Arts & Culture

The Washington University Opera will present Kirke Mechem’s highly acclaimed 1980 adaptation of Molière’s comedy “Tartuffe” at 8 p.m. March 23-24 at Edison Theatre.

Joseph A. RosenBig George BrockLegendary blues vocalist and harmonica player Big George Brock will perform at Washington University March 29. Raised on a plantation outside Clarksdale, Mississippi, Brock has shared the stage with figures such as Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Howlin’ Wolf and operated a series of popular St. Louis blues clubs, including the 1,000-seat Club Caravan. In recent years he has released three critically acclaimed albums: Front Door Man, Club Caravan and Round Two.

Chris HartmanMaryse PearceIn 2002, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks began writing one play each day for an entire year. The resulting cycle, called “365 Plays/365 Days,” is now receiving its premiere as part of a yearlong grassroots festival that has enlisted more than 600 theater companies, arts organizations and universities from across the nation. In St. Louis, 15 students from Washington University’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present a week’s worth of the cycle April 2 to 8.

Gerald N. Izenberg, Ph.D., professor of history and co-director of the Literature and History program, both in Arts & Sciences, will examine the complex notions of identity in a series of programs beginning with the Assembly Series lecture at 11 a.m. March 21 in Graham Chapel.

Eric Woolsey*Highness* by Carolyn KrasEngland’s Queen Elizabeth I is among the most mythologized figures in history. But who was Elizabeth before she rose to power? What transformed this precocious yet lonely girl into a leader of steel? Find out in Carolyn Kras’ historical drama Highness, winner of the 2006 A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Competition, which receives its world premiere this month.

Poet David Baker, the visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in Washington University’s Writing Program in Arts & Sciences, will read from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 22, for The Writing Program Reading Series. Baker is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently Midwest Eclogue (2005), as well as poetry editor for The Kenyon Review.

Courtesy photoUta GrosenickUta Grosenick, managing editor for DuMont publishers in Cologne, Germany, will speak on the development of commercial art galleries worldwide since 1945 for Washington University’s Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo Services*Tartuffe*The Washington University Opera, led by director Jolly Stewart, will present Kirke Mechem’s highly acclaimed setting of Molière’s comedy Tartuffe. The story, first written in 1665, explores the impact of a corrupt and hypocritical “holy man” on a wealthy Parisian family. Mechem’s adaptation, which premiered in 1980, has since become one of the most popular works of contemporary American opera.

Stewart GoldsteinRon Himes in *King Hedley II* (2006)Can African-American theater survive? In recent years, several leading African-American companies have been forced to cut staff, cancel seasons or close their doors entirely. “We’ve lost a half-dozen of the larger companies,” says Ron Himes, founder and producing director of The St. Louis Black Repertory Company and the Henry E. Hampton Jr. Artist-in-Residence in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. “Nobody seems to quite understand why.” More…

Gerald N. Izenberg, Ph.D., professor of history and co-director of the Literature and History Program, both in Arts & Sciences, will examine the complex notions of identity in a series of programs, beginning with the Assembly Series lecture, at 11 a.m. Wednesday, March 21 in Graham Chapel. The Assembly Series talk is free and open to the public. Expanding on this theme, he will give a talk on “The Varieties of ‘We’: Collective Identities and their Conflicts,” for the Center for the Humanities, in which currently is a Faculty Fellow. The event begins at noon, Friday, March 23 in McDonnell Hall, Room 162. The final event, provided for the Century Series of the University’s Alumni & Development Programs, will be on “What, If Anything, Does Democracy Owe Identity?” at 5:30 p.m. Monday, March 26, in Lab Sciences 300.