In summertime, a performance critic's thoughts turn to … the other three seasons. Yes, there's a trickle of productions coming up this month and next. But let's face it: The performance season goes, roughly, from September to May, and when we professional spectators meditate the Promise of Happiness, our yearning minds reach wistfully for autumn and after.
What's there to look forward to? The three major performing arts halls — Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Ruth Eckerd Hall and the Mahaffey Theater — have recently announced their new seasons. Which of the coming shows, dances and concerts look too good to be missed?
Let's start at TBPAC, as usual the arts hall with the most variety on its four stages. I see quite a few attractions here, of very different types. I'm happy to note that Monica Bishop Steele is continuing her Woman's Work series with Wind Beneath My Wings (Oct. 4-7), Northern Lights (March 6-10) and Trailers (May 17). It's Northern Lights that looks most interesting from this distance; the play is about a woman in midlife who, together with an insightful cellist, travels through a landscape of music and memory.
Also enticing is the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange (Oct. 12-14). Lerman specializes in revolutionizing conventional dance concepts; what makes a dance, who gets to dance and where dance happens? Lerman comes back, by the way, on Feb. 16 with a work based on the music of Leonard Bernstein, the subject of TBPAC's American Music Festival, Bernstein, Broadway, the Bomb — The Age of Anxiety (Feb. 4-24).
Patti LuPone is one of those Broadway fixtures who seem to belong to the stage in some proprietary way (another is Bernadette Peters; read on); I'm looking forward to her Dec. 15 recital Coulda Woulda Shoulda. A month later, on Jan. 16, the incomparable Jose Carreras arrives to demonstrate the art of the operatic tenor. And on Jan. 23, Donald Byrd/The Group returns to TBPAC; anyone who saw their show last January will want another helping of their bright and witty jazz dance.
February 2002: the Bernstein Festival starts at TBPAC and Arthur Miller's The Crucible takes the stage (Feb. 7-24). This is one of the most suspenseful, heart-rending works of American drama written in the last century. On Feb. 9-10, Opera Tampa presents Basically Bernstein: Act I is the fully-staged opera Trouble in Tahiti and Act II is a concert performance of music from West Side Story and Candide. I'm also delighted to see that the amazing pianist Dick Hyman will be joining three other musicians on Feb. 24 for Improvisations on Leonard Bernstein's Broadway. I'd go to see Hyman if he were improvising on Chopsticks; the Bernstein subject here just adds gravy and more gravy.
There's not a great deal of performance art at TBPAC in the new season, but among the few offerings is Rhodessa Jones in Hot Flashes, Power Surges & Private Summers (March 15-17). This is a piece on the subject of aging, from daughterhood to grandmotherhood and everything in between, and looks to be a winner. On March 22, TBPAC's Art and Spirituality Festival begins. I'm particularly intrigued by Jobsite Theater's production of Jean-Claude Van Itallie's seldom-produced Tibetan Book of the Dead (March 21-31). Finally, on April 19-21, the first opera I ever loved — Rigoletto — comes to Tampa; based on Victor Hugo's Le Rois' Amuse, it contains several top 10 hit arias, from "La Donna e Mobile" to "Caro Nome." You don't want to miss this one.
Those are the highlights at TBPAC. What looks good at Clearwater's Ruth Eckerd Hall in the 2001-02 season? Well, on Nov. 19, Western Opera Theater presents Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte, in which a cynical old man leads two naive officers into a scandalous wager. Then, on Dec. 1, dance wizard Paul Taylor brings his company to REH with a program originating at the Kennedy Center. Jan. 4 brings the aforementioned Bernadette Peters to Clearwater, and then on Jan. 17, it's the Twyla Tharp dance group performing to a Mozart Clarinet Quintet and something called "Surfer at the River Styx." There's more dance coming: the Moiseyev Dance Company on Feb. 21 and the much-celebrated Alvin Ailey company on March 6 and 7.
The last time I saw Rent, I was sitting so far in the back of a certain cavernous theater that I can't really say I saw it at all. So I'm looking forward to the return of the musical on Jan. 24-26 in the slightly more intimate REH space. I'm also looking forward to a piano recital by the (yet-unnamed) Van Cliburn competition gold medallist on March 5; and to a violin recital by the wonderful Itzhak Perlman on March 23. And, though I admit I'm growing just a little weary of national touring redundancies, I think I'd like to see Ragtime during its April 12-14 appearance. Call it a whim. Call it a wild caprice.
Finally, we come to the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg, with its eclectic offerings and somewhat sparser season. What attracts me here? Well, as a guitar-wannabe from years ago, I can't help but be curious about the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (Oct. 19) which has played Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and which Guitar Player magazine has called "one of the finest guitar quartets in the world."
I'm also intrigued by the multimedia HD Planet (Dec. 8), in which journalist Bill Kurtis and his 18-inch by 32-inch television screen provide 90 minutes of verbal/visual commentary on life in the contemporary world. On Feb. 24, LUMA arrives in St. Petersburg — it employs dancers, gymnasts, trapeze artists and light to turn a darkened theater into a surreal, three-dimensional canvas.
And about a week later on March 1, the African-American dance ensemble Philadanco presents a tribute to women's spirituality called Messages From the Heart; four leading choreographers combine modern and folk traditions here to make a statement about female power. Sound too intense? You can lighten up on March 10, when Berkeley Breathed's Goodnight Opus, with puppets and live performers, brings us the "Bloom County" crew in a family-friendly voyage through the Milky Way.
Finally, what Stomp did for percussion, Barrage aims to do for the violin. On April 5 and 6, expect a fusion of dance, theater, song and music ranging from Celtic to calypso, Mozart to Metallica, klezmer to classical. I hope it's raucous.
And that's it; what a performance writer dreams about during the off-season.
And only 12 weeks till autumn.
This article appears in Jul 5-11, 2001.
