Archive: Arts & Entertainment

One of the most significant UFO events in history— the 1975 UFO abduction of Travis Walton—comes to life in TRAVIS, a new documentary film, about one man's five-day absence after a mysterious beam of light strikes him unconscious, igniting an international firestorm of controversy. Travis Walton's story was fictionalized in Paramount Pictures' 1993 theatrical release of Fire in the Sky. Executive director/producer Jennifer W. Stein insists the true account was begging to be told. This 21-year-old logger from Snowflake, AZ was changed forever when he woke up in a strange ship with three small creatures staring at him.

Aurora, New York—The Wells College Visual Arts Department is pleased to announce the opening of the Annual Senior Thesis Exhibition. The exhibition will showcase the culminating thesis work of graduating seniors Kim Brighon, Jr., Camille McNally and Jennifer VanWormer. It will open in the String Room Gallery on Monday, May 8, at 6 p.m., with a reception providing an opportunity to meet and talk to the artists. Light refreshments will be served. The gallery will be open by appointment through May 20.

Kim Brighon, Jr., (Bolivar, N.Y.) creates highly personal work that combines acrylic paint on canvas with sculpturally crafted ceramics to bring a mobile wall of graffiti into the gallery. This work spreads a political message about newly-fashioned bonds within a family.

The CCO Youth Orchestra will be a high-quality symphony orchestra experience for youth in Ithaca and the Finger Lakes Region of New York State. The orchestra will be led by Kirsten Marshall, who is known internationally for her dynamic energy and passionate work with young musicians.

Marshall is currently the Director of the orchestral program and violin faculty member at Ithaca Talent Education and is a long-time member of the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra. In demand as a clinician and guest conductor around the world, she has most recently conducted All-State orchestras in Alabama and California.

Take a beloved age-old story, mix with a mash-up of musical genres, throw in a high-energy cast of enthusiastic dancers, and you have Running to Places' extravagant "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," May 12-14 at Newfield High School, 247 Main St, Newfield, suitable for all ages.

"'Joseph' is a musical built for fun," says Joey Steinhagen, R2P artistic director. "It has a wild range of musical styles, from country western to calypso to Elvis. It's just one party after another."

To celebrate the 100th Anniversary of New York State signing of woman's suffrage into law, three years before the US passed the 19th Amendment, Hangar Theatre, Kitchen Theatre Company, Civic Ensemble and Cherry Arts are collaborating on a two-night theater event: Four Plays - 100 Years. Performances will be at Kitchen Theatre Company on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 16 and 17 at 7:30pm.

The four theater companies are collaborating with many Ithaca area theater artists plus a few visiting guests. All four plays will be performed each night. There will be a post-show discussion following each performance. The project is supported in part by a grant from Humanities, NY and each of the theaters. Proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to Women's Opportunity Center, Ithaca, NY.

Jamestown, NY- Congressman Tom Reed Monday announced that Federal New Market Tax Credit financing has been secured to help complete the National Comedy Center Project in Jamestown. The financing provided $4.8 million in net funding for the national scope comedy attraction.

"The creation of the National Comedy Center is a transformational project that will attract tourism and serve as a driver of growth for the area. We care about creating jobs for the hardworking men and women of our region and the investment in the site will accomplish this," Reed said.

In celebration of the County's bicentennial, Tompkins County Public Library will offer after-hours access to Mapping Tompkins, a commemorative community art project, and a dramatic reading of County Historian Carol Kammen's original piece, "Nine Towns and a City," Friday, May 5 from 5 to 8 p.m., during Downtown Ithaca's Gallery Night.

Through illustrated maps created by more than 50 county residents, Mapping Tompkins showcases—for this and future generations--what it means to live, work and study in Tompkins County. Participants were asked to design pre-printed Tompkins County maps to reflect the places important to their lives—from where to get the best ice cream to where they met their spouse. The exhibit will be on display through June.

Civic Ensemble, in collaboration with The Lehman Alternative Community School, presents She Persists, a devised performance using personal narratives from women-identified members of the Ithaca community. She Persists is the culmination of a yearlong workshop aimed at creating a 'community of women.' Using the template of consciousness-raising groups that sprung out of the Women's Movement, the women's performance workshop creates a safe space for women to talk about their personal lives and socially relevant issues. From these conversations, participants shape their stories into an interwoven performance.

She Persists is Civic Ensemble's penultimate play of the season, contributing to a year of performances that have unapologetically dealt with issues surrounding oppression, black lives, corruption, gentrification, and misogyny. She Persists complements a year of women-centered events in Ithaca, including Sue Perlgut's Women's Wisdom Project, The Bad and Nasty Political Cabaret, the Ithaca Women's March, Tompkins County Legislature's proclamation that 2017 is the "Year of the Woman," and Civic Ensemble's upcoming co-production of 4 Plays - 100 Years with The Cherry, Hangar Theatre, and Kitchen Theatre Company.

A racist caricature drawn on a freshman dorm room door is the catalyst that precipitates intense discussions and confrontations about race in Baltimore. The play by Kirsten Greenidge, which runs April 28–May 6 at Cornell's Schwartz Center, references true events, including the riots in Ferguson, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the deaths of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, and Sandra Bland.

Central to the play is Shelby, a resident adviser at the New England college where one of her residents is the target of the racist drawing. The incident challenges Shelby, played by Chisom Awachie '17, to reexamine her complacent naiveté about living in a post-racial society.

Kitchen Theatre Company continues its 2016-17 season and gets spring started with a provocative and moving one-person play, Throw Pitchfork, written and performed by Alexander Thomas. Throw Pitchfork begins previews on April 23, opens on April 27, and closes on May 7, 2017.

In Throw Pitchfork, writer/performer Alexander Thomas explores two generations of men in his African American family. It is an edge-of-your-seat story of a family's struggles and successes, told with humor - and full of surprises. At the root of the story is Willie Thomas, who escapes the south and settles in Albany, New York. He fights demons of alcohol and anger, and he fathers four sons: Sammy, Jesse, Cleve, and the youngest, Alex. Each of his children inherits and deals with their father's torments in his own way-Sammy through hard drugs, Jesse through petty crime, Cleve through the arts. Alex, the youngest, becomes a writer and actor and searches for self-definition as he attempts to both emulate and separate himself from his brothers and father.

Savoyards Ithaca will perform Gilbert and Sullivan's The Sorcerer in the third-floor Martha Hamblin Hall at the Community School of Music and the Arts (CSMA): 7:30 PM Saturday, May 6 and 2:00 PM Sunday, May 7. Tickets ($15 for general admission, $10 for students) are available at the door or online at www.savoyardsithaca.org.

Celebrating its 140th anniversary this year, The Sorcerer—Gilbert and Sullivan's first full-length work—both mocks and celebrates English provincial life. Sullivan's score blends British church and country music and German and Italian opera, while Gilbert's satire on classism, commercialism, and nativism speaks to our modern post-Brexit era.

This Spring, The Cherry Arts will present the English-language première of two one-act plays by Argentine playwright and filmmaker Santiago Loza. Winter Animals and Nothing To Do With Love are co-translated by Cherry artistic director Samuel Buggeln, working respectively with Buenos Aires playwright Ariel Gurevitch and Alejandro Tantanian, Artistic Director of that city's Teatro Cervantes.

Santiago Loza is a masterful teller of mysterious, lyrical and moving stories. This production will bring his theatrical voice to the English-speaking world for the first time. In Winter Animals, an aging rural rancher makes a trip to the tiny Buenos Aires apartment of his bookish son and finds a truly unexpected roommate; in Nothing To Do With Love, a small-town dressmaker recalls her greatest triumph from a startling perspective.