Blog Post
Fake Facts: Theatre Nova’s dark comedy "The Totalitarians" wades through a political swamp
by christopherporter
Theatre Nova’s September offering, The Totalitarians, centers on a campaign manager trying to help her candidate win an election in Nebraska. The candidate, Penelope Easter, is an earthy, compulsive woman whose tenuous relationship to facts seems, well, familiar. Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s dark, witty comedy touches on politics, revolutions, and the twists, turns, and perils that come with both.
Blog Post
John Gutoskey’s “PULSE Nightclub: 49 Elegies" series honors those murdered in Orlando
by christopherporter
On June 12, 2016, 49 people died and 53 others wounded when a gunman opened fire at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. It was then the largest mass shooting by a single person in American history.
Blog Post
Affleck! Penny Seats Theatre Company's "Matt & Ben" satirizes with good will
by christopherporter
The Penny Seats Theatre Company has never been afraid to produce shows that are daring, out of the mainstream, or sometimes both at once. The troupe's upcoming production, Matt & Ben, written by Mindy Kaling of The Office and The Mindy Project fame, with her friend and The Office writer Brenda Withers, combines both of these elements. The play, set in 1995, tells a hilarious story: then struggling actors/writers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, receive a fortuitous boon when a script (which becomes Good Will Hunting, the movie which launched both of their careers) falls from the sky into the apartment they share.
Blog Post
Penny Seats' "Edges" is a song cycle about navigating your 20s
by christopherporter
The Penny Seats Theatre Company has a celebrated history of presenting high-quality productions of shows that may not be especially well known. Peter and the Starcatcher, and Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well... are some of the just-out-of-the-mainstream productions the theater company has offered the last few years.
Blog Post
Multiverses of Meaning: "Constellations" at Theatre Nova
by christopherporter
British playwright Nick Payne’s celebrated two-person play Constellations deals with quantum multiverses: multiple universes in which many different outcomes can come from the same, or a similar starting point. But don’t worry, you don’t need a Ph.D. in theoretical physics to understand and love the play, which is at Theatre Nova until Feb. 18.
Blog Post
Mash-Up 'Mime: Theatre Nova's "The Year Without a Panto Clause"
by christopherporter
Around the holidays, theater troupes often feature classic Christmas plays familiar to Americans. But for the past two years, Ann Arbor’s Theatre Nova has presented an American twist on a British Christmas tradition. A panto, short for pantomime, is a variety show that developed in England in the 18th century that employs song, dance, comedy, and much more to tell a Christmas-related story.
This year’s panto, The Year Without a Panto Clause, is written by Theatre Nova artistic director Carla Milarch and features original songs by the show’s music director, R. MacKenzie Lewis, who has composed music for Nova's previous two pantos as well as for last year’s hit musical Irrational.
I spoke with Milarch about the inspiration for her pantos and what makes this show unique.
Q: For readers that may not be familiar with the panto tradition, would you explain what different activities make up these performances?
A: I always describe a panto as a mash-up of a musical comedy, stand-up comedy, a vaudeville act, and an old-fashioned melodrama, with a heaping helping of The Three Stooges thrown in. There's a good deal of falling down, chases, booing the villain, cheering the hero, political humor, and jokes -- and, of course, candy for the kids.
Q: Theatre Nova has put on a panto for their holiday show for the last two seasons. Whose idea was it to showcase an art form that is rarely seen in the U.S.?
A: It was Emilio Rodriguez's (of Black and Brown Theatre and now UMS). He had seen a panto in Los Angeles and suggested it.
Q: How do you get the ideas for each show, and specifically, how did you come up with the story of this year’s show?
A: A traditional panto is based on a children's story, usually a fairy tale. In Britain, they do Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Dick Wittington and His Cat, among others. We wanted to put an American twist on ours, so we decided to narrow it down to Christmas stories that Americans would be familiar with. So far, we've done a twist on Rudolph (An Almost British Christmas), The Nutcracker (Sugar Plum Panto) and now The Year Without a Panto Clause.
Q: Can you talk a little about your collaboration process with R. MacKenzie Lewis? Does Lewis write some of the music for the shows?
A: Between our theater gigs and our kids, Lewis and I are some of the busiest people I know. So, we do a lot of work remotely. I come up with lyrics and ship them off to him; he tweaks them and writes the music and ships them to the actors. They learn them and I eventually hear them. It's unusual because I trust him so implicitly that I know whatever he does I will love. I literally have not heard some of the songs he's written for the show yet, but I know they will be fantastic!
Q: Do you both pick the popular songs that will be included in the narrative or does Lewis do it all himself?
A: I actually pick the popular songs as I'm writing the play because, usually, the inspiration for what's needed will hit me in the moment.
Q: During every performance of the show, there will be a different special guest performer who will be a small part of the variety act portion of the panto. Is this something unique to Nova’s pantos, or did this originate in England as well? Can you tell us some of the guests you’ve had in the past, and give us a preview of who we might expect this year?
A: This is all a part of the panto tradition. We have wonderful special guests this year. We're bringing back crowd favorites Gemini and magician Jeff Boyer as well as a lot of local theater folks you'll recognize from shows at NOVA and around town. I'm hearing rumors that Santa himself might make an appearance at some point in the run (the REAL Santa, not the one in the show!)
Q: What can audiences expect from this year’s panto, and what are you most excited for them to see?
A: The thing that I'm excited about the most this year, is that I think that this panto, in particular, holds up more as an actual play than the previous two. A panto is a very specific style, with lots of stuff in it that isn't your typical theater fare. In both past years I think we've been successful at creating a show that appeals to young kids, with lots of falling down, zaniness, etc. I've even had some Brits tell me it was "just like home!" This year, I think the play, although it maintains all of the zaniness, trust me, also has a thread of a touching and heartfelt story that is genuinely moving and carries you along in the more traditional theater vein.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to say about this panto?
A: The premise of the play is that 2017 has been a bummer of a year, and Santa, like many of us, is starting to feel too depressed to carry on with life as usual. So, he decides to cancel Christmas. Jingle and Jangle the elves then set off on a hilarious journey to parts hither and yon to find some Christmas spirit to get Santa back in the saddle. Hilarity, zaniness, and musical comedy ensue. But I think at the core of the play is the genuine question we all feel of how we find hope in the world today. I think the play will give the audience some hope, but at the very least we'll give them a much-needed respite and a chance to laugh at our troubles, dance our cares away and focus in on the true spirit of the season. I'm happy with the way it turned out. I think audiences will be, too.
Emily Slomovits is an Ann Arbor freelance musician, theater artist, and writer. She plays music with her father and uncle (aka Gemini) and others, is a member of Spinning Dot Theatre, and has performed with The Encore Musical Theatre Company, Performance Network, and Wild Swan Theater.
“The Year Without a Panto Clause” runs Dec. 1-31 at Theatre Nova, 410 W. Huron St., Ann Arbor. For tickets and more information, visit theatrenova.org.
Blog Post
Amorphous, Anomalous: The Knights, Avi Avital & Kinan Azmeh at Rackham
by christopherporter
When we hear the word “orchestra,” we usually think of a group of musicians who play classical music. But the trailblazing Brooklyn-based orchestra The Knights -- coming to Rackham Auditorium on Sunday, Nov. 12 courtesy of UMS -- are known for turning the word on its head by challenging orchestral norms and often using untraditional environments (from parks to bars) and repertoire (from avant-gardist Karlheinz Stockhausen to singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens) to connect to a wide range of audiences.
Such a genre-bending, rule-breaking orchestra needs soloists who are just as adventurous, and for this tour, The Knights have teamed up with two superstars of instrumental music, Avi Avital and Kinan Azmeh.
Both Avital, an Israeli mandolin virtuoso, and Azmeh, a celebrated Syrian clarinetist and composer, produce just as diverse and tremendously compelling a repertoire as The Knights, and the combination of these three forces is a treat not to be missed. Their program on Sunday will jump from their unique arrangements of pieces by Purcell, Bach, and Schubert to some of Azmeh’s own compositions, including one he wrote specifically for The Knights, Avital, and himself. They will also feature a piece by Knights co-leader and Silkroad Ensemble member Colin Jacobsen as well as traditional Middle Eastern, Balkan, and klezmer pieces.
I spoke with Avital and Azmeh about their solo work, collaboration with the Knights, and more.
Q: Mr. Azmeh, you are also a celebrated composer, arranger, and improviser; how does your clarinet playing influence the pieces you create and vice versa?
AZMEH: An artist needs to have three things. First, something to say, an idea that you have the urgency of sharing. Second, a tool to say what you want to say -- in my case, it is the clarinet -- and third, the skills to use the tool to say what you want to say. Yes, the clarinet has become my best way to express myself, but it remains a tool. Of course, I am attached to its sound, as I believe it has so many similarities with the human voice -- both in dynamic range and register. It is hard to map out how influences happen but I guess it flows in all directions.
Q: Do you ever play any of your compositions with the Yo-Yo Ma's Silkroad Ensemble? How did you come to be a part of that group?
AZMEH: Yes, I have performed several of my works with the Silkroad Ensemble, mainly my "Ibn Arabi Postlude" and "Wedding," which is the last movement of my "Suite for Improviser and Orchestra." I joined the ensemble in 2012 after the ensemble commissioned David Bruce to write a new work having me in mind for the clarinet part.
Q: Mr. Avital, your teacher in Be’er Sheva, Simcha Nathanson, was a violinist. Of course, the mandolin and the violin are very different, but in many ways, there is not as much of a divide between them as there is between some other stringed instruments. Did Mr. Nathanson’s experience as a violinist change the way he taught you about mandolin?
AVITAL: The fact that he was a violinist and not a mandolinist was my greatest luck; he didn’t teach me how to play the mandolin, rather he taught me how to play music. For him, what I was holding in my hands was almost unimportant. I still feel that when I am playing concerts I nearly forget that I am playing a mandolin.
Q: Much of your work with the mandolin has been to adapt works written for other instruments for your own. Can you talk about what makes a piece worth adapting, and your process for doing it?
AVITAL: When considering an adaptation of a piece, I ask myself one question first: Do I, by playing that piece of music originally written for another instrument, add any value to it by playing it on the mandolin? If I can’t find an answer to that question, I won’t adapt that score. Usually, I can find added value if I can give the listener the opportunity to hear the original piece from a new perspective, a new angle. This works especially well with scores that are very well-known and highly regarded: Bach’s violin sonatas and partitas, Vivaldi’s violin concertos, etc. Audiences usually have a very clear sound in mind with these pieces, so when they suddenly hear the work with a completely different sound, it allows them to listen to the music with a new openness. They hear fresh, different things about a work they already knew very well, and hearing the mandolin played in this context can point their ears in many different directions. I also have to connect to the piece and feel I have something unique to say about it in my own interpretation before I consider adapting a work.
Q: Both of your musical backgrounds and current repertoire seems to draw on many different styles and genres. If you had to classify your music as one genre, or some sort of hybrid, how would you describe it?
AZMEH: I simply don't describe it. Making art is an act of freedom, and I would like to give that freedom to the listener to decide what he/she hears. I simply play what I like without thinking of the genre. I invite the listener to come with open mind and ears.
AVITAL: As a mandolin player, I had the privilege of not having a specific route to follow; unlike young violinists or pianists, I didn’t have a list of repertoire to cover, masters to emulate or any tradition in regard to the programs I could present. Because I am curious by nature and have an innate drive to constantly create something new, this lack of scheduled expectations has been a complete gift. I am also quite interested in the spectrum of possibility by many different musical genres and dialects, and I have had the fortune of integrating these interests into my concert programs and albums. I suppose my music could be classified as a hybrid of baroque, contemporary, art, and folk music.
Q: How did this collaboration with each other and with The Knights come about? Before this series of shows, had you worked with each other at all?
AZMEH: I have known The Knights since they started; many of its members are dear friends. We first collaborated back in 2008 in New York. I continue to be a friend and a great fan of what they do. Avi and I met back in 2012 in Boston through a workshop with the Silkroad Ensemble to rehearse a newly commissioned piece by British composer David Bruce, which was written for the Silkroad Ensemble having myself and Avi in mind for the two solo parts.
AVITAL: I’ve known Kinan for many years from the New York music scene; I’ve had the pleasure to hear him in concert several times and I’ve even played his music. This will be our first time collaborating on stage together, and I’m really looking forward to playing with him.
Q: What can you tell us about this concert’s eclectic mix of material?
AVITAL: One thing I believe that Kinan, The Knights, and myself share in common is a vision about what is a concert experience of today, and a commitment to cultivating a poetic, inspiring experience for the audience. One has to assume that the audience not only is one click away from to the entire world of music but that even on the day of a concert they have already been inundated with varied sounds and musical experiences -- in the car, in elevators and waiting rooms, at the office, etc. Whether one likes it or not, exposure to diverse and contrasting genres is an everyday experience, and that means our cultural palate is ever-evolving. As musicians, we have these same experiences, but we also have the means to integrate this eclecticism in our own concert visions if we chose to do so, and I believe these concerts reflect that vision.
AZMEH: This concert truly reflects my views about music as a continuum. Blurring the lines between the improvised and the composed in all different genres has been at the heart of how I compose and how I play for many years. I do tend to think of music without categories, and I do believe this program reflects that.
Q: You’ve both played music in a number of different kinds of groups. What is it like to work with The Knights?
AVITAL: I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for a long time. I have known the group and many of its individual players from my time spent in New York, and they have been on the top of my wishlist for years. Working with The Knights is as creative, open and refreshing as I’ve always imagined.
AZMEH: This is not a conventional orchestra; I see The Knights as a group of players, thinkers, soloists, and friends who enjoy communicating with their instruments. Needless to say, making music with them is really exciting!
Q: What pieces are you most excited to share with us on November 12?
AZMEH: I am not a fan of isolating events from one big arc, which is the concert. But I have to say that I am particularly excited about my new work "Concertino Grosso," which is receiving its world premiere during this tour.
AVITAL: It’s really hard to choose one; the main piece I’m performing is Bach’s D minor concerto, which was originally written for keyboard. I have been playing this work for a number of years and it’s a piece to which I feel deeply attached. I’m also looking forward to collaborating with Kinan. There are many improvisational elements to the pieces we will be performing together, which means every night will bring something new.
Emily Slomovits is an Ann Arbor freelance musician, theater artist, and writer. She plays music with her father and uncle (aka Gemini) and others, is a member of Spinning Dot Theatre, and has performed with The Encore Musical Theatre Company, Performance Network, and Wild Swan Theater.
The Knights, Avi Avital, and Kinan Azmeh perform at Rackham Auditorium, 915 E. Washington St., Ann Arbor, on Sunday, Nov. 12 at 4 pm. For tickets and more information, visit ums.org.
Blog Post
Singing Truths: Mary Gauthier's raw, vulnerable songs are like short stories
by christopherporter
Mary Gauthier is the perfect songwriter and performer for an intimate venue like the Green Wood Coffee House, where she plays Friday, Oct. 27.
Her voice is untutored and unassuming but deeply evocative and powerful, and her songs go straight to the heart in a way that is personal, candid, and unaffected by artifice or unnecessary frills. Every line of every song is its own entire world, its own little gem of a thought. Her straightforward and relaxed style of performance lends these songs a truthfulness which is best experienced up close.
“Small venues lend themselves to a more personal show. Small rooms suit my music and storytelling,” she says.
Her life experiences are the kind that can’t help but shape someone into a storyteller. Her tumultuous life -- first as an orphan, then as a runaway from her adoptive parents, then as an addict, and eventually as one who conquered her addiction -- was eased by her passion for music. When I asked whether there were specific musicians who inspired her growing up, she said, “Literally thousands.”
But her own music-making wouldn’t start until years later. Before Gauthier was in her 30s, she gained acclaim as a chef in New Orleans, and the struggle to balance her addiction and her work in the multiple restaurants she’d opened led to her eventual sobriety. That was when her songwriting began. “I came to songwriting as a second career, in my late 30s. It found me, somehow.” She released her first album, Dixie Kitchen, in 1997 at age 35 and hasn’t looked back. She doesn’t easily fit into any genre or category. “I have been called folk, country, Americana, singer-songwriter,” says Gauthier. “They are all true.”
Gauthier’s 1999 album, Drag Queens in Limousines, put her on the map with a four-star rating from Rolling Stone, and widespread acclaim. She’s released seven albums since then, most recently 2014’s Trouble and Love. The recording process for that album was purposefully unique: Gauthier asked the musicians she’d gathered to come into the studio without having heard a demo, seen a chord chart, or read any sheet music. This meant that the musicians improvised everything that ended up on the album.
“I made the record that way because I wanted the band to be vulnerable," Gauthier says. "And I didn’t want them to be rehearsed. I wanted the feelings to be real, and urgent." She used the same technique to record her latest album, Rifles and Rosary Beads, which comes out in January. “It’s a great way to capture real emotion.”
Rifles and Rosary Beads was co-written with wounded veterans, a testament to Gauthier’s commitment to telling stories, no matter whose they are, truthfully and to the fullest. This commitment also carries over into speaking out about social justice. She shared her song “World Unkind” in a recent blog post about the Oct. 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas, and clearly feels passionately about an artist’s role in speaking out.
“I think people who tell artists to shut up and sing have no idea what an artist does,” she says. “An artist’s job is to speak truth. Politics enters the arena as soon as we open our mouths. There is a difference between an entertainer and an artist. I’m songwriter first and foremost. Not a woman songwriter, or a gay songwriter, just a songwriter. I do not think that gender, sexual identity, age, nationality, ethnicity, go as deep as the call to write. They are secondary to the calling. I write from my heart, my soul. I try to capture what I see, what I feel, what matters to me.”
Emily Slomovits is an Ann Arbor freelance musician, theater artist, and writer. She plays music with her father and uncle (aka Gemini) and others, is a member of Spinning Dot Theatre, and has performed with The Encore Musical Theatre Company, Performance Network, and Wild Swan Theater.
Mary Gauthier performs at the Green Wood Coffee House inside the First United Methodist Church of Ann Arbor, 1001 Green Rd., on Friday, Oct. 27 at 8 pm. For tickets and more information, visit greenwoodcoffeehouse.org.
Blog Post
Musical Royalty: Ann Arbor Symphony performs "Ludwig and the Kings"
by christopherporter
On Saturday, Oct. 21, the Ann Arbor Symphony will present a program called “Ludwig and the Kings.” “Ludwig,” of course, represents luminary German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. But who is the King in question?
“Growing up in Israel, I had daily bible studies and was fascinated with the complex characters of some of the prophets and kings," said conductor Arie Lipsky, who has led the symphony for 17 seasons. "This concert presents a rare musical outlook on King Solomon, known to be the wisest man on earth.”
Each piece of music in the concert centers on King Solomon, but from various perspectives and genres of music. “This is a wonderful stirring collage of musical contrasts, which I'm eager to share with our audience," says Lipsky. “For a baroque gem, we’ll be joined by a chorus for excerpts from the oratorio Solomon by Handel. Then, a romantic and evocative cello concerto named Schelomo (Solomon in Hebrew). This was the final work of composer Ernest Bloch’s Jewish Cycle written in 1915. Bloch named it a Hebraic Rhapsody in which the cello captures the cantorial spirit of King Solomon. I have had the pleasure of playing and teaching this beautiful piece many times. Then we added a jazz rendition of “King Solomon” by the grand Duke of American jazz composers -- Duke Ellington.”
Saturday’s program is capped off with the Eighth Symphony by Ludwig himself, a short, experimental work that is perhaps the perfect one to illustrate why Lipsky refers to Beethoven as the "wisest composer on earth."
“Perhaps the best adjective to describe Beethoven music is revolutionary," says Lipsky. "He is the composer who transitioned classical-era music to the romantic the era. He added drama, emotion, and meaning to music and, in that sense, he is wise.”
Lipsky was born in Israel’s capital, Haifa, and showed great promise from an early age on both the cello and flute, before going on to a highly successful career as a conductor, flutist, and cellist. For this concert, he passes the cellist baton, as it were, to 18-year-old cellist Zlatomir Fung, who will play Bloch’s Schelomo. Fung lives in Massachusetts and has won many international competitions, such as the 2016 George Enescu International Cello Competition and the 2015 Johansen International Competition for Young String Players. He has an Ann Arbor connection, too: Fung studies at the Juilliard School with Richard Aaron, who is also a professor of cello at the University of Michigan. Lipsky is excited to bring Fung’s perspective to the piece, especially because he has been doing perhaps more research than most soloists might, in preparation.
“This is going to be a unique musical experience since, in addition to his virtuosity, he has been attending Jewish worship services in order to capture the unique cantorial spirit of Schlomo,” Lipsky says. “Zlatomir is a curious bright young man, and he felt, unsolicited, that attending Jewish services will help him understand and perform Schelomo in a more authentic way.”
Emily Slomovits is an Ann Arbor freelance musician, theater artist, and writer. She plays music with her father and uncle (aka Gemini) and others, is a member of Spinning Dot Theatre, and has performed with The Encore Musical Theatre Company, Performance Network, and Wild Swan Theater.
Ann Arbor Symphony performs the program "Ludwig and the Kings" at Saturday, Oct. 21 at 8 pm at the Michigan Theater, 603 E. Liberty St., Ann Arbor. For tickets and more information, visit a2so.org.
Blog Post
Theatrical Projections: Major plays and operas are just a movie ticket away
by christopherporter
If you don’t live in New York City or London, and perhaps don’t have the money to go to The Metropolitan Opera or the National Theatre on a regular basis, you might feel like you’re missing out on some amazing arts events.
But HD broadcasts of productions from these venues to movie theatres around the world are a way for people all around the world to see legendary works like La Bohéme, Hamlet, Everyman,Der Rosenkavalier, and more, performed by legendary performers such as Helen Mirren, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Plácido Domingo, Vittorio Grigolo, and Renée Fleming. NT Live has been broadcasting shows from the National and other theaters in London to movie theaters since 2009, and The Met: Live in HD has been broadcasting operas since 2006.
“We want to make the arts more accessible to everyone,” said Ray Nutt, CEO of Fathom Events, the entertainment content provider that often broadcasts live theatre, music, and dance events to movie theatres, and that broadcasts The Met: Live in HD. “The Met: Live in HD provides an opportunity to see it right from their hometown at an affordable price," Nutt said. "Not only do they get to see the production live, but they see every detail, multiple camera angles, and even get behind-the-scenes access that is not available anywhere else.”
UMS is the Michigan Theater’s partner in bringing the National Theatre broadcasts to Ann Arbor. Mallory Shea, marketing and media relations coordinator for UMS, said she appreciates the chance to share these productions on a wider scale. “These incredible performances would normally require a trip overseas, but it's wonderful to be able to expand our offerings and provide an opportunity for local theater lovers to experience them right here in our own backyard,” Shea said.
This season, both the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts and the National Theatre Live broadcasts will have intriguing offerings. Quality 16 on Jackson Road and The Michigan Theatre on Liberty Street will be showing most of them; here are some of the most exciting.
The Met: Live in HD at Quality 16
The Metropolitan Opera’s broadcast season begins with Norma, Vincenzo Bellini’s 1831 tragedy about a druid priestess whose love of a Roman soldier is tested in myriad ways. American-Canadian soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, a Met mainstay who has made a name for herself particularly in 18th Century Italian opera, stars as Norma, and faces off against soprano superstar Joyce DiDonato as Adalgisa, her rival in love. Celebrated tenor Joseph Calleja stars as Pollione, the object of their affection. October 7, 12:55 pm.
One of Mozart’s most famous operas, Die Zauberflöte or The Magic Flute, is brought to life in this enchanting production directed by Julie Taymor. Metropolitan Opera music director Emeritus James Levine conducts. October 14, 12:55 pm.
“One of the titles I’m personally most excited about this season is The Exterminating Angel in November,” said Nutt. “The opera is getting its American premiere at the Met this season and is based on the acclaimed 1962 film of the same name. It’s a surreal fantasy about a dinner party from which the guests can’t escape -- the premise is very intriguing and we know the Met Opera will do the piece fabulously.” November 18, 12:55 pm.
Puccini’s powerful and stirring Tosca appears this season with a new production from Sir David McVicar. Sonya Yoncheva makes her debut in this role as tortured singer Tosca, and Vittorio Grigolo and Bryn Terfel as rivals for her love. January 27, 12:55 pm.
Franco Zeffirelli’s production of Puccini’s classic, sweeping drama/romance, La Boheme, returns to the Met stage with some fresh faces: Sonya Yoncheva as Mimi, and Michael Fabiano as Rudolfo. February 24, 12:55 pm.
Mozart’s sweeping comedy/romance Cosi fan tutte examines the fragility of faithfulness and devotion. Kelli O’Hara, the Tony-winning Broadway star who made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2015’s The Merry Widow stars as Despina. March 31, 12:55 pm.
Legendary tenor/baritone Plácido Domingo returns to the Met once more alongside Sonya Yoncheva in Luisa Miller, an oft-forgotten Verdi piece about a father’s love and worry for his child as she falls in love. April 14, 12:55 pm.
To close out its season, the Met will bring Massenet’s Cendrillion, a Cinderella retelling, to its stage for the very first time. Met superstar Joyce DiDonato stars as Cendrillion alongside Alice Coote, Kathleen Kim, and Stephanie Blythe.
NT Live at the Michigan Theater
Follies, Stephen Sondheim’s classic musical about aging dames of the Ziegfeld Follies remembering and reliving their former glory days comes to the National Theatre in a highly anticipated revival starring Imelda Staunton, Tracy Bennett, and Janie Dee. February 11, 7 pm.
Angels in America, Tony Kushner’s epic, Pulitzer Prize-winning story set against a backdrop of the AIDS crisis, probes the lives of New Yorkers, gay, straight, Jewish, African-American, and others, and connects them all with masterful insights on death, religion, sexuality, marriage, politics, and more. This celebrated revival stars Nathan Lane, Andrew Garfield, James McArdle, and Russell Tovey. Part 1 is September 24 at 6 pm, and part two is October 1 at 6 pm.
Simon Stone directs Billie Piper in an Olivier Award-winning performance as the title character in Yerma, desperate in her longing to have a child. This revival of the 1934 drama by Frederico García Lorca is set in modern times. Note: This production uses strobe lighting. October 22, 7 pm.
Ben Wishaw, David Morrissey, and Michelle Fairley bring to life Julius Caesar, Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy of greed, power, and politics, in this new production directed by Nicholas Hytner. May 6 at 7 pm.
Emily Slomovits is an Ann Arbor freelance musician, theater artist, and writer. She plays music with her father and uncle (aka Gemini) and others, is a member of Spinning Dot Theatre, and has performed with The Encore Musical Theatre Company, Performance Network, and Wild Swan Theater.
For more information about these broadcasts, visit michtheater.org, ums.org, goodrichqualitytheaters.com, fathomevents.com, metopera.org, and nationaltheatre.org.uk.