Beech Tree Puppets presents
Anansi and the Talking Melon
March 18, 2023 at 3pm
Sponsored by : College Park Arts Exchange.
Location: The Old Parish House, 4711 Knox Road, College Park MD
Beech Tree Puppets presents Anansi and the Talking Melon.
Free performance
The Book Club Play
By Karen Zacarias
Directed by Fatima Quander
February 24 – March 4, 2023
Fri, Feb 24, 2023. 07:30PM
Sat, Feb 25, 2023. 07:30PM
Thu, Mar 2, 2023. 07:30PM
Fri, Mar 3, 2023. 07:30PM
Sat, Mar 4, 2023. 02:00PM
Sat, Mar 4, 2023. 07:30PM
Venue: Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.
Literature and laughter take center stage! What happens when the devout members of a book club become the focus of a documentary film? Karen Zacarias’ witty comedy focuses on books and those who love them––and the quirky dynamics between them. By the end, you’ll feel like you’re a member of the book club yourself!
Pay what you wish. Click here.
Join us in person at The Clarice! Please note that this performance will not be livestreamed.
Baye & Asa: HotHouse
February 22 & 23, 2023 . 8PM
Wed, Feb 22, 2023 . 8:00PM
Thu, Feb 23, 2023 . 8:00PM
Venue: Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.
Directed by Amadi ‘Baye’ Washington and Sam ‘Asa’ Pratt, Baye & Asa is a company creating movement art projects. The duo met when they were six years old––their long friendship giving them the freedom and safety to constantly disagree and expand each other’s artistic capacity. Their brotherhood nourishes the evolution of their work and the physical aggression in their choreography is a representation of their political rage and a yearning to personally implicate themselves. Hip-hop and African dance languages are the foundation of their technique. With it, they build theatrical metaphors, interrogate systemic inequities and contemporize ancient allegories.
Coming to The Clarice in 2022-23 is the duo’s new work HotHouse. HotHouse is a commentary on confinement, a dance/theater performance, a durational installation and an exploration of how our failed response to COVID-19 has unmasked the greater systemic failures of America. It interrogates how and why inequities that predated the pandemic–in healthcare, housing, education, incarceration–erupted at the center of our political discourse.
Pay what you wish. Click here.
Join us in person at The Clarice! Please note that this performance will not be livestreamed.
Maryland Opera Studio presents
Proving Up
Craig Kier, music director
Missy Mazzoli, composer
Royce Vavrek, librettist
Saturday, February 18, 2023 . 8:00PM
Venue: Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.
Based on a 2013 short story by Karen Russell, Proving Up, is a surreal and haunting commentary on the American dream as experienced by the Zegners, a fictional family of 1860s homesteaders. This narrative feels newly relevant at this fraught moment in the nation’s history, when people are examining and reevaluating the achievability of the American Dream. The Zegners are a family that does everything “right” and are still undermined by forces beyond their control. These characters have parallels in our contemporary world: a mother who tries to maintain control through domestic order, a father who turns to the bottle under the pressures of supporting a family, children forced to take on responsibilities beyond their years and a lone, deranged man who resorts to violence and destruction. Pushed to the edge by poverty and ultimately undermined by fate, the Zegners’ fixation on “proving up” never wanes.
About the Maryland Opera Studio:
Under the direction of Craig Kier, the Maryland Opera Studio is dedicated to the future of opera. Preparing the next generation of great singers and offering performances ranging from classic repertoire to provocative new works, it is building contemporary audiences for opera and advancing the art form to sustain those audiences.
Tickets: Free, no tickets required. Click here.
Opera New Work Reading
TWA
Maryland Opera Studio
Friday, February 17, 2023 . 7:30PM
Venue: Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.
This new opera inspired by the popular folk ballad THE TWA SISTERS, explores the eternal conflict between the opposing forces of love and jealousy; and why this ancient ballad resonates even more deeply today with the proliferation of social media and virtual sharing platforms.
With a tone reminiscent of Guillermo Del Toro’s popular cinematic fables, this opera sheds light on the joy, wonder, humor and pain in the relationship between sisters within a unique episodic structure which spans continents and centuries.
About the Maryland Opera Studio:
Under the direction of Craig Kier, the Maryland Opera Studio is dedicated to the future of opera. Preparing the next generation of great singers and offering performances ranging from classic repertoire to provocative new works, it is building contemporary audiences for opera and advancing the art form to sustain those audiences.
Tickets: Free, no tickets required. Click here.
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