Winter Arts Preview

Compiled by Susan Wittstock

The College of the Arts

The music department heads to Broadway, the theatre department joins the circus and the dance department journeys downtown as the College of the Arts rolls into winter quarter. In January, opera and music students will perform in the Broadway music revue 's Marvelous. In February, audiences can learn about P.T. Barnum in an MFA theater production titled Barnum's American Museum. And in March, OSUDance will perform in the Riffe Center. Read on for highlights of all of the exhibits, performances and events sponsored by the College of the Arts during winter quarter.

All events may be subject to change. Call the department listed for confirmation before attending.

MUSIC

The sounds of Broadway, jazz and the classical greats are all on tap for the School of Music's repertoire this winter.

The Opera/Music Theatre program will start things swinging by performing 's Marvelous Jan. 21-23 and 28-29 in Weigel Auditorium. The show is a musical revue of Broadway show tunes from the 1920s to 1970s featuring such composers as Gershwin, Sondheim, Berlin and Porter. Ten music students in black tie and dress will sing to the accompaniment of two pianos. For tickets, call the Wexner Box Office at 292-3535.

Guest conductor John Corigliano will be in residence for the Contemporary Music Festival 2000 on Feb. 10-12. Each year, the School of Music's Contemporary Music Festival features a nationally known composer. Corigliano, who composed the score for the recent film The Red Violin, is internationally known for his orchestral, chamber, opera and film work. Several concerts will take place over the course of the weekend, including a concert featuring Corigliano's music performed by 150 young flutists from the community.

By Jo McCulty

The Ohio State Men's Glee Club plans to hit all the right notes for its concerts this quarter. The men will perform with the Women's Glee Club at 8 p.m. Feb. 19 in Weigel Auditorium.

The Lectures in Musicology program will continue, with several late-afternoon lectures scheduled to take place. Ohio State's many vocal and instrumental performance groups, including the chamber orchestra, several jazz ensembles, the men's and women's glee clubs, the University band and the Mastersingers, will hold performances throughout the winter.

For tickets and more information, call 292-2300.

THEATRE

Ted Lange, Los Angeles-based actor and director and former cast member on TV's Love Boat, stars in Behind the Mask: An Evening with Paul Laurence Dunbar Jan. 19-22 in Roy Bowen Theatre. Behind the Mask, which was written by Lange, is a new work based on the life and poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar, an early 20th century African-American writer from Ohio and cornerstone artist of the Harlem Renaissance. The show is directed by Sue Ott Rowlands.

MFA students Michael Karp and Robin Gordon will perform original works created for their degrees on Feb. 1-5. Experience the life and times of P.T. Barnum in Karp's Barnum's American Museum, and delve into the modern teen-age psyche in iphelOa, by Gordon.

Students will perform Sobering Thoughts by Jason Kravits, directed by Bruce Hermann, on Feb. 6 in Mount Hall Studio Theatre. Sobering Thoughts is a program dealing with teen-age drinking that tours to high schools during winter quarter.

Eudora Welty: Mississippi Stories, adapted and directed by Gloria Baxter, Thurber Playwright in Residence, will be presented Feb. 9-12, 16-19 and 23-26 in Bowen Theatre. This original stage adaptation opens with an excerpt from Welty's memoir, One Writer's Beginnings, and is followed by her comic short story, Why I live at the P.O. (See accompanying story ).

The Hostage, by Brendan Behan, will be performed in Thurber Theatre in late February and early March. In The Hostage, set in an old lodging house in Dublin, Ireland, in the 1950s, Behan captures a gritty atmosphere filled with dancing, music and song, all of which erupt into terror when a fanatical IRA officer confronts a young British soldier. Performances are Feb. 23-26 and Feb. 29-March 4.

Call 292-2295 for ticket information for Department of Theatre performances.

DANCE

The Department of Dance will be heading downtown this winter for a special performance at 8 p.m. March 2-4 in the Capitol Theatre at the Riffe Center. OSUDance Downtown! will feature the work of New York choreographer Tere O'Connor and associate professors of dance Susan Hadley and Victoria Uris, as well as a masterwork of Senta Driver reconstructed by visiting faculty member Stacy Reischman.

Tickets are available from the CAPA box office or through Ticketmaster.

Graduate students Elizabeth Dishman, Lisa Moran and Hadassah Segal will be featured in an OSU Dance Graduate Performance Jan. 27-29 in Sullivant Theatre. Undergraduate and graduate student choreographers will be showcased at the OSUDance Winter Performance at 8 p.m. Feb. 10-12 in Sullivant Theatre.

For more information about the concerts, call 292-7977.

ART

Recent works by graduate students in the Department of Art's art and technology, art critical practices, ceramics, glass, painting and drawing, photography and sculpture programs will be displayed Jan. 18-Feb. 4 in the Hopkins Hall Gallery and Corridor.

The Biennial Alumni Exhibition, Feb. 7-18 in Hopkins Hall Gallery, will feature the work of alumna Melinda Kay (MFA '84). This exhibition will celebrate the roles of classroom teacher and studio artist in Melinda Kay: Dual Decades, shown with a companion exhibition of works by students at Thomas Worthington High School.

The eighth annual Edith Fergus-Gilmore Scholarship Awards Exhibition will be held Feb. 21-March 10 in the Hopkins Hall Gallery and Corridor. On display will be the winners of a juried competition open to all studio-based undergraduate and graduate visual art and design majors.

The Wexner Center

The Wexner Center carries on its tradition of presenting cutting-edge artwork and performance this quarter. The popular exhibit, Julie Taymor: Playing with Fire, which was displayed throughout the fall, has been extended through April 16. The exhibits of Ernesto Neto: Sister Naves and James Welling Photographs: 1974-1999 will run May 11-Aug. 13 and Ray Johnson: Correspondences, Udomsak Krisanamis and Shirin Neshat will open in the fall of 2000. On stage, the Wexner will play it cool with the jazzy tunes of trumpeter-composer Dave Douglas in January, welcome experimental theater troupe Elevator Repair Service in February, and host the return of Canadian theater group Da Da Kamera in March.

Exhibition

Julie Taymor: Playing with Fire will continue to fill all four of the Wexner Center's galleries through mid-April. The show is a retrospective of Taymor's career as a director, designer and puppeteer. The exhibit includes costumes and sketches from her work as director and designer of Disney's The Lion King, as well as masks, costumes and props from many of her other productions presented around the world. Monitors throughout the galleries give visitors a chance to view performances and behind-the-scenes work.

Included is a 14-minute trailer of the recently released Titus, Taymor's first feature film, which stars Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange.

Walk-in tours of the exhibition take place at 6 p.m. Thursdays and 1 p.m. on weekends. Free screenings of Taymor's Fool's Fire, a PBS movie based on an Edgar Allan Poe story, and Oedipus Rex, her opera starring Jessye Norman, staged in Japan and later transferred to film, will take place most Saturdays and Sundays at 2 and 3:15 p.m., respectively. There will be no screenings Feb. 6, 13, 19, 20 and 26; March 4; and April 1 and 8.

Admission to the galleries is free for Ohio State faculty, staff and students, Wexner Center members, and children younger than 12; $3 for the general public; and $2 for other students, senior citizens and groups.

Performances

Trumpeter-composer Dave Douglas and his Charms of the Night Sky ensemble will light up the Wexner's performance space on Jan. 28. The group's debut CD for the artful Winter & Winter label landed on scores of critics' Best of the Year lists, helping Douglas to gain increasing recognition as one of the top innovators on the jazz scene.

The experimental theater troupe Elevator Repair Service will present Total Fictional Lie on Feb. 4-6. The young performers, known for their lunatic choreography, deadpan wit and funhouse mirror perspectives, will serve up a vision of a society awash in calculated phoniness.

The Wexner Center's annual partnership with BalletMet continues this year with a contemporary-focused program, to be performed in the Capitol Theatre at the Riffe Center on Feb. 18-20 and 24. Among several pieces performed will be Evening Air, a wistful new work set to 10 Aaron Copland piano solos, choreographed by Susan Hadley, associate professor of dance at Ohio State.

The Canadian theater group Da Da Kamera, directed by Daniel Brooks, will share MONSTER with Columbus audiences on March 2-5. In MONSTER, actor-writer Daniel MacIvor portrays a broad range of personalities as he chronicles a horrific act in interlocking narratives that twist and turn through increasingly shadowy corridors.

For more information or to order tickets, call 292-3535.

The Schottenstein Center

The Jerome Schottenstein Center will bring in a wide variety of acts winter quarter, ranging from Disney's ice extravaganza Toy Story to the antics of World Championship Wrestling to the high-energy Irish dancing in Lord of the Dance.

Musician Kid Rock will headline at the Schottenstein Center on Jan. 14. Detroit-based Kid Rock is out in support of his double-platinum album, Devil Without A Cause, with music that is a hybrid of metal, rock 'n' roll and old-school rap.

World Championship Wrestling will take the stage on Jan. 17, featuring such stars as Hulk Hogan, Sting, "Macho Man" Randy Savage and Bill Goldberg.

Champions On Ice will glide into Columbus on Jan. 22 when Olympic, World and National Champion figure skaters strut their stuff. Scheduled to appear are: Olympic Gold Medalists Brian Boitano, Katarina Witt, Dorothy Hamill, Oksana Baiul and Viktor Petrenko, World Champion Todd Eldredge, and Surya Bonaly, Rudy Galindo, Philippe Candeloro and many more.

Lord of the Dance, the Irish music and dance sensation, will tap into town Jan. 26, while actress and singer Cher, with special guest Lou Bega, will bring her touring concert to Columbus on Feb. 8.

Photo courtesy of the Jerome Schottenstein Center

Cher will perform this quarter at the Schottenstein Center.

Walt Disney's World On Ice will present an $8 million ice extravaganza, Toy Story, Feb. 16-20. The performance features a handful of toys that have come to life romping through hair-raising adventures on a colossal set.

Tickets for the March 17 Harlem Globetrotters game will go on sale Feb. 11. The "winningest team in basketball" will take on the International All-Stars.

Tickets for shows are available at Ticketmaster,outlets or via charge-by-phone at 431-3600 or Ticketmaster Online. For more information, check out www.schottensteincenter.com.