Mark Valdez - Page 8

Vienna has been home to some of the world's most important composers and has inspired some of the greatest works in Western musical history. The Bach Festival Society of Winter Park concludes its 2011-2012 Season with "Spring in Vienna," featuring music that captures the spirit of the "city of music." The Bach Festival Choir and Orchestra are joined by soprano Julia Foster and tenor Curtis Rayam on a program including the Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss, the first movement of Schubert's Symphony No. 8 ("The Unfinished"), excerpts from Brahms' Liebeslieder Waltzes, and "Spring" from Haydn's The Seasons.

Breakin' Convention is back for the ninth year with the annual May Bank Holiday extravaganza at Sadlers Wells, continuing with a national tour until June. Breakin' Convention is the international festival of Hip Hop dance and as well as breaking and popping, audiences can see different hip hop dance forms including locking and b-boying plus newer styles such as house dance, devised on dance floors and born out of club culture.

Comedians Spanky Brown and Amy Schumer are set to perform at the Side Splitters Comedy Club April 12-15 and April 19-21, respectively.

The Queen's Company, New York City's all-female classical theater company, proudly presents William Shakespeare's AS YOU LIKE IT, directed by The Queen's Company Artistic Director Rebecca Patterson. As You Like It runs from May 4 - 20, 2012 in a limited engagement at Walkerspace, located at 46 Walker Street between Broadway and Church Street in Tribeca. Previews begin May 4 for a May 5 opening.

Syfy will drive viewers to dream big and build bigger as its latest original reality series Dream Machines premieres on Tuesday, April 10 at 10PM (ET/PT) featuring guest star 50 Cent, immediately following WWE SuperSmackDown Live at 8 PM (ET/PT).

Oxygen will air a special social media edition of 'Bad Girls Club Las Vegas' on Monday, April 9 at 9PM ET/PT. Tweets by current Bad Girls and those of select viewers about the new housemates, Erica's venture into the hip hop world and all the drama in between will be featured on screen during the social media edition of 'Bad Girl Players,' which originally aired on Monday, April 2. Following the special social media episode of 'Bad Girls Club Las Vegas,' viewers have another chance to watch the Victor Twins Special, 'Double Trouble: The Twins Speak' with host Tanisha Thomas at 10PM ET/PT.

An initial line-up of organizations that will present 2011 American Theatre Critics Association Francesca Primus Prize winning playwright Caridad Svich's new play THE WAY OF THE WATER has been announced. This work, which is about the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill and its effects on human health and the environment in the US Gulf region, is being made available for local presentations during the month of April (and selected venues in May) to mark the two-year anniversary of the spill and to raise increased awareness toward health and environmental concerns, by NoPassport theatre alliance & press, an unincorporated collective dedicated to the advocacy, production and publication of works expressive of cross-cultural and aesthetic diversity in the arts.

The cast has been set for the world premiere of the chamber musical LOS OTROS, with book and lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh and music by Michael John LaChiusa. LOS OTROS will run May 23 through July 1, 2012, with the opening scheduled for June 3. Tony Award-winner Michele Pawk has been cast to play the role of Woman and Julio Monge will play the role of Man.

Deutsche Grammophon presents conductor Myung-Whun Chung and his Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra with a new album of Debussy and Ravel. The orchestra regularly performs for largely sold-out audiences. In anticipation of the orchestra's first official North American tour, the Yellow Label releases this album of French masterpieces, available April 10.

THE LAST FIVE YEARS is a contemporary musical that chronicles the five year life of a marriage, from meeting to break-up. As the story begins, Cathy is at the beginning of the relationship and Jamie is at the end. With inter-cutting scenes, the audience watches Jamie move forward in time as Cathy moves backward throughout the show. THE LAST FIVE YEARS is a look at the relationship between a writer and an actress told from both points of view.

An illustrated 14th-century Catalonian haggadah from the collection of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, England, will be displayed in the Gallery for Western European Art from 1050 to 1300 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning March 27. A haggadah is the book used at the Passover seder, the ritual meal that commemorates the exodus of the ancient Israelites from Egypt. Works of art from the Museum's own collection, made for Christian use, but depicting the saga of the Hebrew people, will suggest the larger, medieval context of biblical storytelling in which the Haggadah was created.

The Winthrop Playmakers present 15 Minutes of Fame: A Singer's Showcase, April 6th and 7th at 8PM.

The Brooklyn Philharmonic presents Charlie Looker, Tim Fite, and Natalie Elizabeth Weiss as 2011-12 Outside-In Composer Fellows, in the Outside-In Annual Concert on Wednesday, May 2 at Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO, Brooklyn. The Outside-In Composer Fellowship Program pairs non-orchestral composers from diverse musical backgrounds including hip hop, electronica, world music, jazz and indie rock with Resident Composer-Mentor, Randall Woolf, and the Brooklyn Phil's own Artistic Director, Alan Pierson. The fellows' new pieces will be performed by the Brooklyn Phil Chamber Players.

The Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park brings back Keith's Glover's musical THUNDER KNOCKING ON THE DOOR in the Robert. S Marx Theatre April 21 through May 20.

The Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall's 2012-2013 Broadway Season includes nine Broadway shows, and seven Broadway "Specials."

The Wetumpka Depot Players are bringing together a cast to tell the Biblical story of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat! Joseph is played by AACT National Best Actor Award nominee Jonathan Conner who shined as B Flat in the award winning Depot production of Second Samuel. Directed by the Depot's Executive Director Kristy Meanor, the musical comes to life as Joseph finds out the hard way that blood is not always thicker than jealousy.

The award-­winning Beau Jest Moving Theatre returns to the Charlestown Working Theater with their original interpretation of the rarely seen fantasy TEN BLOCKS ON THE CAMINO REAL.

Renowned Javanese gamelan musicians Ki Midiyanto and Gamelan Pacifica are set to perform in a concert of traditional gamelan music from Central Java and new compositions by Ki Midiyanto, Stephen Fandrich, and Jarrad Powell. The performance will be held at PONCHO Concert Hall, May 12th at 8PM. Tickets can be reserved by calling 206.726.5066 or online at www.cornish.edu/musicseries.

En Borrador, one of Paraguay's experimental theater companies, makes their New York City debut with VERSION 6...SOMOS LAS HISTORIAS QUE CONTAMOS (English translation: VERSION 6…WE'RE THE STORIES WE TELL) April 20th and 21st at 7PM. A theatrical collaboration that premiered this past summer in Paraguay and features many of the country's top dramatic artists, VERSION 6, performed in Spanish and Guarani (Paraguay's indigenous language), VERSION 6 is a theatrical exploration of identity, who we are as human beings and how our identity is created through the stories that mark our lives.

The cocktail lounge Beauty Bar will be hosting Spike and Mike's Twisted Animation Festival for the second year in a row, as the festival makes its two-day return April 6th and 7th for the birthday celebration of Beauty Bar owner and Down and Derby Roller Disco producer Noah Ray McMahan. Both evenings will include S&M's brand of twisted animated shorts, and to promote the evening, founder Spike Decker is available for interview.