Harmony Wheeler - Page 16

For its spring program, Smuin Ballet will present the West Coast premiere of Swipe by Val Caniparoli, internationally renowned choreographer and principal character dancer at San Francisco Ballet. Smuin audiences will also be treated to the World Premiere of Through by Ma Cong (French Twist), an uplifting work set to music by Academy Award-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. The bill will also include Michael Smuin's elegant Symphony of Psalms, a breathtaking classical piece set to Stravinsky's score. Smuin's spring program will play at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts April 27-May 6, Walnut Creek's Lesher Center for the Arts May 18-19, and the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts May 23-27. Single tickets ($25-$62) are on sale now at www.smuinballet.org. (See end of press release for complete box office information.)

Mad Cow Theatre's intimate 2-theatre complex in Downtown Orlando plays host to The Tenth Annual Orlando Cabaret Festival, May 3-13, 2012. Over 25 performances of jazz, pop, Broadway, comedy, and a few surprises featuring many of Central Florida's favorite artists. Eight veteran vocalists team up to present four shows in this year's festival -the company includes Evan D'Angeles, Cami Miller, Zach Nadolski, Frank Siano, Trevor Southworth, Melissa Vasquez, Natalie Walker, and Julie Woods-Robinson.

Genesis Repertory - in the 3+ years it maintained residence in Brooklyn - has continued its acclaimed classical stage, premiered musicals and new works, expanded its training program to include acting, voice, young people's programs, and playwrighting, and even premiered a film at New York's Anthology Film Archives, now takes on a second location: The Block Institute's Block Academy, located at 133 27th Avenue, houses a 650-seat theater with it's own entrance, private bathrooms, dressing areas, and kitchen/concession. Mary Elizabeth MiCari, Genesis' artistic director, decided to inaugurate this new space with the company's The Final Projects, part of its arts intensive training program, Genesis University on Stage. The event will be Saturday night, April 21 at 8:00 p.m. $10 All Seats.

If you struggle to get your man even to buy you flowers, Moss Rich's poems will melt your heart with a lifetime of love poems written to his wife Milly to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. Pighog Press published a selection of the poems as Lifetime of Love in a boxed set in 2011. The performance puts his poems in their historical context including his association with the Unity Theatre in the 1930s and the whole arc of Jewish culture through the twentieth century. This adaptation, starring Nic Choulman and Raymond Daniel-Davies, brings the poems to life in a promenade performance including projections and audio at the Bali Brasserie in Hove.

Playwright Annie Baker and director Sam Gold-whose previous collaborations include the acclaimed The Aliens and Circle Mirror Transformation-have reunited to stage a new adaptation of Chekhov's masterpiece, Uncle Vanya. Soho Rep, which, in association with John Adrian Selzer, will present the world premiere production June 7-July 15, today announces the cast and creative team.

The Next Fifty, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1962 Seattle World's Fair, Apr 21 - Oct 21, begins on Saturday, Apr 21 with a full day of festivities, 10 a.m. - 5:30 p.m., on the Center grounds.

Years before Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance turned ballroom dancing into must-see TV, one show was setting stages ablaze around the globe. BURN THE FLOOR, the Latin and Ballroom dance spectacular that has thrilled audiences in more than 30 countries, brings the fire and passion of their live performance to the Providence Performing Arts Center (PPAC) for 5 performances only, May 4 - 6, 2012. BURN THE FLOOR is the final installment in the Taco/The White Family Foundation Contemporary Classics Series. Tickets are on sale now at the PPAC Box Office, online at www.ppacri.org and by phone at (401) 421-ARTS (2787).

Nederlander Presentations, Inc. announces that Grammy® Nominee and R&B superstar Deborah Cox will star as Lucy in the international musical sensation JEKYLL & HYDE that will begin a preview engagement at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, September 7 - 30, prior to returning to Broadway in April 2013 following a 25-week National Tour. The tour will launch at San Diego's Civic Theatre in San Diego, California on October 2, 2012. Cox will star alongside the previously announced Tony Award Nominee Constantine Maroulis in the title dual role of Dr. Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde.

Seattle-based theater ensemble The Wrecking Crew presents Pugilist Specialist, an award winning political theatre piece by Adriano Shaplin, starting Friday, May 11th. The production will run through Saturday, May 19th, 2012 at Stone Soup Theatre's DownStage on 4029 Stone Way North (between Fremont and Wallingford).

PERFECT CRIME, Warren Manzi's long-running funny, romantic thriller, will celebrate its 25th anniversary Off Broadway on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 with performance number 10,233. PERFECT CRIME is the longest-running play in the history of New York theater.

KIMMY SCHWIMMY perform Live Saturday, April 21st in Veteran's Memorial Park (at the intersection of Broadway and Third Ave in Westwood) as part of a special Three Day Shopping Event! The Three Day Westwood Shopping Event will promote shopping in Westwood as well as benefit the charity of St. Jude's North Jersey Chapter 'Angels of Hope Committee'. The event is hosted by Bergen Mama in association with Westwood's Chamber of Commerce.

Scandinavian American Theater Company (SATC), in connection with its American Premiere of Jokum Rohde's play Pinocchio's Ashes, will present two post-show discussions featuring members of the creative team. These will take place in the theater (Theater for the New City, 155 1st Avenue). Admission is free.

Join the performers at the Rhino Theatre for a trip down memory lane as they celebrate some of the most beloved songs from a musical era long past. This revue style show will feature some of those popular hit songs of the 50's and 60's including Doo Wop, Motown, Musical Idols and even some of your favorites from the British Invasion!

ZOE CALDWELL was born in 1933 in Melbourne, Australia, and quickly became a professional actress playing "Slightly Soiled" in "Peter Pan." Telling other people's stories, using other people's words to keep audiences awake and in their seats was all she knew how to do, press notes state. She has spent the last half century learning more about her craft in many of the greatest companies of the Western World. To her credit are four Tony Awards, an OBE (Order of the British Empire), and a book "I Will Be Cleopatra" published by W.W. Norton. In 2003, she doffed her bonnet to the chancellor of Melbourne University and was made an honorary Doctor of Laws. Recently, she appeared in the film "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" and starred in David Adjmi's play "Elective Affinities."

Will Pomerantz, director of The Blue Flower at Prospect Theater Company and Second Stage and Dai at the Culture Project, will direct Prospect Theater Company's upcoming production of Cole Porter's 1933 musical Nymph Errant. Performances will begin July 7 at the Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row.

Following sell-out seasons in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, Big hART's multi-sensory theatrical production, Namatjira premieres in Adelaide from 4 to 12 May at Her Majesty's Theatre. The portrayal of the extraordinary life of Aboriginal artist, Albert Namatjira will be complemented by an exhibition featuring watercolour paintings by Albert Namatjira's descendants from the Ngurratjuta Many Hands Arts Centre at Adelaide Festival Centre's Artspace Gallery.

Choreographer/dancer Stefanie Batten Bland has had a busy year and is poised to have an even busier future beginning with the April 19 premiere of "The Legacy of Inheritance" for Ailey II, her first work for the company, followed by the world premiere of "A Place of Sun" on May 10 and the New York premiere of "Terra Firma" at the Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC), May 17 and 18, where she has been a two-time recipient of a Jerome Robbins New Essential Works fellowship (NEW). The performances mark the first time Bland's choreography has been seen in New York since 2009.

A humorous and thought-provoking journey into nostalgia, Maple and Vine begins with a fun, relaxing first act that follows a couple's decision to join a sort of "cult" community that chooses to live in 1955 every year. But don't let the first half fool you, the 50s weren't as perfect as they seem on television, and this play quickly escalates into a second act with shocking changes, F-words thrown loosely about in sexually provocative (and likely offensive to some) manners, and exaggerated kisses from two main characters.

The Arvada Center in collaboration with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival (CSF) will open William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, or What You Will, a Comedy on Tuesday, May 1, 2012. Colorado Shakespeare Festival's Producing Artistic Director, Philip C. Sneed, is directing the show. Twelfth Night will run in the intimate 220 seat Black Box Theater May 1 - 27. Previews are April 27 - 29 at 7:30pm nightly. Performances are Tuesday through Saturday at 7:30pm, Wednesday at 1:00 pm, Saturday and Sunday at 2:00pm. Talkbacks will be offered Friday, May 11 after the 7:30pm show and Wednesday, May 16 after the 1:00pm show. Ticket prices range from $25 (previews) - $47 for prime seating. To order tickets call 720-898-7200 or go online to www.arvadacenter.org.

During a scene of John Logan's Tony-winning "Red," soon to be presented at Performance Network Theatre, the artist Mark Rothko and his assistant reach a pivotal breakthrough when passionately arguing what the color red represents to them; lipstick, a heartbeat, the feeling of a sunrise. Inspired by this question -- what IS red? -- Performance Network Theatre has begun "Red All Over," a Community Art Project aimed at creating an artistic representation of Ann Arbor, using only the color red.