2009-10 Subscription Series

What Inspires You?

Art has the power to speak to us in many ways. Its sheer beauty and magnificence can lift our spirits and inspire the imagination. It can engage us in new ideas, confront the unjust, pose questions, contemplate answers and even bring about change. Experiencing a live theatre, music or dance performance—be it poignant, moving, irreverent, hilarious, harmonious or dissonant —can conjure thoughts and emotions we didn’t even know we were capable of.  What inspires you? Open yourself to the transformative power of the arts and find out!

The 2008 floodwaters brought change to our performance spaces, but a year later we have found new ways to serve you. Theatre Arts has returned to its building and its three beautiful theatres are back, better than ever. The intimate Space Place Theater provides a personal relationship with Dance Gala, improved by new sound and video systems. The warmth of the IMU Lounge offers a lovely atmosphere for audiences enjoying the Symphony Orchestra, and the Englert Theatre is our new venue for opera. Poised on the edge of historic change, we are thrilled to invite you to an extraordinary 2009-2010 season of music, theatre and dance, specially created to engage your imagination, creativity, and sense of adventure.

Join us and be inspired.

DEPARTMENT OF DANCE

October 29, 30, 31 (at 2 and 8 pm), November 5, 6, 7 (at 2 and 8 pm)
Dance Gala 2009: Synergy
Space Place Theater

Synergy: From the Greek “working together.” A combined and interactive action of individual elements producing a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual parts.

Delivering one of the most eclectic and powerful programs in our 29-year history, Dance Gala 2009 promises to be synergistically fabulous. An evening of six contemporary and classical works will include the masterwork, “Psalm” by legendary choreographer José Limón to be restaged by Nina Watt, a long-time principal dancer with the Limón company; “Lost Lullabies,” a poignant and highly athletic work from the repertory of special guest choreographer Carl Flink; world premieres by UI Dance Faculty members Charlotte Adams, Deanna Carter, Jennifer Kayle and Annette Schaedlich-Hendrix, as well as the extraordinary contributions of composers, musicians, designers, technical collaborators, and, of course, the superb UI dancers. From one of the most highly acclaimed university dance programs in the country, Dance Gala has become a yearly must-see event for Iowa dance lovers.

Since last year’s Dance Gala quickly sold out its performances in the intimate Space Place Theatre, we have added two more performances in 2009. We hate to turn people away so be sure to get your tickets early!

Tickets are $20 non-students, $15 seniors, and only for $5 UI students and youth

A $100 patron ticket includes a contribution of $80 to the Department of Dance through the UI Foundation.

Dance Gala 2009 is supported by the Iowa City Press Citizen

March 4, 5, 6
Dancers In Company Home Concert

Dancers in Company, the University of Iowa Dance Department's premiere touring repertory company, kicks off its 2010 season with the wildly popular Home Concert. Now in its 26th year, the company of twelve dancers, undergraduates and graduate students tours throughout Iowa and the Midwest from March to June each year, performing concerts and lecture demonstrations for audiences of all ages. The company’s repertory changes annually and is selected from award-winning dances by faculty and guest artists.  Don’t miss this fresh and exciting company in concert.

2009-10 Space Place Series

November 12, 13, 14 (3 pm)
Afro/Cuban Drum and Dance Ensemble

December 3, 4, 5
Graduate/Undergraduate Concert

December 10, 11, 12
Collaborative Performance

December 19, 20 (3 pm)
Dance Forum/Youth Ballet Winter Concert

February 18, 19, 20
Faculty/Graduate Concert

April 8, 9, 10
Hendrix, Lee, Weber MFA Thesis Concert

April 22, 23, 24
Cortes, Glenn, Lin, Vigmostad MFA Thesis Concert

May 6, 7, 8
Undergraduate Concert

May 15 & 16 (3 pm)
Dance Forum/Youth Ballet Spring Concert

June 3, 4, 5
Summer Dance

Tickets

$12 non-students, $6 seniors and youth.

All UI students are admitted FREE to Space Place Series concerts (except Dance Forum/Youth Ballet UI Student tickets are $5)

The University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra

All UI Symphony performances are FREE OF CHARGE.
Performances are in the Iowa Memorial Union Main Lounge beginning at 7:30 pm.

SPECIAL:
Friday, September 11, 8 pm
The Joffrey Ballet with the UI Symphony Orchestra
Civic Center of Greater Des Moines
Benefit performance for Hancher Auditorium and the UI School of Music

The enduring relationship between Hancher Auditorium and the Joffrey Ballet has led to many artistic triumphs—from acclaimed world premieres on the Hancher stage to the whirlwind river-to-river tour of Iowa in 2007. On many occasions, musicians from the UI School of Music have performed with the company.

Now, the Joffrey Ballet will dance—and the UI Symphony Orchestra will play—in Des Moines in a benefit performance for both Hancher and the UI School of Music. We invite you to join us for this very special event featuring world-class artistry and built on steadfast friendship.

For tickets to the Des Moines event, go to www.civiccenter.org or call 800-745-3000.

September 30
William LaRue Jones, conductor

The Good News from Beijing– Zheng Lu & Ma Hongye
The Firebird: Suite (1919 version) – Igor Stravinsky
Piano Concerto No. 3 in d minor – Sergei Rachmaninoff
   Ksenia Nosikova, piano

 October 27
William LaRue Jones, conductor

Katamelin, Symphonic Poem – Shin Fou Chin 
Violin Concerto – David Gompper
   Wolfgang David, violin
Symphony No. 2 in D major – Ludwig van Beethoven
 
December 2
Timothy Stalter, conductor

Lobgesang, op. 52 (Hymn of Praise) – Felix Mendelssohn

February 17
Dr. William LaRue Jones, conductor

In memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy – William Grant Still
Tzigane, rapsodie de concert, for Violin & Orchestra – Maurice Ravel
   Scott Conklin, violin
 Lincoln Portrait – Aaron Copland (1900 – 1990)
 West Side Story: Symphonic Dances – Leonard Bernstein

March 31
William LaRue Jones, conductor

The Infernal Machine – Christopher Rouse
The Tender Land: Suite – Aaron Copland
And God Created Great Whales – Alan Hovhaness
A Zoo Called Earth – Peter Schickele

April  21
William LaRue Jones, conductor

Symphony No. 3 in F major – Johannes Brahms
Piano Concerto No. 1 in e minor – Frédéric Chopin
   Uriel Tsachor, piano

Band Extravaganza

November 9
Carver-Hawkeye Arena
Tickets $5 in advance or $7 at the door

Get ready for the biggest, brassiest band event this side of Iowa! The Hawkeye Marching Band, alongside the UI Golden Girl and Drum Major, perform highlights from the 2009 football halftime shows. Rounding out the evening are powerful performances from the UI Symphony Band and the big band sounds of Johnson County Landmark. Your family will love the music! Tickets are just $5 ($7 at the door) and available through the Hancher Box Office.

Martha-Ellen Tye Opera Series

January 29–31
Mozart’s La finta giardiniera (The Disguised Garden Maid)
The Englert Theatre
Directed by Gary Briggle

Mozart was barely nineteen when he wrote La finta giardiniera (The Disguised Garden Maid), a comic/dramatic opera teeming with Mozart’s early musical genius. Many of the characters assume disguises and new identities in this fascinating tale filled with murder, revenge, intrigue, jealously and love. The plot and music mingle conventional comic elements and characters with real emotions and serious undertones.

April 30–May 2
Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah
The Englert Theatre
Directed by Gary Briggle

Carlisle Floyd’s musical drama is a timeless exploration of intolerance, jealousy, and human fallibility. A backwoods Tennessee community turns on the free-spirited outsider Susannah when she is spied unaware, bathing in the baptismal river, by men of the congregation. Based on the Apocryphal biblical tale of Susanna and the Elders, and relocated to the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee in the 1950s, this modern American folk opera uses bluegrass fiddle tunes as musical inspiration to tell a tale of lust, bigotry, seduction, betrayal and revenge.

Tickets: $20 nonstudents, $15 seniors, $10 youth, $5 UI Students

For Opera Tickets, please call the Englert Theatre Box Office at (319) 688-2653 Monday through Friday between 1:00 and 6:00 PM.

University Theatres Mainstage Season

All performances begin at 8 pm unless otherwise noted.
Tickets are $17 non-students, $12 seniors and only $5 UI students and Youth

October 8, 9, 10, 11 (2 pm), 14, 15, 16, 17 (2 pm)
The Book of Liz
by David Sedaris and Amy Sedaris
directed by Anthony Nelson
David Thayer Theatre

It's a simple recipe: Take one of the funniest satirists around, combine him with his equally funny sister and coax them to write a play. Add a dash of religion, a hint of “The Wizard of Oz.” Shake and Bake. That’s the essence of The Book of Liz, the story of Sister Elizabeth Donderstock whose cheeseballs are the pride and financial sustenance of her Amish-like community. Feeling underappreciated, Liz decides to set aside the work, the beards, the furniture and the cheeseballs and hit the road, her llama in tow. Irreverent and hilarious, the play pokes fun at the religiously conservative, AA, homosexuality, and the question of what a breakfast burrito really is.

[Purchase Tickets]

November 13, 14, 15 (2 pm), 18, 19, 20, 21 (2 pm)
Reefer Madness, the Musical
Music by Dan Studney  and lyrics by Kevin Murphy
directed by Brandon Bruce
E. C. Mabie Theatre
BE SHOCKED! Watch how young Jimmy Harper turns from All-American teen to hallucinatory pot fiend after only one puff of the evil Killer Weed. WITNESS THE CONSEQUENCES as he is sucked into a world of orgies, junkie murderers, and cannibalism. IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU! One of the strangest, funniest, most outrageous social satires of the century, Reefer Madness, the Musical is based on the hilariously awful 1936 scare film of the same name about the dangers of marijuana. From the writers of Weird Science, The Simpsons and Desperate Housewives, Reefer Madness includes sweet young kids, caring parents, evil drug pushers and Jesus Christ himself. It also contains sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll and is intended for mature audiences only.

[Purchase Tickets]

February 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14
Eye Piece (an Iowa Partnership in the Arts production, presented in collaboration with Hancher Auditorium)
Conceived and directed by Rinde Eckert
E. C. Mabie Theatre
An artist losing his sight takes his first steps toward a different kind of illumination.
Renowned theater artist and UI graduate Rinde Eckert takes us behind the eyes and into the heads and hearts of those surrounded by the shadows of blindness. Crafted from interviews collected via an unusual collaboration between Eckert and the UI Carver Family Center for Macular Degeneration, Eye Piece will feature performers from the UI Theatre Arts and Dance departments, from the School of Music, as well as Eckert himself.

[Purchase Tickets]

March 4, 5, 6, 7 (2 pm), 10, 11, 12, 13
Eurydice
by Sarah Ruhl
directed by Sarah Ballema
David Thayer Theatre
A raining elevator delivers a bewildered young bride into the afterlife. A doting father builds a room for his daughter out of string. An ill-tempered Hades menaces his subjects from a giant tricycle. These are just some of the beguiling images in Sarah Ruhl's poetic and highly theatrical version of the Orpheus myth told from the perspective of his doomed wife, Eurydice. Hailed as "weird and wonderful, devastatingly lovely" by The New York Times, Eurydice is a witty and emotionally powerful meditation on love and loss. With ingenious plot twists, an original musical score and breathtaking visual effects, Eurydice has raised the bar on the possibilities of theatre and imagination.

[Purchase Tickets]

April 16, 17, 18 (2 pm), 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 (2 pm)
The Madwoman of Chaillot
by Jean Giraudoux
directed by John Kaufmann
E. C. Mabie Theatre
In 1940s Paris Nazis reign, venture capitalism abounds and the water has a faint taste of petroleum oil. At the Café Chez Francis, a group of corrupt, profit-driven developers believe there is oil beneath the streets of Paris and plot to level the city in order to get it. But “Countess” Aurelia, the eccentric madwoman of the Chaillot district, and her friends, a marvelously eclectic band of Bohemians, artists and street-folk, concoct a plan to save the city and the way of life they love. Part political satire, part fairy tale and part love story, Giraudoux’s timeless comedy foreshadowed the world we live in today.

[Purchase Tickets]

Gallery Series:

All Performances in the UI Theatre Building

October 1, 2, 3, 4 
Undergraduate Directors Festival:
Four Directors and Four Plays

October 15, 16, 17, 18 
Lost Sharks
By Kevin Artigue

October 29, 30, 31, November 1
America!
by Justin Dewey

November 5, 6, 7, 8
One Man’s Trash
by Jess Foster

December 3, 4, 5, 6
Yellow City
By Jen Silverman

December 10, 11, 12, 13
One Plum
By Lisa Leaverton

February 11-14
Ten-Minute Play Festival

February 18,19, 20, 21
Our Golden Years
By Andrew Saito

February 25, 26, 27, 28
A Dry Cycle of Years
By Joe Luis Cedillo

April 1, 2, 3, 4
The Boy in Black
By Tony Meneses

May 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Iowa New Play Festival
Readings and performances of new work from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop

All UI students are admitted FREE to Gallery performances.
Tickets for non-students are $5 and are available at the door beginning one hour before performance time. Performances are at 8 pm except Sunday performances, which are at 2 pm.

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