Each year, the Edison Theatre OVATIONS! Series highlights music, theater and dance by a variety of nationally and internationally acclaimed performing artists.
The 2006-07 season — Edison’s 34th — will include more than a dozen events, ranging from returning favorites and world premieres to the popular ovations! for young people series, which offers specially priced Saturday matinees for audiences of all ages.
The OVATIONS! season will open Sept. 30 with a performance by Dianne Reeves. Widely regarded as one of today’s finest jazz vocalists, Reeves is a four-time Grammy Award winner (for each of her last four albums) and is featured in George Clooney’s Oscar-nominated film Good Night and Good Luck (2005).
The season will continue Oct. 6 with Inti-Illimani, the renowned Chilean wind, string and percussion ensemble, which weds European styling with traditional Latin American roots.
Music lovers also can look forward to “Civil Rights Reader” — a genre-defying tribute to figures such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Maya Angelou — by African-American composer Daniel Bernard Roumain and his string quartet, The Mission SQ Unit, which will come to the University Jan. 26.
Meanwhile, theater lovers will be treated to the U.S. premiere of Emil Sher’s Hana’s Suitcase, which will run Jan. 11-21. Presented by St. Louis’ own Metro Theater Company, this special (and specially priced) two-weekend engagement is adapted from the book by Karen Levine.
It tells the true story of a group of Japanese schoolchildren who, along with their teacher, attempt to uncover the mystery of Hana Brady, a Jewish child whose name was painted on an old battered suitcase found at Auschwitz.
Other theatrical offerings will include The Flying Karamazov Brothers, those comic jugglers extraordinaire, who will take the Edison stage Oct. 13-14 with “Life: A Guide for the Perplexed.”
On Feb. 16-17, Los Angeles renegades The Actors’ Gang — led by artistic director Tim Robbins — will present 1984, a new stage adaptation of George Orwell’s classic novel.
On March 30-31 Edison will present “Leftover Stories to Tell: A Tribute to Spalding Gray.” The evening will feature an all-star cast reading previously unheard stories and writings by the famed monologist and frequent OVATIONS! guest who died in January 2004.
Once again, OVATIONS! and Dance St. Louis will co-sponsor performances by some of today’s most cutting-edge dance companies. Shapiro & Smith Dance will return to the Edison Nov. 17-19 with “Anytown: Stories of America,” an evening of original choreography based on the music of Bruce Springsteen.
DanceBrazil will showcase its signature mix of traditional and contemporary Afro-Brazilian dance — including capoeira, a form inspired by martial arts — Feb. 23-25.
The OVATIONS! season will conclude April 27-29 with the St. Louis debut of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, a classically trained ensemble whose eclectic repertoire includes works by many of today’s foremost choreographers.
Meanwhile, the ovations! for young people series will open Oct. 14 with The Flying Karamazov Brothers and continue Feb. 24 with DanceBrazil. The series will conclude May 5 with the Grammy-nominated acoustic duo Trout Fishing in America.
Tickets to OVATIONS! events are $30, $25 for seniors and WUSTL faculty and staff, and $18 for students and children. Subscriptions are available at the basic level (three, four or five events at $25 per ticket) and at the premier level (six or more events at $20 per ticket).
Tickets to Hana’s Suitcase are $15 for adults and $10 for children.
Ovations! for young people events are $7 each or $15 for tickets to all three events.
For more information or to order tickets, call the Edison Theatre Box Office at 935-6543, or e-mail edison@wustl.edu.