Cuesheet: WNO Opera Dress Rehearsal: Don Giovanni
Mozart weaves the tale of Don Juan into a comically serious musical masterpiece
Backstage, Opera

Cuesheet: WNO Opera Look-In: Don Giovanni
This 50-minute narrated program includes fully-staged scenes from Mozart’s light-hearted musical masterpiece
Backstage, Opera

Gear: The Ellipsoidal Reflector Spotlight
One of the jobs of a lighting designer is to be an illusionist; to convince the audience they’re somewhere special
Theater, Jobs in the Arts, Backstage

Cuesheet: Cuesheet: Working Rehearsal: Monica Bill Barnes & Company
In this working rehearsal, Monica Bill Barnes & Company rehearses three of their works, including Luster, mostly fanfare, and Everything is getting better all the time. You may wonder if these pieces are dance, comedy, theater, or showy circus acts. That’s because these works combine all of them together.
Backstage, Choreographers, Dance

Cuesheet: Cuesheet: Performance & Demonstration: Monica Bill Barnes & Company
In this performance/demonstration, Monica Bill Barnes talks about her choreography and demonstrates key elements of her approach to modern dance. Specifically, she explores two of her dances: mostly fanfare and Everything is getting better all the time.
Backstage, Choreographers, Dance

Cuesheet: WNO Dress Rehearsal: Show Boat
Based on the 1926 novel of the same name, Show Boat has gone down in American musical theater history as a revolutionary work—one of the first to successfully weave together an epic and dramatic storyline with beautiful and meaningful songs. The story follows the lives of the owners and workers aboard the Cotton Blossom—a floating theater travelling along America’s Southern rivers.
Backstage, Opera, Musicals

Cuesheet: NSO Open Rehearsal with Lang Lang
Don’t miss this working rehearsal of the National Symphony Orchestra led by NSO Music Director Christoph Eschenbach with pianist superstar Lang Lang, performing Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2. Also on the program is Til Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks by Richard Strauss.
Backstage, Music, Orchestra

Cuesheet: A Brown Bear, a Moon, and a Caterpillar: Treasured Stories by Eric Carle
People have used puppets to tell stories, entertain, or teach lessons for thousands of years. In this performance, puppets act out the stories and drawings from Eric Carle's classic picture books The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, and Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me.
Puppets, Animals, Theater, Backstage

Arts Days: July 06, 1934: Get With the Program
Go to any theater on Broadway, in Miami, or even St. Louis, and you’ll probably be handed a copy of Playbill. Part program description of the play you are about to see, part theater magazine, Playbill was first called the Strauss Magazine Theater Program, after its creator Frank Vance Strauss.

In 1884, Strauss started a company that created programs tailored to shows. It featured restaurant ads, feature articles on famous directors, and other related material. These days you can subscribe to the magazine, as well as have one customized for any given show. It lists the actors, the parts they play and their work in other shows, as well as the sequence of events that will take place on the stage.
Backstage, Broadway, Playwrights & Plays, Theater

Arts Days: March 28, 1907: Nothing Slow About Swifty
When Hollywood legend Irving Lazar managed to sign three mega-deals in a single day, actor Humphrey Bogart jokingly gave him the nickname “Swifty.” It stuck, creating the role of a super talent agent, with such clients ranging from writers Ernest Hemingway, Vladimir Nabokov, and Tennessee Williams, composers Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, and George Gershwin, and actors/singers Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Cher, and Madonna.

Lazar was notorious for his legendarily high phone bills (he worked those phones!) and even more famous for the party he threw every year after the Academy Awards®; an invite to Swifty’s party meant that you had arrived.  Standing only 5’3”, Lazar was a giant when it came to protecting the creative and financial interests of his famous clients. Lazar also produced movies and plays, and even represented politicians like Richard Nixon, but his work as a performer’s advocate is still what he’s best known for.
Backstage, Movies & Movie Stars, Presidents

Video: Lee Blessing: The Power of Theater
In this Power of Theater podcast, part of the Kennedy Center Education Department's American College Theater Festival's summer intensive for playwrights, playwright Lee Blessing discusses the difference between writing for the theater and writing for television and film.
Theater, Backstage, Playwrights & Plays, Jobs in the Arts

Video: Marcia Norman: The Power of Theater
"When you're in a piece of wonderful theater your whole body responds to what's on the stage." In this Power of Theater podcast, part of the Kennedy Center Education Department's American College Theater Festival's summer intensive for playwrights, playwright Marcia Norman discusses the different forms and forums for storytelling, and what is thrilling about working for the stage.
Theater, Backstage, Playwrights & Plays

Video: Richard Thomas & Randle Mell: The Power of Theater
In this podcast, part of the Power of Theater series, actors Richard Thomas (The Waltons) and Randle Mell (24) discuss performing in the stage version of Twelve Angry Men and how the play illustrates the power of one voice in a system designed to reward the collective majority.
Theater, Backstage, Controversial, Playwrights & Plays

Video: August Wilson: The Power of Theater
August Wilson's work accurately portrays the black experience in America-addressing themes of struggle (violence, economic injustices, unemployment, poverty and neglect, racism, civil rights, unlawful imprisonment, the legacy of slavery) as well as themes of triumph (the strength of family ties and loyalties, the uniqueness of black culture and the fight to preserve and value it).
Theater, Backstage, Controversial, Playwrights & Plays

Audio Series: Theater Conversations
The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, in association with The Dramatists Guild, presents conversations from their two-week playwriting intensive at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Theater, Jobs in the Arts, Backstage

Cuesheet: WNO Opera Dress Rehearsal: Manon Lescaut
In Puccini’s Manon Lescaut—a free-spirited and flirtatious lady with a weakness for anything that sparkles meets a dashing young man who steals her heart. True love just isn’t enough for this French girl whose desire for finer things threatens to destroy her happiness, her reputation... even her life.
Backstage, Composers, Music, Europe, Opera

Cuesheet: The (Mostly True) Adventures of Homer P. Figg
During the Civil War, a small twelve-year-old boy who never even owned a pair of shoes saves his older brother at the Battle of Gettysburg and then helps lead the Union to victory! Sounds hard to believe, but it’s true. At least mostly true. You see, Homer P. Figg will tell any tale to save his brother.
America, Backstage, History, Playwrights & Plays, Theater

Cuesheet: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: Performance/Demonstration
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater shares "Ailey Magic" with students, giving insights into the history of the company and its founder Alvin Ailey.
Backstage, Ballet, Choreographers, Dance, Dance Legends

Theme: Family & Community
Explore the lives of immigrants and pioneers in early America. Then, drive along US-90 along the Gulf Coast or take a stroll down U Street in Washington, D.C.-- either place you'll be guided by the voices of the musicians who defined the culture of their community.
Backstage, Education, Family, Young Artists, Jobs in the Arts

Arts Quotes: George Balanchine
"First comes the sweat. Then comes the beauty if you're very lucky and have said your prayers."
Backstage, Dance Legends, Ballet, Dance, Choreographers

Video: Kathleen Turner: The Power of Theater
In this Power of Theater podcast, actress Kathleen Turner discusses the importance of theater as a means of creating a shared experience among strangers and her need to touch the lives of her audience.
Theater, Backstage, Broadway, Jobs in the Arts, Playwrights & Plays

Video: Alan Stanford: The Power of Theater
Alan Stanford & the Cast of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot talk about experiencing the magic of theater by coming to the theater with an “open heart.”
Theater, Backstage, Controversial, Europe, Playwrights & Plays

Video: Teater Garasi in Chicago
Indonesian actors visit with members of the Chicago-based theater companies The Civilians, Silk Road Theatre Project, and Redmoon Theatre
World Cultures, Asia, Theater, Young Artists, Backstage

Video Series: The Power of Theater
What does theater "do"? Does it matter in a contemporary, screen-driven society? Drawn from the Kennedy Center Education Department archives, this series examines the way theater impacts modern society and culture.
Theater, Jobs in the Arts, Backstage, Controversial, Playwrights & Plays

Video Series: Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia: Backstage Tour
Go backstage with the artists of Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia to learn about the skill and creativity they use to bring charcters to life, and what it's like to be a professional puppeteer on the road.
Puppets, Literature, Jobs in the Arts, Backstage, Theater