by Mark G. Auerbach
Halloween Weekend Happenings
The War of the Worlds, the 1938 radio script by Howard E. Koch, has been adapted into a radio-style stage show by Capital Classics with performances at The Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford on October 28-,30. Prepared to be scared with this performance of H. G. Wells’s classic. For details: 860-247-0998 or www.marktwainhouse.org.
Jacek Kaspszyk, Warsaw Philahrmonic Maestro
The Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of maestro Jacek Kaspszyk, will perform at the UMass Fine Arts Center Concert Hall on October 30. Nothing scary about the program, which includes Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 3 in C Minor, Brahms’s Symphony in Symphony no. 2, and Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Polish Melodies no. 2. Joining the orchestra as soloist is pianist Seong-Jin Cho. in keeping with the FAC’s theme Eat. Art. Love @ the FAC, the University Club will offer a pre-show prix fixe Polish dinner that evening, with seating starting at 5 p.m. For reservations: 413-545-2115. Dinner details available at fineartscenter.com/artfulpalate. For tickets: 800-999-UMAS or 413-545-2511 or http://www.fineartscenter.com/
Plan Ahead…
Made in the Berkshires Festival features cutting-edge theatrical works performed as staged readings, live music, film, short stories and dance in a festival atmosphere like no other. New and innovative pieces as well as established work will be presented by local Berkshire County playwrights, actors, directors, musicians and performers. Featured as performance blocks, Made in the Berkshires will allow audiences to enjoy the breadth and depth of the artistic talent that has landed in Berkshire County while celebrating the best in the visual and performing arts. November 11-13 at Pittsfield’s Colonial Theatre and Garage and Stockbridge’s Unicorn Theatre. A special event honors Karen Allen on November 11. For details: 413-997-4444 or www.BerkshireTheatreGroup.org
Elaine Bromka
Tea for Three: Lady Bird, Pat, and Betty, Elaine Bromka’s one-woman show plays The Majestic Theater in West Springfield on November 7-8. .The Emmy Award-winner offers a whimsical and deeply-moving look behind the scenes at the lives of three memorable American First Ladies: Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon and Betty Ford as they deal with the fishbowl life that comes with being First Lady. For details: 413-747-7797 or www.majestictheater.com.
The Hartford Symphony Orchestra has announced its 1th Anniversary Sunday Serenades chamber music concert series at The Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, an opportunity to hear music inspired by some of the artists represented at the museum. Concerts feature Sunday Serenades Artistic Director and HSO Concertmaster Leonid Sigal and select HSO musicians. The programs include: Mozart and Man Ray on October 29; Snow Moon and Flowers on February 26; and Amistad @ 30: Songs and Spirituals on May 7. For details: 860-987-5900 or www.hartfordsymphony.org
The Young@Heart Chorus welcomes the PVPA Pop/R&B and Funkedelic Dance Crew and the Berklee College of Music co-ed
Young@Heart Chorus
a cappella group Pitch Slapped on-stage in a spectacular intergenerational musical mash-up, November 6, at Northampton’s Academy of Music. For details: 413-584-9032 x105 or www.youngatheartchorus.com
Keep in Mind…
The Pioneer Valley Symphony Orchestra, with Maestro Paul Phillips on the podium, performs Dukas’ The Sorceror’s Apprentice, Bloch’s ,Schelomo – Rhapsodie Hébraïque for Violoncello and Orchestra, and R. Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration as its season opener
Nicholas Canellakis. Photo by Sophie Zhai, Sophie Studio.
on October 22, at Northampton’s Academy of Music. Nicholoas Canellakis is the guest cellist. He’s also known as the filmmaker who made Conversations with Nick Canellakis. For details: 413-584-9032 or http://www.pvsoc.org/
The Yiddish Book Center hosts a community open house on October 23, with a day of concerts, films, and tours. For details:413-256-4900 or www.yiddishbookcenter.org
Caroline Bowman, the Broadway actress who played Eva Peron in the national tour of Evita at The Bushnell a couple o years ago, performs in concert on October 22 at CityStage in downtown Springfield. Bowman played Elphaba in Wicked, and has appeared in Kinky Boots. For details: 413-788-7033 or online at www.Ticketmaster.com
Caroline Bowman
The Fisk Jubilee Singers performs in concert on October 22, to pay tribute to the 175th Anniversary of the Amistad captives’ coming to Farmington, CT. The Fisk Jubilee Singers are vocal artists and students at Fisk University in Nashville, TN who sing and travel worldwide. The concert, a co-production of The Mark Twain House & Museum and the Farmington Historical Society will be held at the First Church of Christ, Congregational (75 Main Street, Farmington, CT.. For details: 860-247-0998 or visit www.marktwainhouse.org
The Connecticut Dance Alliance will host it’s first Greater Hartford Regional Meeting of the year on October 28, in the reception room at The Autorino Center for the Arts and Humanities in West Hartford, CT.Susan McGreevy-Nichols, Executive Director of the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO), is guest speaker. This event is free and open to the public, advanced registration is required. For details: For details:860-231-5555 or www.USJ.edu/arts or .www.CTDanceAlliance.org
Trump Card, Mike Daisey’s sharp yet comic look at the American Dream, comes to Great Barrington’s Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center on October 20. Mike Daisey has been compared to a modern-day Mark Twain and a latter-day Orson Welles for his provocative monologues that combine the political and the personal, weaving together secret histories with hilarity and heart. In Trump Card, he takes on the reigning world heavyweight of self-mythologizing, the short-fingered vulgarian who captured a nation’s imagination through bullying, charm, one-syllable explosions, and occasionally telling the brutal truth: Donald J. Trump. For details: 413-528-0100 or www.mahaiwe.org.
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Mark G. Auerbach studied theatre at American University and the Yale School of Drama. He’s worked for arts organizations and reported on theatre for newspapers and radio.
