The calendars in City Newspaper will keep you apprised of event details and updates
on a weekly basis. But here is an outline of important winter happenings to
help you sketch out in advance your personal must-do and must-see lists. Mark
days on the calendar, scout out tickets, and look forward to a season ripe with
theater, art, dance, lectures, and museums.
Art
At the Tower Fine Arts Gallery at SUNY Brockport, Real/Abstract, paintings by Virginia Derryberry and Craig Drennen,
will be on display from January 27 through February 27. Brockport faculty will
display their work in a exhibit on display from March 4 through April 2. (Info:
395-2787, brockport.edu)
Text and Texture will open the Center at High Falls Gallery’s winter
season on January 23 and continue through February 21. The show features
artwork by various artists and in various mediums, but where text is
incorporated or texture is emphasized. And the Center at High Falls’ seventh
annual photography show, A Photographer’s
Path, opens on Friday, March 12, and runs through May 1. (Info: 324-2030,
www.centerathighfalls.org)
Rochester
Institute of Technology’s Bevier Gallery will host an exhibit of award-winning art by junior- and high-school students
from January 31 through February 18. (Info: 475-7680) RIT’s city gallery, Gallery r, will display Inspired by Light, with the winning
entries from an RIT student competition, from January 16 through February 22.
(Info: 242-9470, www.galleryr.org)
The
glass art of Nancy Gong will continue at the furniture store Maitlins through February. The glass
sculptures, a departure from her previous work in glass, are a part of the
artist’s new “Character Series.” (Info: 586-4660)
Personal Statements and Observations is
the name of the new exhibit by painter Frank Anders, on display in City Hall’s Link Gallery through Monday, February
2. The paintings are done in watercolor, oil, pastel, and gauche; Anders’s
previous work includes fashion illustration, children’s book illustration, and
covers for the New York Herald Tribune.
(Info: 624-4913)
The
All-Purpose Room will have artwork
by former Visual Studies Workshop exhibitions coordinator Scott Laird. The show
of photographs and installation is titled Balls
and Pins and will be on display from January 16 through February 7. An
exhibit called Gods and Spirits will
open February 13 and continue through February 28, and Prepare for Judgment, an environmental installation by All-Purpose
Room cofounder Heather Gardner, will be on display from March 8 through March
28. (Info: 423-0320, www.allpurposeroom.org)
Rochester Contemporary will host the
work of the Rochester Art Club alongside an exhibit of paintings by Marla
Friedrich from January 24 through February 21. An installation by Elizabeth
Lyons and recent work by Mark Sawrie will be on display from March 12 through
April 16. (Info: 461-2222, www.rochestercontemporary.org)
Theater and dance
On the Centerstage at the Jewish Community Center, a song and story
tribute to Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Bewitched,
Bothered, and Bewildered, will be up for two nights, Saturday and Sunday,
February 7 and 8. For two weeks, March 6 through March 20, the JCCenterstage
will perform John Guare’s Six Degrees of
Separation, a dark but humorous look at race, class, and morals. (Info:
461-2000 ext 235, www.jccrochester.org)
Geva Theatre Center will have two
productions on their Mainstage this winter. The
Smell of the Kill, a dark comedy about three couples whose monthly dinner
parties take a devious turn,will
continue from early January through February 8. Picking up on February 17 and
continuing through March 21 will be Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, the heartbreaking drama about a man whose
career and life are dwindling. (Info: 232-4382, www.gevatheatre.org)
Blackfriars Theatre will bring us Pride’s Crossing, on the stage from
February 21 through March 7, in which a 90-year-old woman tells her family the
story — and one glorious accomplishment — of her life. (Info: 454-1260,
www.blackfriars.org)
At
the Tower Fine Arts Theatre at SUNY
Brockport the Laramie Project will be
on stage February 27 through 29 and March 5 through 7. It is a play based on
interviews with the Laramie, WY, community after the hate-murder of Matthew
Shepard. On Thursday, March 4, The Neo-futurists, an avant-garde theater troupe
from Chicago, will perform. (Info: 395-2787)
Downstairs Cabaret Theatre will
continue showing the wildly successful musical, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, through the end of
February. Run For Your Wife, a
British farce by Ray Cooney about a taxi driver with two wives, will open
January 16 and continue indefinitely. Stevie Holland, a jazz cabaret artist,
will be at DCT for two weekends in February (one of them Valentine’s weekend).
(Info: 325-4370, www.downstairscabaret.com)
The
International Theatre program at the
University of Rochester will perform Pterodactyls,
the story of a family’s slow and tragic breakdown, February 26 through March 6.
Nigel Maister, known for his challenging work with the UR theater group,
directs. (Info: 275-4088)
Shipping Dock Theatre, back up and
running in their new home at Visual Studies Workshop, will follow their
comeback performance with the drama Coyote
on a Fence by Bruce Graham February 6 through 29. (Info:
www.shippingdocktheatre.org)
The
talented students in the Eastman Theatre
Opera will bring Dialogues of the
Carmelites, Poulenc’s libretto set during the French Revolution, to the
East Avenue Christ Church February 11 through 14. (Info: 232-1900,
www.ticketmaster.com)
Under Milk Wood, Dylan Thomas’s poetic
journey through a isolated Welsh fishing village, will be performed at the Nazareth Arts Center Studio 48 from
February 27 through March 7. (Info: 389-2456)
Three
Broadway musical favorites will be in town this winter thanks to the Rochester Broadway Theatre League.
February 6 through 8 is Cats;
February 24 through 29 is Les Miserables;
and Grease will be up March 26
through 28. (Info: 222-5000)
Eve
Ensler’s outspoken and political The
Vagina Monologues will be performed at Monroe
Community College‘s Brighton Campus Theatre February 12 through 14 (V-Day).
(Info: 292-2060)
And
children have their own theater to attend. Rochester
Children’s Theatre will perform three shows for kids this winter: Mr. Popper’s Penguins from January 9
through 11, The Diary of Anne Frank January 31 and February 1, and Alexander
and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day — a fun story about
looking on the bright side — on February 13 through 15. RCT is now performing
at Nazareth College. (Info: 389-2170)
Also
at Nazareth College, the Omaha Theatre Company will present Miss Nelson is Missing, based on the
children’s story, on Saturday, March 13. The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a musical adaptation staged by the Kennedy
Center, will be performed Saturday, March 27. (Info: 389-2170)
Garth Fagan Dance will dance at SUNY
Geneseo (Info: 245-5873) on Sunday, February 8, and at SUNY Brockport (Info:
395-2787) on Wednesday, February 25. Also at SUNY Geneseo, on Friday, March 26,
Break! will be in town for a night of urban funk dancing. A drive to Buffalo
will earn you an evening with Mikhail
Baryshnikov and pianist Pedja Muzijevic. Together, they will put on a
performance called “Solos with Piano or not…” at the University of Buffalo.
Baryshnikov will dance solo to works by American and European choreographers,
including some created just for him. (Info: 716-645-2787, www.ubcfa.org)
Parsons Dance Company will be at
Nazareth College on Saturday, January 17, and Les Ballets Africains, a touring company from the Republic of
Guinea, will be at the college on Saturday, March 20. (Info: 389-2170,
www.naz.edu)
Three
special comedian appearances this
winter are worth noting. Comedian Tracy Morgan, of Saturday Night Live and more recently TheTracy Morgan Show,
will be at Rochester Institute of Technology on Friday, January 30. (Info:
475-2239) Mitch Hedberg, recently off the Comedy Central tour, will perform at
the University of Rochester on Friday, February 6. (Info: 275-5911) Political
satirist and comedy writer Al Franken will entertain guests at Jewish Family
Service fundraiser on Sunday, March 28. (Tix: $50. Info: 461-0110)
Museums
Two exhibits based on loved
children’s books will open at Strong
Museum this winter. Where the Wild
Things Are: Maurice Sendak in his Own Words and Pictures opens January 31
and is up through May 9. The Berenstein
Bears Celebrate: The Art of Stan and Jan Berenstein will go up March 13 and
stay up through June. Each exhibit allows kids to interact with the stories:
They can dress up like a “wild thing,” slide in a bowl of chicken soup, or
become a game piece on a giant game board. Other, ongoing exhibits at Strong
include the National Toy Hall of Fame,
Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame
Street, and Super Kids Market.
(Info: 263-2700, www.strongmuseum.org)
At
the Memorial Art Gallery, Fields and Falls: Images of Rochester,
images of Rochester from 1829 to present, will be on display in the Lockhart
Gallery from January 16 through March 14. Beginning February 15 and on display
through April 11, American Sculptor of
the Gilded Age will include 71 works by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. You can see
some of the artists’ most famous pieces, like images of Abraham Lincoln and
portraits of African-American soldiers. (Info: 473-7720, mag.rochester.edu)
The
Rochester Museum and Science Center just opened Rochester’s Frederick
Douglass. The exhibit, which helps kids understand the man’s life and
experiences, will be up through 2006. Their other exhibits include Hear Here, an interactive exhibit on
sound and ExploraZone. (Info:
271-4320, www.rmsc.org)
For
outdoor museum fun, the Granger
Homestead Society in Canandaigua will be offering horse-drawn sleigh rides
on Saturdays and Sundays through March 14. (Info: 394-1472,
www.grangerhomestead.org.)
The Best of Photo and Film: Right Before
Your Eyes is an exhibit up through April at the George Eastman House. See more than 200 artifacts from the museum’s
photography, motion picture, and technology collections, including original
negatives from Gone With the Wind and
The Wizard of Oz, and the camera that
shot the flag raising at Iwo Jima.
Lectures and literature
Monroe Avenue’s Community Darkroom
will host lectures by Rochester-area photographers in a series of five Monday Meet the Photographer talks. All the
photographers — Robert Harris, January 26; Stephen Spinder, February 2; Carl
Chiarenza, February 9; Gary Lee Heard, February 16; and Willie Osterman,
February 23 — have published books of their work. (Info: 271-5920,
www.geneseearts.org)
Gail Collins, New York Times editor and author of America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines,
will give the keynote speech at a fundraising luncheon for the Susan B. Anthony
House on Thursday, February 12. (Tix: $50. 279-7490 ext 14.)
SUNY
Brockport has an impressive lineup of poets and writers: On February 11 Irish
poet Conor O’Callaghan will speak
(Info: 395-5713); Maya Angelou is
slated to visit the campus on February 15 (Info: 395-2487); short story writer
and novelist Dan Chaon will be there
February 25 (Info: 395-5713); and Ray
Gonzalez, poet and creative nonfiction writer, will be there on March 10
(Info: 395-5713).
At
the University of Rochester, Christopher
Edley, Jr., civil rights legal scholar and dean of the UC Berkeley Law
School, will speak on “The New Civil Rights Agenda” on Friday, January 23.
(Info: 275-0651) Carol Mosely Braun,
potential presidential candidate, will be in the Strong Auditorium on Thursday,
February 19, at 8 p.m. (Info: 275-5911) Wrapping up the political list will be Ralph Nader, who will speak at the
university on Wednesday, March 24. (Info: 275-5911) On the literary side, you
can hear Linda Sue Park, 2002 Newbery Medal winner for her novel A Single Shard, on Thursday, February
26.
Rochester
Arts and Lectures can be relied upon to bring the can’t-miss lecturers to town.
On Thursday, March 11, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Robert Caro will speak. He is maybe
best-known for his multi-volume biography of President Lyndon Johnson. (Info:
546-8658, www.artsandlectures.org)
Writers
and Books’s effort to get all of Rochester sharing one literary experience
continues with this year’s selection for the “If All of Rochester Read the Same Book…” campaign: Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. Enger
will be in town March 24 through 26. Leading up to his visit, W&B, local
bookstores, and literary groups will sponsor book discussions, lectures, art
exhibits, and other activities surrounding his best-selling novel. (Info: 473-2590,
www.wab.org)
This article appears in Jan 14-20, 2004.
