FAIRY TALES, SONGS OF THE DANDELION WOMAN Runs Now thru 5/16 at Little Stage Theater

From today, May 8 through May 18, the Little Stage Theater at SoBe Institute of the Arts becomes the portal to FAIRY TALES, Songs of the Dandelion Woman, a 90-minute music-theater trip "down the rabbit hole." With a score and libretto created by Carson Kievman, this contemporary operatic song cycle hurtles through a kaleidoscopically shifting mental landscape, past the borderline between hilarity and madness, into a surrealistic dislocation. This parallel world, very much like our own as seen through a magnifying glass, is created as the Bank Examiner (Ken Mattice, baritone) and The Dandelion Woman (Megan Brus, soprano) become aware of each other: an authority figure who is charged with determining her competence, and a misfit who moves with angular grace through her own private world, and is charismatic enough to dismantle the system simply by living as she pleases.

Is this an Orphean rescue with a mythic subtext or a modern urban fairy tale? The hauntingly provocative music reveals "truth beyond fantasy and truth beyond nerve," and leaves the audience to discern whether or not the characters are "trapped in their endless universe, between cause and effect", or if they live happily ever after..."for, as they say, every fiction must end."

With stage direction by Jeffrey Marc Buchman, music direction by Mary Adelyn Kauffman, award winning design team Sean McClelland (sets), Patrick Tennent (lighting), Camilla Haith (costumes) Alain Lores (projections), as well as a top-flight ensemble of instrumentalists, Fairy Tales, Songs of the Dandelion Woman will take place in the Little Stage Theater @ SoBe Arts.

Previewing tonight, May 8 ($20/$10) and Fridays and Saturdays May 9, 10, 16 and 17 at 8pm, and Sundays May 11 and 18 at 7:30 pm. The Opening Gala performance and champagne reception will take place on Friday May 9 ($50/$25). Tickets for all other performances are $25 and student/senior tickets are $15, in accord with SoBe Arts mission to provide live theater at accessible prices. Parking is free. The Little Stage Theater @ SoBe Arts is an intimate black box-style space that accommodates a limited number of patrons. For tickets, call 305-674-9220 or visit http://sobearts.org/FAIRYTALES2b.html.