choreography is by Fleur Darkin, sound design by Gregory Clarke, lighting design by Mark Henderson, fight direction by Nicholas Hall, puppetry design by Sue Buckmaster and illusions by Paul Kieve.
About this production of PETER PAN:
12 projectors, delivering 360 degree projection
10 million pixels
15,000 square feet of CGI
400 square miles of virtual London circa 1904 were rendered
The largest surround CGI venue in the world
The world’s first fully 360-degree projected movie for live theater performance
The tent, which stands 100 feet high, was shipped via boat, 6,000 miles from London to San Francisco.
200 computers took four weeks to create the images – it would have taken eight years for a single computer to render
What: Kathleen Turner in HIGH
Where: Cutler Majestic Theatre Boston
When: Dec 6-11
Tickets: (617)824-8000
Psst for a discount, use this code: HIGH20
Here’s a heads up for December. For one week only, Kathleen Turner will be appearing at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in HIGH. The story centers around Sister Jamison Connelly (Turner), who agrees to sponsor a 19 year old drug-user in order to help him deal with his demons. In doing so, Sister Connelly has to face her own. High explores the universal themes of truth, forgiveness and redemption. High contains strong language, mature themes and full male nudity.
BTW, the NewRep did an outstanding job with their last two–woman play “Collected Stories.” Bobbie Steinbach and Liz Hayes give wonderful performances as the mentor and mentee and the dilemma faced when that balance shifts. The NewReps next production is “Three Viewings” by Jeffrey Hatcher November 27-December 18.h
WHAT: ITZAK PERLMAN, VIOLIN
WHERE: SYMPHONY HALL
WHEN: NOVEMBER 20 at 3 PM
TICKETS: www.celebrityseries.org, by calling CelebrityCharge at (617) 482-6661
INFO:
Celebrity Series of Boston will present violinist Itzhak Perlman in recital.
This marks Itzhak Perlman’s 23rd performance with the Celebrity Series of Boston, with the most recent in 2007. Born in Israel in 1945, violinist Itzhak Perlman completed his initial training at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv. He came to New York and began his career with an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1958. Following his studies at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian and Dorothy DeLay, Perlman won the Leventritt Competition in 1964. In November of 1987 he joined the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra for concerts in Warsaw and Budapest, representing the first performances by this orchestra and soloist in Eastern bloc countries. He then joined the Israel Philharmonic for its first visit to the Soviet Union in April/May of 1990 and in December of 1994 he joined them again for their first visits to China and India. In December 1990, Perlman visited Russia for the second time to participate in a gala performance in Leningrad celebrating the 150th anniversary of Tchaikovsky’s birth. In December 1993, Perlman visited the city of Prague in the Czech Republic to perform in a Dvorák gala concert with
Yo-Yo Ma, Frederica von Stade, Rudolf Firkusny and the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa.
Perlman has appeared as conductor / soloist with the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Pittsburgh, Seattle and Toronto symphonies, at the Ravinia and OK Mozart festivals, with the St. Paul and New York chamber orchestras, and with the Israel Philharmonic and the English Chamber Orchestra. He was Music Advisor of the St. Louis Symphony from 2002 to 2004, and he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Detroit Symphony from 2001 to 2005. He also participates each summer in the Perlman Music Program and teaches at the Juilliard School, where he holds the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation Chair.
In fall of 2011, he joins the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Hall under Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas in a gala concert to open their centennial season, and returns to the same orchestra in April 2012 on a play/conduct program. In October 2011, Mr. Perlman will travel to Asia for recitals in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau with pianist and frequent collaborator, Rohan De Silva. Other highlights of his 2011-12 season include the gala opening of the new Kaufman Center in Kansas City, Missouri with the Kansas City Symphony, a play/conduct performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, and recitals across North America including Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego and Washington, DC.
Mr. Perlman has been recognized with numerous awards, including four Emmy Awards and
15 Grammy awards. President Reagan granted him a “Medal of Liberty” in 1986, and President Clinton awarded him the “National Medal of Arts” in December 2000. He also took part in the inauguration of President Barack Obama and in May 2007, he performed at the State Dinner for Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, hosted by President George W. Bush and Mrs. Bush at the White House. He was awarded an honorary doctorate and a centennial medal on the occasion of Julliard’s 100th commencement ceremony in 2005.
The program for Itzhak Perlman’s performance is to be determined.
WHAT: APHRODITE & THE GODS OF LOVE
WHERE: MFA BOSTON
WHEN: OCTOBER 26-FEBRUARY 20
TICKETS: www.mfa.org or call 617.267.9300.
INFO:
Ancient worshipers had to travel to Mount Olympus in
Greece or to temples in Cyprus to pay homage to Aphrodite, the goddess of love and
beauty, but today, devotees can admire the beguiling divinity closer to home at the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), in Aphrodite and the Gods of Love.
it is the first museum exhibition of classical
works devoted solely to Aphrodite (known as Venus to the Romans) and her realm—one
that celebrates her likeness as the first female nude in western art history. It features
some 160 extraordinary works from the MFA’s Greek and Roman collection, among the
finest holdings in the United States, and includes 13 important loans—nine from Rome
and Naples.
The museum is a great destination. Make it a habit, you will be glad you did.
WHAT: Boston Symphony Orchestra
WHERE: Symphony Hall
WHEN: November 25-29
TICKETS: 617-266-1200 or 888-266-1200
INFO: 508-754-3231 www.musicworcester.org
In his second straight week on the BSO podium, Ludovic Morlot continues to demonstrate his versatility in three concerts November 25-29. To open the program, Mr. Morlot leads the orchestra in John Harbison’s Symphony No. 4, continuing the survey of the composer’s complete symphonies that the BSO began last season. The concert ends with Mahler’s at times brooding, at times vigorously energetic First Symphony. In between the two symphonies is Ravel’s Suite No. 2 from his masterful ballet Daphnis et Chloé, beginning with a scintillating depiction of the sunrise and gradually gaining momentum until finally expending its energy at the end of a frantic orgiastic dance.
This program is one of several programs that the BSO will feature as part of its five-city West Coast tour, December 6-10, under the direction Ludovic Morlot. The tour will begin with two concerts, December 6 and 7, in San Francisco, where the orchestra will be one of seven major U.S. orchestra’s featured in the San Francisco Symphony’s 100th anniversary season-long celebration, and end on December 10 in Los Angeles, where the orchestra will perform for the first time in Disney Hall, after a 20-year absence from the city. The BSO will also perform in Santa Barbara on December 8 and Palm Desert on December 9
WHAT: Handel’s Messiah
WHERE: Mechanics Hall Worcester
WHEN: Sat. December 3 at 8 PM
INFO:
The Worcester Chorus has performed the Christmas portion of Handel’s masterwork each year since 1897. Experience the sound of 100+ voices of the chorus under direction of Christopher Shepard, accompanied by the Festival Orchestra, in the beautifully decorated setting of Mechanics Hall. Singers in the chorus come from as far away as Bolton, Sharon, Southborough, Charlton, Brimfield, Lancaster, and Pawtucket, RI, as well as Worcester and many of the surrounding towns in Central MA.
Special guest soloists for this performance will include renowned Grammy-nominated counter-tenor Ryland Angel, performing the alto solo part.
Soprano Susan Consoli has been a soloist with Boston’s
Emmanuel Music’s Bach Cantata Series since 2005 as well as soloist with the Carmel Bach Festival since 2004, to name but two of her many appearances.
Stanley Wilson, tenor, has a background in both classical music and musical theatre. He has a Master of Music from The Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA in Opera Performance, has worked with the New England Opera Theatre, as well as many choral groups and orchestras and is currently teaching voice at the Groton school as well as privately.
Steven Small has been critically hailed as one of New England’s outstanding soloists and has enjoyed a distinguished career in oratorio and recital throughout New England and beyond. A lyric baritone, Small has been acclaimed for the beauty and flexibility of his voice, as well as his dramatic and interpretive capacity. He serves as the Senior Pastor of the First Congregational Church in West Boylston, MA.
Concert sponsored in part by the Peoples United Bank.
Media Sponsor: Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
The Worcester Music Festival is the oldest Music Festival in the United States, and carries a rich history, including that of the distinguished Worcester Chorus. Since 1858 it has been pre-eminent in presenting great performances by world-renowned orchestras and guest soloists, chamber music, ballet, world music and dance, jazz and choral masterworks in the best venues in Worcester. The Music Guild, a volunteer organization associated with Music Worcester, supports music programs for students and The Young Artist Scholarship Competition.
Music Worcester Inc. has made “a tradition of excellence” its hallmark and its Worcester Music Festival has been recognized by the Library of Congress. Music Worcester, Inc. offices are located in Mechanics Hall at 323 Main Street in the heart of downtown, and presents in the best halls in Worcester.
WHAT: THREE PIANOS
WHERE: Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle Street, Cambridge,
WHEN: December 7, 2011 – January 8, 2012
TICKETS: 1-800-439-2370.
For further information call 617-547-8300 or visit http://www.americanrepertorytheater.org
INFO:
American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) continues its 2011-12 season with Three Pianos by Rick Burkhardt, Alec Duffy and Dave Malloy, with music from Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, Op. 89, D911 (1828), directed by Rachel Chavkin. The production opens on Wednesday, December 7 (press opening on Thursday, December 8 at 7pm) at the Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle Street, Cambridge, and runs through January 8, 2012.
“The best antidote to winter’s bitter dregs…Warms spectators at the hearth of musical enthusiasm… Like being cozily tucked away with a clutch of nerdy music-loving friends, Three Pianos transforms Winterreise’s spectral solitudes into a parable of artistic community.” — The Village Voice
“Full-blooded and full-bodied, Three Pianos lifts its glass to music, to Schubert and to the type of friendship that can make you laugh off heartbreak. It’s also a superb evening. Cheers.” — TimeOut New York
The OBIE winning hit music-theatre event that wowed audiences and critics alike in its sold-out runs at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater and New York Theater Workshop – is a theatrical explosion of Franz Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise. Filled with fantastical touches and inventive arrangements, Three Pianos is a colorful and imaginative evening of chaos, exploring Schubert’s music, life, and times. Set on a blustery winter night, three friends – each manning a piano – lead the audience through fragments of Schubert’s famous work while grappling with fundamental questions about the nature of music and drinking too much. The three pianists slip into a wild reenactment of a “Schubertiad,” a musical salon party thrown by Schubert and his friends, connecting the two groups through the centuries. An evening of hilarity and heartbreak unfolds, in which the audience is invited to the party. Compositional mayhem, shifting rivalries, and some unfortunate butchery of the German language ensue.
About the Artists:
Writer, arranger, and performer Rick Burkhardt is an award‐winning composer, songwriter, and playwright. His original chamber music, theatre, and text pieces have been performed by dozens of ensembles in over forty US cities, as well as in Europe, Mexico, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. He is a founding member of the Nonsense Company, a touring experimental music/theater trio, and the songwriter and accordionist for the Prince Myshkins, a political cabaret/folk duo whose songs have been performed and recorded by a wide variety of musicians across the US.
Writer, arranger, and performer Alec Duffy is a director and playwright, and founder of the theatre company Hoi Polloi. Recent original work includes The less we talk: a meditation on groupsinging, Dysphoria (Ontological Theater) and The Top Ten People of the Millennium Sing Their Favorite Schubert Lieder, which premiered in New York and toured to Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. He was a Drama League Directing Fellow, and one of seven directors nationwide to be selected for the 2007‐ 09 NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors.
Writer, arranger, and performer Dave Malloy is also a composer and sound designer, the winner of a Special Citation OBIE Award and the 2009 Jonathan Larson Grant, a recipient of the 2009-11 NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Theatre Designers, and the 2011 composer-in-residence at Ars Nova. He has written six full length musicals, including Beowulf – A Thousand Years of Baggage (2011 Edinburgh Herald Angel, 2008 Glickman Award, New Yorker Best of 2009) with Banana Bag & Bodice, with whom he has been a company member since 2002. Other shows include Beardo, Sandwich, Clown Bible (“Best Play of the Year,” “Best Music,” East Bay Express 2007) and (The 99-cent) Miss Saigon, a shoe-string adaptation complete with a toy helicopter on a zip line, for which he was musical director, pianist and Chris. He is currently working on Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, an electropop opera based on Tolstoy’s War & Peace. He lives in Brooklyn.
Director Rachel Chavkin is the Artistic Director of the award-winning ensemble the TEAM. With the TEAM, she has directed/co-authored seven works, including Mission Drift (co-produced by NY’s Performance Space 122 and Lisbon’s Culturgest, Winner of the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe First, Herald Angel, and Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize), Particularly in the Heartland (2006 Fringe First, Top Ten 2007 Time Out New York), and Architecting (2008 Fringe First, Top Ten 2009 Portugal’s Publico), produced by the National Theatre of Scotland. She has also collaborated with Three Pianos’ Dave Malloy on his musical adaptation of Book 8 of Tolstoy’s War and Peace (entitled Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812) at Ars Nova, playwright/performer/activist Taylor Mac on The Lily’s Revenge at HERE (with whom she’ll re-unite for the National Theatre of Scotland’s production of Lily’s, Summer 2012), playwright/composer Molly Rice and composer Stephanie Johnstone on The Agee/Evans Project about James Agee’s and Walker Evans’ seminal book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, playwright Steve Yockey on Wonder, and Keith Reddin on Acquainted With the Night. She serves on the directing faculty at Playwrights Horizons Theater School, and teaches Shakespeare at Pace University. Rachel is an Artistic Associate at Classic Stage Company, for whom she has directed a number of readings/workshops and served as Mandy Patinkin’s Shakespeare Coach, an alum of the Drama League Directors Project, the Women’s Project Director’s Lab, a New Georges Affiliate Artist, and an NYTW Usual Suspect.
WHAT: CIRQUE DU SOLEIL QUIDAM
WHERE: Worcester DUC CENTER
WHEN: DECEMBER 14-18
TICKETS: www.cirquedusoleil.com/quidam or by calling 1-800-745-3000.
INFO:
The show Quidam had its world premiere in Montreal under the Big Top in April 1996. Since that time, the production has toured on five continents and been experienced by millions of people. In December 2010, Quidam embarked on a new journey, performing the same captivating production, but now in arenas throughout North America.The international cast features 52 world-class acrobats, musicians, singers and characters. Young Zoé is bored; her parents, distant and apathetic, ignore her. Her life has lost all meaning. Seeking to fill the void of her existence, she slides into an imaginary world—the world of Quidam—where she meets characters who encourage her to free her soul.