Arts

Moon Over Buffalo auditions

There will be auditions for the Coastal Stage production of Moon Over Buffalo at 7 p.m. June 17-18 at 100 Sea Island Pkwy in Beaufort.

The play will be performed Aug. 16 -25 by Coastal Stage at AMVETS at 1831 Ribaut Rd. in Port Royal.

The director has chosen to make summer rehearsal schedules flexible and will coordinate with pre-arranged vacation and out-of-town holiday time. For more information and role descriptions, visit www.coastalstage.com/get-involved.

The USC Beaufort Center for the Arts has announced the addition of National Theatre Live to its lineup.

National Theatre Live brings the best of British theater to cinema screens all over the world.

“With state-of-the-art filming techniques, tailored to every play, we bring you each performance as it happens, in all it’s glory,” says the National Theatre Live release. “From close-ups that capture every flicker of emotion, to sweeping wide shots of the stage. Whether you come along to the live broadcast, or catch one of many replays, you’ll have the best seats in the house.

“You’ll also be part of something much bigger. There will be thousands of others all around the world watching along with you. Sharing every gasp, every laugh, every dramatic moment. This is theatre for everyone.”

The lineup additions opened with King Lear over Memorial Day weekend. The rest of the schedule is as follows:

June 2: 42^nd Street, The Musical, 3 p.m., Sunday

June 30: The Audience, 3 p.m., Sunday – Helen Mirren reprises her Oscar-winning performance on the stage.

July 7: Small Island, 3 p.m., Sunday – An adaptation of Andrea Levy’s Windrush novel.

July 21: Hamlet, 3 p.m., Sunday – Benedict Cumberbatch plays the title role in Shakespeare’s tragedy.

All tickets are $18. They can be purchased online at uscbcenterforthearts.com, by phone at 843-521-4145 or at the door. Concessions will be serving red and white wine, bottled water and sodas.

Three Piccolo Spoleto concerts of Early Music will be performed in Beaufort over the next three weeks. 

Saturday, May 25, The Virtuoso Spanish Guitar Through the Ages: 7 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 1201 North Street, Beaufort, $25, cash or check only at the door.

Award-winning guitarist Marco Sartor takes us on a musical journey illustrating the genius of Spanish guitar. This program covers four centuries of masterpieces, including iconic works by Fernando Sor, Francisco Tarrega, Isaac Albeniz and others. 

Sunday, June 2, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: 3 p.m. Baptist Church of Beaufort, 601 Charles Street, $25 cash or check only at the door. 

Featuring one of the most monumental works of all time, Charleston Baroque, an ensemble including members of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, presents these four concertos, each representing a season.

Sunday, June 9, The Virtuoso Recorder with Steve Rosenberg: 3 p.m. at the Verdier House, 801 Beaufort, $25, cash or check only at the door (limited seating).

This unique program features music for the recorder and harpsichord. Performer Steve Rosenberg covers music from the medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras accompanied by Julia Harlow on harpsichord. 

The Pat Conroy Literary Center will host two free public events featuring visiting southern writers George Singleton and Roberts Hicks on Tuesday, May 28, and Thursday, May 30, respectively. The author events will begin at 5:30 p.m. and be held in the Conroy Center at 905 Port Republic Street, Beaufort. 

Books will be available for sale and signing. 

Singleton has published seven collections of stories (most recently Staff Picks), two novels, and a book of writing advice. More than 200 of his stories have appeared in magazines such as the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Playboy, the Georgia Review, the Southern Review, the Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. 

A 2010 Inductee to the S.C. Academy of Authors, he is also the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, the Hillsdale Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and the Corrington Award for Literary Excellence. Singleton lives in Spartanburg, where he holds the John C. Cobb Chair in Humanities at Wofford College.

Staff Picks provides a loosely linked baker’s dozen of stories set in small, often-floundering towns.In turns both comic and tragic, Singleton shows characters trying to make sense out of the Old South, the New South, and the New New South in all their ragged glory.

Hicks is the New York Times best-selling author of the historical novels The Widow of the South, The Orphan Mother, and A Separate Country. Blues legend B.B. King gave Hicks his favorite title: “Curator of Vibe.” 

Named No. 2 in the most recent listing of the top 100 Reasons to Love Nashville by Nashville Lifestyles magazine, Hicks was described as Nashville’s “Master of Ceremonies.” A lifelong collector, Hicks was the first Tennessean to be listed among Arts & Antiques’ Top 100 Collectors in America—his collection focuses on outsider art and southern material culture. 

He served as curator on the exhibition, Art of Tennessee, at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville. Hicks is founding chairman of Franklin’s Charge: A Vision and Campaign for the Preservation of Historic Open Space in the fight to secure and preserve the historic battlefield in Williamson County.

In December 2005, the Nashville Tennessean named him Tennessean of the Year for the impact his best-selling novel The Widow of the South has had on Tennessee heritage tourism and preservation. 

In the October 2014, he introduced his Battlefield Bourbon, a very small batch, Tennessee-made, aged and hand-bottled bourbon whiskey. With this, the Tennessean gave Hicks his other favorite title: “Whiskey Preservationist.” He is also the host of the annual Seriously Seersucker, the largest seersucker party in the world.
Singleton and Hicks will each appear on Season 2 of SCETV’s By The River author interview program, which films in Beaufort. 

The Conroy Center is located at 905 Port Republic Street in Beaufort and is open to the public from noon to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays. To learn more about the educational programs offered through the Conroy Center, please visit www.patconroyliterarycenter.org.

Bus Stop coming to AmVets

Coastal Stage Productions is bringing its production of Bus Stop to AmVets on 1831 Ribaut Road in Port Royal.

The group will hold evening performances at 8 p.m. May 24, 25, 31 and June 1, as well as 2 p.m. Sunday matinees May 26 and June 2.

Advanced reserved seats are $25, while groups of 10 or more get reserved seats at $22. Student seats are $15. Tickets at the door are $27.

Tickets are available by calling the local box office at 843-717-2175 or buying online at https://busstopportroyal.bpt.me/.

Reserved seats are $5 off for the May 25 show if you use the code SAVE5 at CoastalStage.com.

Lowcountry Chorale’s spring concert is ‘A Night At The Drive-in’

The Lowcountry Chorale announced its upcoming spring concert “A Night At The Drive-in,” which will be held at 7 p.m. Friday, May 17 and 3 p.m. May 18 at St. John’s Lutheran Church on Lady’s Island.

Music director Jordan Norris Plair and accompanist Gloria Bockelman will lead the Chorale through songs from movies we used to watch at drive-in theaters, including a complimentary bag of popcorn.

The Lowcountry Chorale is comprised of local area singers who love music and singing.

Admission is free, but donations are accepted. For more information, call Marsha Oakes at 207-323-1498.

Auditions set for Spamalot

USC Beaufort’s Center For The Arts and the Beaufort Theater Company announce auditions for “Monty Python’s Spamalot, a new musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

The “Spamalot” auditions will be held at 6:30 p.m. Monday May 21 and Tuesday, May 22 at the USCB Center For The Arts at 801 Carteret Street. The cast calls for six male singers, seven female singers and a chorus. There are several non-singing roles available, as well.

Auditioners should bring a non-returnable photo of themselves and prepare a portion of a showtune that best showcases their voice. Bring tracks or be prepared to sing a-capella.

Arrive 15 minutes early to complete paperwork and pick up sides to read for audition. Wear comfortable clothes and shoes you can dance in. No sandals.

The process includes a musical audition, a short dance number and then reading preselected parts of the script.

“Spamalot” will be performed Sept. 21, 22 and 27-29.

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By Alan Schuster

And now she’s back, this time on stage – believe it or not – in the starkly dissimilar role of a nun in the Met’s HD season finale of Francis Poulenc’s “Dialogues des Carmelites.” 

Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, memorable for her Nov. 2018 Met performance as a deceitful thief in the title role of “Marnie,” is one of the most in-demand opera singers in the world today. 

It’s also a terrifying finale for 16 nuns, who are beheaded one by one – and amplified by swishes of the guillotine – for refusing to renounce their vocation.

Summary: The opera begins during the French Revolution. To escape the violence enacted on members of the aristocracy, Blanche de la Force forsakes the outside world and joins a Carmelite monastery. 

The Mother Superior corrects her way of thinking; the monastery cannot protect her, it must be her that protects the monastery. Later, as the Mother Superior lies dying, she places Blanche into the service of Mother Marie before passing away in great pain, claiming to be forsaken by God. 

This deeply bothers the witnesses to her death. Sister Constance wonders to Blanche if the Mother Superior had been given a death meant for someone else, suggesting that a peaceful death will come to someone else. 

When the chaplain has been forbidden to preach, the future of the monastery seems uncertain. Although Mother Marie wishes to give her life to change the situation in France, the new Mother Superior informs her that only God may decide who will become a martyr.

When the monastery falls under the ownership of the state, a police officer comes, insisting the nuns to give up their religious habits. Mother Marie convinces the other nuns to take a vow of martyrdom; although they all agree, Blanche has run away. Mother Marie goes off to search for her, finding her in the library of her father. 

Blanche’s father was sent to the guillotine, and so Blanche finds herself at the mercy of her former servants. While Mother Marie is away, the nuns have all been arrested and sentenced to death. The chaplain shares his belief that by being away at the time, God has chosen to spare Mother Marie, thus she cannot martyr herself alongside her sisters. 

When the time comes for the execution of the nuns, Blanche appears to join the doomed company. As the others are beheaded one by one before the guillotine, Blanche begins to sing a hymn offering her life to God. (Source: Met Opera)

New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini has written this about the opera: “Poulenc’s subtle and intricate tonal language is by turns hymnal and haunting. Though scored for a large orchestra, the instruments are often used in smaller groups selected for particular effects and colorings. The most distinctive element of the score, though, is its wonderfully natural vocal writing, which captures the rhythms and lyrical flow of the libretto in eloquent music that hardly calls attention to itself yet lingers with you.”

Opera historian Charles Osborne wrote that “”The inexorable dramatic movement of the work is impressive and, in the final scene in which the nuns walk in procession to the guillotine chanting the “Salve regina,” is extremely moving.  Google: Salve regina Carmelites; then select XV FAO. 

Cast: Joining Isabel Leonard as the young Blanche de la Force will be Met legend Karita Mattila, Adrianne Pieczonka, David Portillo and Dwayne Croft. Met Music Director Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducts. 

Tickets are now available at the USCB Center for the Arts, 801 Carteret Street, Beaufort. All seats are general admission. Adults $20; OLLI members $18; Students $10. Order online at www.centerforthearts.com or call 843-521-4145. Transmission begins at noon.