Like a good vacation, filled with the sights and sounds of different lives, different heritages and different cultures, Edison Theatre’s 2004-05 OVATIONS! Series will take audiences on a journey through some of the world’s great music, dance and theatre traditions.
The season will include both new and established artists of national and international stature. Meanwhile, the family friendly ovations! for young people series returns with specially priced Saturday matinees for audiences of all ages.
“2004 celebrates a spirit of exploration and an expansive world view,” said Charlie Robin, executive director of Edison Theatre. “Lewis & Clark, the World’s Fair and the Olympics — even westward expansion — all illustrate the intrinsic human drive to reach and discover beyond the standard, the known. Our city is founded on diverse, global influences. It is only fitting that the 2004-2005 OVATIONS! season reflects those global influences.”
The OVATIONS! season opens Oct. 23 with Amazones, an evening of extraordinary African drumming featuring, for the first time on one stage, The Women Master Drummers of Guinea and Les Percussions de Guinee. The result is a powerful, energetic and grandiose spectacle of music, song and dance.
Theatre lovers can await the return of the Aquila Theatre Company, the professional company-in-residence at the Center for Ancient Studies at New York University, which will present the first-ever stage adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic science fiction thriller The Invisible Man Oct. 29 and 30. The Reduced Shakespeare Company, those “bad boys of abridgment,” unleash all-new comic outrages in their latest work, All the Great Books (Abridged), Nov. 19 and 20. On April 22 and 23, Dan Hurlin’s Hiroshima Maiden enlists Japanese Bunraku-style puppetry — characterized by life-like puppets possessed of astonishing emotional range — to tell the true story of 25 women disfigured by the nuclear blast at Hiroshima and their 1955 visit to the United States for reconstructive surgery.
For music lovers, Liz Callaway returns Jan. 15 with longtime friend and fellow balladeer Jason Graae in Backstage Broadway Buddies, an unforgettable cabaret evening of song and sentiment. Solo cellist Maya Beiser presents World to Come, an evocative multimedia concert that combines text, vocals, lighting and video, Feb. 12. On April 29 and 30, The Mystical Arts of Tibet: Sacred Music Sacred Dance will showcase the magnificent costumes, traditional instruments, multi-phonic chanting and ancient dance rituals practiced and mastered by the exiled monks of the Drepung Loseling Monastery.
Edison Theatre again joins forces with Dance St. Louis to present extraordinary dance companies from around the world. The Kansas City Ballet will present a concert of solos and ensemble works — including Nine Sinatra Songs, which showcases the music of Old Blue Eyes and the choreography of Twyla Tharp — Nov. 12-14. Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal — which has been a force on the international dance scene since 1972, featuring dancers from the United States, Canada, France and Mexico — will perform Jan. 21-23.
The season concludes May 6 and 7 with Passing Zone, a “jaw-dropping and hilarious” (LA Times) juggling duo that boasts five Guinness World Records and 18 International Juggling Association Championship Gold medals. From Chia Pets® and Thigh Masters® to chainsaws and audience members, it all flies through the air for this dynamic duo.
The ovations! for young people (oyp) line-up includes special matinee shows of Amazones (Oct. 23) and Mystical Arts of Tibet (April 30) as well as an oyp-only performance by the energetically acrobatic three-person dance troop Galumpha (Jan. 15).
Individual tickets are $28, $24 for seniors and Washington University faculty and staff; and $18 for students and children. Subscriptions are available at the basic level (three, four or five events at $24 per ticket) and the premiere level (six or more events at $20 per ticket). Ovations! for young people events are $7 each or $15 for tickets to all three events.
For more information or to order, call the Edison Theatre Box Office at (314) 935-6543, or email Edison@wustl.edu.