Kelli O'Hara-Led COSI FAN TUTTE, LaBute's REASONS TO BE PRETTY HAPPY, JERRY SPRINGER Opera Highlight 2018 Works & Process Season at The Guggenheim
By: BWW News Desk Dec. 04, 2017
Works & Process at the Guggenheim has announced its spring 2018 season. Since 1984 the performing-arts series has championed new works and offered audiences unprecedented access to leading creators and performers.
Programs explore the creative process through stimulating artist discussions and riveting performance highlights.
Each 70-minute program takes place in the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Peter B. Lewis Theater. Additional information is available at worksandprocess.org.
SPRING 2018 SEASON SCHEDULE:
The New Group: Jerry Springer-The Opera
Monday, January 8, 7:30 pm
Prior to the opening of Jerry Springer-The Opera, co-creator Richard Thomas(Music, Book, Lyrics; Book by Stewart Lee), director John Rando, and choreographer Joshua Bergasse discuss the process behind this gleefully profane musical that outrageously celebrates the ritual of public humiliation and redemption. Cast members perform highlights, illuminating the chaos and unrestrained id of our times.
DANCE COMMISSION
Battleground
Wednesday-Friday, January 10-12, 7:30 pm
Following the sold-out premiere of Battleground in 2016, Works & Process presents an encore of this one-of-a-kind "Cosplay-Battle-Ballet" made in and for the museum's Frank Lloyd Wright-designed theater. Three squads of performers-the Red Choir Loft, the Green Balcony, and the Blue Stage-battle for dominance with audience members acting as embedded witnesses.
DANCE COMMISSION
One of Sixty-Five Thousand Gestures/NEW BODIES
Jodi Melnick with Jared Angle, Sara Mearns,andGretchen Smith
Sunday and Monday, January 14 and 15, 7:30 pm
Works & Process -presents an encore of choreographer Jodi Melnick's sold-out 2016 commission, One of Sixty-Five Thousand Gestures/NEW BODIES. This workweaves together dance, spoken text, and moderated discussion with live music,featuring New York City Ballet dancers Jared Angle, Sara Mearns, and Gretchen Smith, with harpsichord by composer György Ligeti, violin by composer Heinrich Biber, and commissioned music by Robert Boston.
A New Carousel
Sunday, February 4, 7:30 pm
Rodgers & Hammerstein's timeless musical returns to Broadway for the first time in over two decades. The new productionfeatures choreography by New York City Ballet's Justin Peck and direction by Jack O'Brien. Prior to the Broadway opening of Carousel, cast members perform excerpts of new choreography, and Peck and O'Brien discuss the creative process behind this new presentation of a musical drama that has captivated theatergoers for generations.
Mozart in the Jungle: Inside the Music
Sunday, February 11, 3 and 7:30 pm
Audiences are invited inside the world of Mozart in the Jungle, the Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning television series set in the orbit of the fictional New York Symphony. The Amazon show has featured performances by artists including Joshua Bell and Plácido Domingo, who sang on a raft in a Venetian canal with fictional opera diva "La Fiamma" (played by Monica Bellucci), conducted by Maestro Rodrigo de Souza (Gael García Bernal), and cameos by composers Nico Muhly and Caroline Shaw. At Works & Process, Shaw joins showrunner Will Graham and creative consultant Elena Park in a program that takes the audience inside the music, including performances by Shaw of music that was originally created for the television series.
The Metropolitan Opera: Così fan tutte
Peter Gelb, Christopher Maltman, Phelim McDermott, and Kelli O'Hara
Monday, February 12, 7:30 pm
Prior to the Metropolitan Opera's premiere of Così fan tutte, general manager Peter Gelb leads a panel discussion about the company's new production, which sets Mozart's masterpiece in a carnivalesque, funhouse environment inspired by 1950s Coney Island. The panel includes baritone Christopher Maltman, who sings Don Alfonso; production director Phelim McDermott; and soprano and Broadway star Kelli O'Hara, who sings Despina. Members of the cast perform excerpts from the opera.
The Washington Ballet
Julie Kent and Gemma Bond
Sunday and Monday, February 25 and 26, 7:30 pm
A champion of new choreography, Washington Ballet artistic director Julie Kent and American Ballet Theatre corps de ballet member Gemma Bond discusses Bond's newest work. Washington Ballet dancers perform highlights from a new commision by Bond prior to the March 14premiere in Washington, D.C.
LA Phil/Beth Morrison Projects: Place
Ted Hearne, Patricia McGregor, and Saul Williams
Monday, March 5, 7:30 pm
A modern-day oratorio, Place explores a country at a crossroads, where manifest destiny and gentrification meet history and personal experience. The creatorsdiscuss their collaboration and the complex and contentious map of the place we call home. Actors Steven Bradshawand Allison Semmes perform highlights prior to the premiere at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles (April 2018), Barbican Centre, London (May 2018), and in New York (fall 2018).
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis: An American Soldier
David Henry Hwang and Huang Ruo
Sunday, March 18, 7:30 pm
Excerpts are performed from this new two-act opera based on the true story ofDanny Chen, proud American and son of Chinese immigrants residing in Manhattan's Chinatown. After enlisting in the U.S. Army, Chen is welcomed in boot camp, but in Afghanistan, his own base becomes enemy territory as military hazing turns deadly, posing powerful questions about what it means to be an American. Librettist David Henry Hwang and composer Huang Ruo discuss their collaboration with Nancy Yao Maasbach, president of the Museum of Chinese in America, prior to the opera's premiere in Saint Louis.
Presented in association with the Museum of Chinese in America, New York.
Prurience
Christopher Green
An experiential entertainment about our private pleasures . . .
March 20-31
For performance times, visit worksandprocess.org.
Location: The Wright restaurant at the Guggenheim
After interviewing neuroscientists, sociologists, addiction experts, and therapists, writer and performer Christopher Green presents an immersive theater experience inviting audiences to attend a fictional self-help group thattakes a playful look at how sex and pornography are consumed.Questioning theside effects of porn, Green asksaudiences to consider if society is in the grip of anactual addiction or a moral panic.
COSTUME AND DANCE COMMISSION
Reid Bartelme and Harriet Jung
Sunday, March 25, 3 and 7:30 pm
Monday, March 26, 7:30 pm
Costume design takes center stage in this new work devised by designers Reid & Harriet Design in collaboration with their favorite clients and dance makers, Lar Lubovitch, Pam Tanowitz, Jack Ferver, Gwen Welliver, and Burr Johnson.
Nederlands Dans Theater
Sol León and Paul Lightfoot
Saturday, March 31, 7:30 pm
This performance offers behind-the-scenes access to the Nederlands Dans Theater's U.S. tour. Company dancers perform highlights from Sol León and Paul Lightfoot's Shoot the Moon (2006), with music by Philip Glass; andSingulière Odyssée (2017), featuring music by Max Richter. León and Lightfoot participate in a moderated discussion.
Breaking Bread with Balanchine
Sunday and Monday, April 8 and 9, 7:30 pm
Legendary choreographer George Balanchine was also a great cook. Food scholar Meryl Rosofsky previews her "culinary biography" of the dance master, showing how his relationship to food illuminates forces-cultural, geographic, political-that shaped him as an artist. Joining her are special guests who danced or dined with Balanchine. Dancers from New York City Ballet perform excerpts.
Prior to the program, The Wright restaurant at the Guggenheim will offer special dishes from Balanchine's repertoire, including his paskha and kulich, which he made each year for his famous Russian Easter feasts. Reservations for this special dinner will be accepted starting in March call 212 427 5690 or visit OpenTable.
BALANCHINE is a trademark of the George Balanchine Trust.
American Ballet Theatre: AFTERITE
Sunday and Monday, April 29 and 30, 7:30 pm
Utilizing Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring as inspiration, the Royal Ballet resident choreographer Wayne McGregor presents a new work that reconceptualizes the seminal work. McGregor and American Ballet Theatredancers present excerpts of AFTERITE prior to its New York premiere at the Metropolitan Opera.
Ephrat Asherie Dance: Odeon
Sunday, May 6, 7:30 pm
Ephrat Asherie, a 2016 Bessie Award-winner, discusses her newest work prior to its Jacob's Pillow premiere with festival director Pamela Tatge. Dancers and musicians perform highlights and explore what happens when dances from the African diaspora-including breaking, hip hop, house, and vogue-intersect and remix with the music of Brazilian composer Ernesto Nazareth.
MCC Theater: Reasons to Be Pretty Happy
Neil LaBute and Leigh Silverman
Sunday, July 29, 7:30 pm
Tony Award-winner Neil LaBute and Tony Award-nominee Leigh Silverman discuss their creative process, and cast members perform highlights fromReasons to Be Pretty Happy. Labute, MCC Theater's Playwright-in-Residence, and Silverman revisit the characters first introduced in Reasons to Be Pretty (a 2009 Tony Award-nominee for Best Play) and Reasons to Be Happy (2012). After five years in New York, Greg and Steph return to their blue-collar hometown for their 20th high school reunion and to a dramatic encounter with the friends they left behind.
All events take place in the Peter B. Lewis Theater (unless otherwise noted) at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue at 89th Street. Subway: 4, 5, 6, or Q train to 86th Street | Bus: M1, M2, M3, or M4 bus on Madison or Fifth Avenue.
Tickets: $45, $40 members; $10 student rush tickets one hour before performance, based on availability (for students under 25 with valid ID). Priority ticket access and preferred seat selection startsDecember 4, 2017, for $500+ Friends of Works & Process and Guggenheim members at the Associate level and above. General ticketing starts December 13, 2017.
For more information, call 212 758 0024 or 212 423 3587, Mon-Fri, 1-5 pm, or visit worksandprocess.org.
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