LTAC Sets 2016-17 Season

Now in its sixth season, the Lone Tree Arts Center (LTAC) has established a reputation for presenting outstanding and engaging professional performances for audiences reaching far beyond its south metro Denver location. 60,000 people a year attend performances at the Arts Center, with ticket sales topping $1 million annually. At a private subscriber event on Friday evening, Executive Director Lisa Rigsby Peterson announced LTAC's offerings for the 2016-17 season.

"As we enter our sixth season, the remarkable quality of programming for which the Lone Tree Arts Center has become known reaches even higher heights," says Rigsby Peterson. "From a world premiere musical to the expansion of our National Geographic Live speakers series to legendary musician Art Garfunkel, to world-class artists like Wendy Whelan, Brian Brooks, and Brooklyn Rider as well as Mark O'Connor and the Takács Quartet, our 2016-17 season will be marked by outstanding performances in our beautiful, intimate theater. Our patrons love our welcoming environment, free parking, and, most of all, the opportunity to explore a host of cultural offerings available nowhere else in Colorado."

The LTAC season is anchored by a three-show subscription package. In December, Randal Myler returns to the Arts Center to direct It's a Wonderful Life: A Radio Play . The beloved American holiday classic comes to life as a live 1940s radio broadcast, complete with an applause sign, commercial jingles, and a foley artist producing on-stage sound effects.

In February, Myler returns for the world premiere of Muscle Shoals: I'll Take You There, celebrating the incredible music recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama, including the stories behind the music. Music from legendary artists such as Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, the Staples Sisters, and Mac Davis will be performed.

LTAC is thrilled to present its first large-scale musical in April, the much-loved masterpiece EVITA. Told through compelling music with exuberant Latin, pop, and jazz influences with a score by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice, the story of Argentina's controversial First Lady comes to life.

The season opens with the return of LTAC favorite The Doo Wop Project, featuring current and former stars of Broadway's smash hits Jersey Boys andMotown: The Musical. Other music highlights include a collaboration with former Colorado Symphony conductor Scott O'Neil, who has reformed the Rosetta Music Society; internationally renowned saxophonist Igor Butman and his Moscow Jazz Orchestra ; Western music favorites Sons of the Pioneers; a bluegrass take on The Who's TOMMY with the HillBenders; the incredible Boulder classical ensemble Takács Quartet; New Orleans rhythm and blues supergroup The Subdudes; and a rare performance by singer-songwriting legend Art Garfunkel.

LTAC has a fantastic holiday season lined up. Along with It's a Wonderful Life: A Radio Play, LTAC favorite Rhythmic Circus returns for the holidays withRed and Green, and we start a new tradition with Nebraska Theatre Caravan's full-scale musical version of A Christmas Carol.

Dance takes center stage at LTAC this season as well. In addition to Rhythmic Circus, the Russian National Ballet performs the crown jewel of legendary choregrapher Marius Petipa's career, The Sleeping Beauty, set to Tchaikovsky's magnificent score. LTAC also presents a very special project with former New York City Ballet principal dancer Wendy Whelan, who teams with choreographer Brian Brooks and the eclectic chamber music string quartet Brooklyn Rider for an evening of contemporary dance set to live music by composer Philip Glass and others.

In addition to the theatrical season that comprises the subscription, LTAC will present The Wonder Bread Years, a hilarious one-man show-and-tell by former Seinfeld writer Pat Hazell, which reminds us of what life was like when we were kids. LTAC is also pleased to be one of ten stops on a special tour byAquila Theatre, with their The Trojan War: Our Warrior Chorus project. Using epic moments from Greek drama, Aquila presents a thrilling chronicle of men and women at war. Members of The Warrior Chorus, a national program that brings together men and women who served in the US military, will join Aquila and work with local veterans on telling their stories.

The 2016-17 season will also expand the acclaimed National Geographic Live Speakers Series. This series, featuring some of National Geographic's best photographers and adventurers, combines breathtaking photography and videography with first-person accounts of exploration and discovery. This season features Bob Poole, an Emmy Award-winning cinematographer, who is documenting the rebirth of a lost Eden: Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park, a jewel of Africa's parks system until civil war almost destroyed it; Bryan Smith, an award-winning filmmaker who shares gripping moments from his assignments to document extreme feats and high adventure in the world's most challenging environments; Kevin Hand, an astrobiologist who is currently helping plan a NASA mission to Jupiter's moon Europa to investigate evidence of a vast subsurface ocean - a body of water which could sustain primitive forms of life on this alien world nearly 600 million miles from our planet; andNizar Ibrahim, who tells the story of the newly-discovered giant dinosaur, Spinosaurus, and explains what-other than its size-makes this ancient monster unique.

In addition to the Main Stage season, LTAC will soon announce afternoon programming for seniors, performances for children, and programs for those with cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities. LTAC's innovative Arts in the Afternoon program, featuring monthly professional concerts for seniors mid-week at 1:30 pm, followed by refreshments, Q&A, and meet and greets with the artists consistently plays to capacity houses. Similarly, Passport to Culture, for children from 4 - 10; Seedlings, for children from 1 - 4; and a robust student matinee program also attract sold-out audiences. LTAC's award-winning program, SF Family Tree, features sensory friendly programming for individuals on the autism spectrum, with sensory sensitivities, or intellectual or developmental disabilities.

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