Live Arts just did a major redesign of their website. They’ve incorporated a lot of new features such as a blog (with commentary!), an AJAX side bar (that’s fancy stuff for non-technical people), sharing features and a whole lot more. Go check out their site and let us know what you think.
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Academic papers and classes are structured around this very question. Over the centuries, skeptical scholars have attempted to explain how an uneducated playwright with few royal connections could have concocted plays taking place all across Europe and in varying time periods. It has been suggested that perhaps Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, Edward de Vere the Earl of Oxford, or even Queen Elizabeth I, were either collectively or singularly responsible for the works of “William Shakespeare.”
Amy Freed takes on this conspiracy with poetry and comedy in The Beard of Avon, which opens at Live Arts next Friday, May 16th. It is directed by Betsy Rudelich Tucker, and runs from May 16 through June 7.
If you’re in the mood for a classic musical, don’t forget to check out the Play On! production of Guys and Dolls that opened May 8. It runs through May 24.
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Here’s one for all you actors and actresses, as well as for fans of the stage in Charlottesville. On Monday, May 5 Live Arts and Performers Exchange Program will present a working acting demonstration followed by a performance of the one-act play Dido vs the Squid Monster. This is a one night and one night only opportunity at Live Arts-Upstage.
The working demonstration: Building Performance: A Look at Actor-Created Physical Actions will take place from 6 - 7pm. The stage performance of Dido vs the Squid Monster is at 8pm. Tickets are $6 for the demo and $6 for the performance or you can check them both out for $10. Tickets will be sold at the door on a first-come, first-serve basis starting at 5pm.
For more info go to Live Arts or Perfomers Exchange Program or call 434.806.9506.
[Photo: Sian Richards as Dido by Will May]
[Correction: The organization is actually the Performers Exchange Program. I had originally listed it as the Performers Program Exchange. Thanks to a reader who pointed this out to me. Apologies for the mix-up]
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One of Disney’s many theatrical productions is coming to Charlottesville this summer! No, it’s not The Lion King, Mary Poppins, Aida, Beauty and the Beast, or The Little Mermaid. It’s the stage version of Disney’s smash television musical about high school … that’s right, High School Musical.
Live Arts is taking on this behemoth of teenage talent for their summer musical, so mark your calendars. Performance dates are July 11 through August 2. Disney’s productions tend to be over-the-top excellent and earmarked for Broadway success when they’re adapted, well as long as you’re not counting their version of Tarzan or The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
And, no doubt Virginians are waiting with baited breath for Disney’s adaptation of their much-aligned Pocahontas, a movie whose historical and visual inconsistencies caused bile to rise in the mouth of everyone who visited Jamestown with their fourth grade class and knew the real age of Pocahontas when she met John Smith.
For those of you who don’t have a tween or a teen in the household, or for those who can resist the magical draw of Disney on their younger household residents, Play On! has Guys and Dolls on their May calendar. Performances run from May 8 until May 24, with a Sunday matinee on May 11. Frank Loesser’s music and lyrics, combined with a book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, always provide a night of good entertainment and a nostalgic look back to classic Broadway of the mid-20th century.
So, just because it’s summer doesn’t mean Charlottesville’s theatre is taking a vacation. Enjoy the local talent on the stages of both theatres, while taking in a night on Charlottesville’s downtown mall.
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We just had someone send in us the announcement for Live Arts 2008-2009 and I wanted to share it with you.
The arts enthusiast adds:
Before I go on, more important than the specifics of this list are the surprisingly moving words delivered by Live Arts Artistic Director John Gibson. When I say “surprisingly moving”, I am not exaggerating. I don’t get moved, but by God that man made me cry. The theater community of central Virginia has lost some members to God this year, even just this week. I didn’t know all of these people, but I am certain from the audible gasps in the audience that they were loved in the community. Perhaps others in this forum would know who was spoken of by John.
John’s elegy and birth announcement were so impassioned and earnest that I could see why Charlottesville is such a uniquely theater-heavy area, and Live Arts is such a unique theater, not just in Virginia but in the entire theater world. Our area’s theatrical heart beats big; it contains multitudes of creative spirits who unite daily to create our region’s tears and laughter, from Four County Players to the Hamner to Blackfriars and every theater, classroom, bar and ruin in between.
I was too entranced to write while John spoke, so anyone else who was there, please correct anything I’ve missed. Thank you very much!
The list is after the break..
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Busy, busy, busy. Here are a couple of things you might want to check out and add to your hump day activities:
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[I want to make sure that everyone is perfectly clear on this: I am, by no stretch of the imagination, well-versed in the stage or theater. But as a service to you, our growing audience of readers, I thought that I would do my very best to make sure that we touch upon as many cultural bases as possible in effort to not only better serve our readers, but to serve the community of arts in the greater Charlottesville area as well.]
One of the must-see events of the spring season currently running on the stage at Live Arts is their production of “Mother Courage and her Children” (Mutter Courage und iher Kinder), one of the masterworks by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht. ”Mother Courage” in addition to being called one of the greatest plays of the 20th century, is also considered by many to be one of the most telling anti-war plays ever written.
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