wcw JANUARY 2024

out and about continued
Pulling from the thousands of handwritten
letters to fans and colleagues
alike, Rodriguez weaves together stories
from Sondheim’s own words and
explores the fascinating relationships
with legends such as Oscar Hammerstein
II, Jerry Herman, Jonathan
Larson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and his
own personal story.
• February 7: Michael Lasser presents
the lecture, “Songs by Lieber
and Stoller.” Jerry Lieber and Mike
Stoller were two Jewish kids who
helped invent rock and roll with
“Hound Dog,” “Yakety Yak,” and more.
The Glenridge Performing Arts
Center, 7333 Scotland Way, Sarasota.
For tickets, call (941) 552-5325 or visit
GPACtix.com.
Choral Artists
Choral Artists presents Choral
Cinemagic: Featuring popular movie
music, including from the James
Bond films, “Momma Mia!,” “Sister
Act,” and a medley of all-time favorites.
Sunday, February 4, 7 p.m., at
First Presbyterian Church, 2050 Oak
Street, Sarasota.
Tickets: choralartistssarasota.org/
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Sarasota
Contemporary
Dance
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Sarasota Contemporary Dance
has Evolving/Revolving: Alyson
Dolan & Drew Silverman on
January 18-21 in the Jane B. Cook
Theatre at the FSU Center for the
Performing Arts.
2024 launches with artists who have
influenced the company in a collaboration
that will expand the breadth
of SCD’s repertory. SCD invites back
choreographer/dancer Alyson Dolan
(2006-2010) and composer/musician
Drew Silverman (2009-2010) to
co-create with Artistic Director, Leymis
Bolanos Wilmott.
Evolving/Revolving: Alyson Dolan
& Drew Silverman, is a captivating
new, multi-disciplinary work with
projection design by New College of
Florida student Lindsey Jennings.
www.sarasotacontemporarydance.org
Sarasota Concert
Association
Sarasota Concert Association’s
2024 Music Matinees concert series
showcase regional musicians performing
a variety of musical styles
from classical to marimba.
Coming up is Corda Voce on
Wednesday, January 10. Jenny
Kim-Godfrey and Dr. Jonathan Godfrey
form the soprano and classical
guitar duo known as Corda Voce.
Since 2015 they have intertwined the
influences of cabaret, classical, jazz,
and popular music. The concerts are
free but pre-registration is required at
SCAsarasota.org, or through the box
office at (941) 966-6161. Attendees can
reserve up to two tickets per matinee
performance.
Note their new time and location:
First Presbyterian Church, 2050
Oak Street, downtown Sarasota, at
2 p.m. For information about SCA,
visit www.scasarasota.org or call the
box office at 941-966-6161.
The Grammy Award-winning Harlem
Quartet, known for their eclectic
programming, makes their Sarasota
Concert Association debut on January
24 at the Riverview Performing
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Arts Center.
The Harlem
Quartet will be
performing Beethoven’s
String
Quartet Opus
18, No. 5, Fanny
Mendelssohn’s
String Quartet
in E-flat Major,
Guido López-
Gavilán’s Cuarteto
en Guaguanco,
and Caroline
Shaw’s Entr’acte.
They will be holding
a masterclass
at Booker High
School and Riverview
High
School during their
stay in Sarasota.
Tickets: (941) 966-6161 or go to
www.SCAsarasota.org.
Sarasota Ballet
Next up is Program 4, January
26-29 at the FSU Center for the Performing
Arts and accompanied by
the Sarasota Orchestra. The program:
Sonatina with choreography
by Ricardo Grazianoand music by
Antonín Dvořák; World Premiere with
horeography by Ricardo Graziano
and music to be announced; In a State
of Weightlessness choreographed
by Ricardo Graziano with music by
Philip Glass. Tickets: www.sarasotaballet.org.
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At the Van Wezel
Coming up (partial list):
• The Cher Show (January 10-12) is
35 smash hits, six decades of stardom,
two rock-star husbands, a
Grammy, an Oscar, an Emmy, and
enough Tony Award-winning Bob
Mackie gowns to cause a sequin
shortage in New York City,
• In another Sarasota Premiere,
Hadestown (January 30 –
February 4), the winner of eight
Tony Awards and a Grammy Award
for Best Musical Theater Album, is
a love story for today...and always.
Intertwining two mythic tales —
that of young dreamers Orpheus
and Eurydice, and that of King
Hades and his wife Persephone
— Hadestown is a haunting and
hopeful theatrical experience that
grabs you and never lets go.
Pre-show dining for both shows is
available through Mattison’s at the
Van Wezel which is located inside the
theatre. Reservations can be made
on VanWezel.org or through the box
office. Tickets: www.VanWezel.org
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Sarasota
Art Museum
Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling
College has:
• Contemporary/Traditional: Selections
from the Basch Glass Collection
through Feb. 11, 2024. Drawn
from the Richard and Barbara Basch
Collection, Contemporary/Traditional
gives a glimpse into the dynamic
world of international contemporary
glass art of the late 20th and 21st centuries.
This exhibition showcases a
range of glasswork styles, from delicate
figural sculptures to powerful
abstract shapes.
• Juana Valdés: Embodied Memories,
Ancestral Histories through
Feb. 11, 2024. This is Valdés’ first solo
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Island Gallery
and Studios
present “I
MustHave
Flowers” with
paintings by
Debbie Snow,
January 2-31.
exhibition at a museum. It will showcase
a range of works drawn from her
three-decade-long career. Valdés’
work, anchored in history and narratives
related to her Afro-Cuban heritage,
addresses colonization’s history
and migration’s impact, as well as the
issues of gender, race, and the representation
of the female body.
• Judy Pfaff: Picking up the Pieces
runs November 19-March 24, 2024.
Pfaff, widely regarded as a pioneer of
installation art, has created work that
spans disciplines from painting to
printmaking and sculpture to installation,
eschewing definition. Pfaff
ingeniously transmutes and transforms
materials, including natural
objects from her garden, hand-painted
and digitally manipulated images,
welded steel, aluminum, wood,
expanded foam, melted plastic, blown
glass, neon, and LED lights.
Visit sarasotaartmuseum.org to
learn more. Sarasota Art Museum
is located at 1001 S. Tamiami Trail,
Sarasota.
The Hermitage
Programs from Hermitage Fellows
in January kick off on the Hermitage
Beach with celebrated playwright,
award-winning actor, and
“American Horror Story” writer Halley
Feiffer, who offers insight into her
unique journey and her creative process.
Feiffer’s program will be preceded
by an open-studio experience from
the imaginative mind of multidisciplinary
visual artist Anthony Hawley.
The event is on January 5.
On January 12, Hermitage alumni
Stephen Cole and David Evans
share musical theater selections from
their Golden Age musical, Merman’s
Apprentice, on the Hermitage Beach.
Twelve-year-old Muriel Plakenstein
doesn’t know that the ‘golden age’ of
music is coming to an end, so she runs
away from home to become a theater
star and meets the Queen of Broadway,
Ethel Merman. Hear selections
from this musical fable and learn more
about what inspired the musical’s
journey from this collaborative team.
On January 18 on the Hermitage
Beach, three Hermitage Fellows share
how their voice and vision inform their
artistic practice across disciplines.
Jacquelyn Reingold is a writer for
stage and screen; Joan La Barbara’s
vocal stylings have been heard across
the country; Laura Kaminsky is one of
the most-produced composer-librettists
in contemporary opera.
Next up on January 19 on Longboat
Key, the Hermitage presents a cabaret
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of songs and stories.
From Jeanine
Tesori, Adam
Gwon, Michael
R. Jackson, and
Gavin Creel to Kit
Yan, Zoe Sarnak,
Rona Siddiqui,
and more, the
Hermitage has
provided space
and time to some
of the most exciting
musical theater
writers working
today. Hear
selections from
some of these
composers and
lyricists at Town
Center at Longboat
Key.
Hermitage Fellows James M. Stephenson
and Emi Ferguson make
music that speaks to something universal
in us all. On January 25 this
award-winning composer and flutist
invites Sarasota audiences to hear
selections and gain insight into the
composition process. Each will share
award-winning compositions that
have been played across the county
with audiences at Selby Gardens’
downtown Sarasota campus
On February 2, the Hermitage offers
audiences two brass and jazz improvisors
as they make music and ‘talk shop’
at Nathan Benderson Park. Hermitage
Fellows Amir ElSaffar and Chris Ryan
Williams will present an imaginative
evening of sonic possibilities as the
“Hermitage Sunsets @ Nathan Benderson
Park” series continues.
Registration is required at: Hermitage
ArtistRetreat.org.
At The Ringling
The John and Mable Ringling
Museum of Art has Mountains of the
Mind: Scholars’ Rocks from China
and Beyond which runs through June
23, 2024 in The Ringling’s Ting Tsung
and Wei Fong Chao Center for Asian
Art. The exhibit features a selection of
scholars’ rocks and related paintings
and prints.
Scholars’ rocks are collected from
remote geographic locations, where
they have been formed by natural
elements over millions of years. The
stones may then be carved, polished
and inscribed before being displayed
in a custom-made stand to enhance
their visual appeal. Scholars’ rocks are
both natural objects and products of
human creativity.
Mountains of the Mind will feature
a wide array of scholars’ rocks in
various shapes, textures and geological
properties. The rocks are further
contextualized by paintings, prints
and texts that illuminate their cultural
importance for scholars across
the centuries. The stones have been
appreciated and admired in China
for more than a thousand years;
historically, connoisseurs displayed
their stones in their studios alongside
paintings and other treasures, where
they served as a focus for meditation
or creative contemplation.
On view through March 3 is Working
Conditions. Explore labor through
The Ringling’s Photography Collection.
The Industrial Revolution of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
radically changed the nature of human
labor. Photography was itself introduced
to the public in 1839.
The subsequent development of
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photographic media has thus been
intertwined with the culture of labor
ever since. In addition to the camera’s
technical use as an instrument to record,
photographers have also created
images over the decades that have
helped shape how we think about
work and the politics of labor. This
exhibition explores the myriad ways
in which photographs have communicated
ideas about labor since the
nineteenth century through examples
from The Ringling’s photography permanent
collection.
Michele Oka Doner: The True Story
Of Eve through June 2, 2024. Explore
Miami, Florida-born, Michele Oka
Doner’s first solo exhibition at The
Ringling titled, Michele Oka Doner:
The True Story of Eve. This exhibition
includes examples of works on paper,
wood, ceramics, bronzes, and glass
ranging from the 1960s to the present,
paying homage to the local environment,
while poignantly reminding us of
our increasingly precarious ecosystem
The John and Mable Ringling
Museum of Art, 5401 Bay Shore Rd.,
Sarasota. Info: www.ringling.org.
Theatre
Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe
presents A Soldier’s Play January
18-February 18. On a U.S. Army base
in Louisiana in the segregation-era
South of 1944, two shots ring out. A
Black sergeant is murdered. A series
of interrogations triggers a gripping
barrage of questions about sacrifice,
service, and identity in America. One
persistent investigator must race
against his white leadership to unravel
the crime before they unravel him.
Location: WBTT’s Donelly Theatre,
1012 N. Orange Ave., Sarasota. Tickets:
westcoastblacktheatre.org
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The Players Sarasota has tick,
tick…BOOM! Running January11-28.
Before Rent, there was tick, tick…
BOOM! This autobiographical musical
by Jonathan Larson, the Pulitzer
Prize- and Tony Award-winning composer
of Rent, is the story of a composer
and the sacrifices that he made
to achieve his big break in theatre.
Containing fourteen songs, ten characters,
three actors and a band, tick,
tick…BOOM! takes you on the playwright/composer’s
journey that led to
a Broadway blockbuster.
Held at The Players Studio Black Box,
1400 Blvd. of the Arts, Suite 200,
Sarasota. Tickets: theplayers.org
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Manatee Performing Arts
Center has these shows:
• January 5: Jimmy Buffet Tribute
With The Aquaholics— The Aquaholics
band is a group of musicians dedicated
to providing music that is the
backdrop to the Florida and Tropical
lifestyle. The musicians all perform
full time as solo and duo musicians as
well as a full group. Musicians in the
group have performed with members
of Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefers, as
well as many other national acts.
• January 6: When Music Speaks—
This musical showcase is about a
tribute to the genre of Neo-Soul and
R&B. Journey back to the 90s and early
2000s and enjoy songs by India Arie,
Anthony Hamilton, Jill Scott, Tevin
Campbell, Music Soul Child, Floetry,
and much more.
• January 11-12: Crimes of the
Heart— The tragicomedy play relates
the story of the three Magrath sisters,
Meg, Babe, and Lenny, who reunite
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8 WEST COAST WOMAN JANUARY 2024