2016 Summer Concert Series & Company of Fools 21st Season Announced!
Sun Valley Center for the Arts is pleased to announce their 2016 Summer Concert Series and Company of Fools’ 21st Season of award-winning theatre.
Artistic Director Kristin Poole commented, “As always, we are tremendously excited for the summer and the year ahead. This season is a compelling mix of programs that promise to stimulate both our hearts and our heads.”
2016 SUMMER CONCERT SERIES
“This summer you can take advantage of 4 concerts on 2 nights! We’ve got two evenings of double bills, featuring out-of-this-world musicians. Mavis Staples is simply a not-to-be missed classic and James Hunter will wow you with his retro soul steeped in his English roots. Lake Street Dive and Gregory Alan Isakov will be sharing one stage on one night—though later in the summer they are each individually headlining at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado! You won’t want to miss a minute of either of these shows,” said Kristine Bretall, Director of Performing Arts at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts.
Mavis Staples & The James Hunter Six
July 29, 2016, 7pm
River Run Lodge, Ketchum
Mavis Staples is living, breathing history. She is an alchemist of American music, having continuously crossed genre lines like no musician since Ray Charles. Weaving herself into the very fabric of gospel, soul, folk, pop, R&B, blues, rock, and hip hop over the last 60 years, this iconic singer has seen and sung through so many changes, always rising up to meet every road. Englishman James Hunter has a reputation as a soul powerhouse, heralded for his talents both as a live performer and, perhaps even more so, as a songwriter. The New Yorker described his “tight, taut compositions” as “rooted in American soul music without being bound to it.” Famed Daptone Records released his fourth album, Hold On!, featuring the 5 piece band that he’ll be bringing to River Run Lodge.
Lake Street Dive & Gregory Alan Isakov
August 17, 2016, 7pm
River Run Lodge, Ketchum
Founded by 4 students at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston in 2004, the members of Lake Street Dive have evolved, moved to Brooklyn and now tour nationally and internationally in support of their 4 studio albums and wildly popular YouTube videos. With trumpet, guitar, upright bass, drums and a killer lead vocalist—Rachael Price—the group wants “it to sound like the Beatles and Motown had a party together” and critics say it’s like “Motown meets the Brill Building in jazzy, soulful, woulda-been Sixties chart toppers.”
Gregory Alan Isakov is a singer-songwriter who began touring with a band at the age of 16. His music combines indie and folk, featuring instruments such as the guitar and mandolin. Some of his most popular songs include “The Stable Song,” “Big Black Car,” and “Raising Cain.”
2016 SUMMER CONCERT SERIES MEMBER PRICING
TICKET TYPE SINGLE CONCERT TWO CONCERT SERIES
(Purchase both concerts together 10% discount—only available for Center members)
Regular Entry $40* $72*
Early Entry $70* $126*
VIP seating $125* $225*
Prices shown are for members – nonmember prices are $10 more per ticket. (*Prices do not reflect taxes or fees.) As always, series tickets go on sale to members first! Members save extra by buying the series and guarantee that they’ll be at the shows they want to see!
VIP seating is new this year! VIP ticket holders will have a reserved section in front of the sound board with chairs provided. VIP ticket holders may enter the venue any time starting at 6pm and will have access to the special seating area all evening. The seats will be held for entirety of the concerts so that VIPs can arrive at any time and be guaranteed their space!
ON-SALE DATES:
For 2016 Summer Concert Series
SERIES TICKETS on sale to members only: Friday, April 8, 10am
INDIVIDUAL TICKETS on sale to members only: Friday, April 22, 10am
ALL TICKETS on sale to the general public: Monday, May 2, 10am
COMPANY OF FOOLS 21st SEASON
Company of Fools proudly announces its 21st season featuring five main stage productions, two play readings and a newly commissioned performance piece on contemplation that will be a part of one of The Center’s BIG IDEA projects. The five main stage productions in the Company’s 2016-2017 lineup include Grey Gardens, Art, Grounded, A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine and Constellations.
“Our 21st season truly reminds us that everything has a story in it and each story is constantly sliding from the past to the present to the future,” says Core Company Artist Denise Simone. “This season we will transport our audiences from the Grey Gardens mansion to a windowless trailer outside Las Vegas to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre to parallel universes. Simply put, it is a season you have to see.”
Grey Gardens
June 28–July 20, 2016
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
Book by Doug Wright
Music by Scott Frankel
Lyrics by Michael Korie
Direction by John Glenn
Musical Direction by R.L. Rowsey
Grey Gardens is based on the 1975 Albert and David Maysles film about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s eccentric aunt and cousin. The touching and sometimes heart-wrenching musical adaptation explores the dysfunctional relationship between former socialite, Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Little Edie, as they languish in a derelict East Hampton manor, Grey Gardens. Propelled by a fascinating story, a gorgeous score and intricate lyrics, this musical has garnered much critical praise.
“An experience no passionate theatergoer should miss.” Ben Brantley, The New York Times
Art
August 9–13, 2016
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
By Yasmina Reza
Direction by Denise Simone
How much would you pay for a white painting? Would it matter who the painter was? Would it be art? One of Marc’s best friends, Serge, has just bought a very expensive painting. It measures about five feet by four, all white with white diagonal lines. To Marc, the painting is a joke, but Serge insists Marc doesn’t have the proper knowledge to judge the work. Another friend, Ivan, though burdened by his own problems, allows himself to be pulled into this disagreement. Lines are drawn and old friends square off over the canvas, using it as an excuse to relentlessly batter one another over various failures. As their arguments become less theoretical and more personal, they border on destroying their friendships. At the breaking point, Serge hands Marc a felt tip pen and dares him: “Go on.” This is when the friendship is finally tested. The aftermath of action, and its reaction, affirms the power of those bonds.
“…wildly funny, naughtily provocative…” —NY Post
Grounded
September 28–October 15, 2016
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
By George Brant
Direction by John Glenn
From the award-winning playwright of Elephant’s Graveyard, George Brant, comes the story of an ace fighter pilot whose career in the sky ends early due to an unexpected pregnancy. Reassigned to operate military drones from a windowless trailer outside Las Vegas, she hunts terrorists by day and returns to her family each night. As the pressure to track a high-profile target mounts, the boundaries begin to blur between the desert in which she lives and the one she patrols half a world away.
“Critic’s Pick. A scorching sharp-eyed, timely script…lets no one off easy…clap all you want at the end of the play—and you’ll want to clap a lot—but the game stays with you.” —Time Out New York
A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine
December 14–30, 2016
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
By Dick Vosburgh & Frank Lazarus
Direction by John Glenn
Musical direction by R.L. Rowsey
Two one-act plays provide a double feature more hilarious than any presented in Hollywood’s heyday: the first, a salute to the Golden Age of film musicals; the second, a rambunctious Marx Bros. farce. Winner of two Tony Awards and a hit Broadway production.
“A night of magic.” —The New York Post
Constellations
February 15–March 4, 2017
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
By Nick Payne
Direction by Denise Simone
One relationship. Infinite possibilities. In the beginning, Marianne and Roland meet at a party. They go for a drink, or perhaps they don’t. They fall madly in love and start dating, but eventually they break up. After a chance encounter in a supermarket they get back together, or maybe they run into each other and Marianne reveals that she’s now engaged to someone else and that’s that. Or perhaps Roland is engaged. Maybe they get married, or maybe their time together will be tragically short. Nick Payne’s Constellations is a play about free will and friendship; it’s also about quantum multiverse theory, love and honey.
“A singular astonishment.” —John Lahr, The New Yorker
“SEXY. SOPHISTICATED. GORGEOUS.” —The New York Times
COMPANY OF FOOLS 21st SEASON MAIN STAGE PRICING
$30 Center members & seniors (62 and over)
$35 nonmembers
$15 students (18 and younger)
Groups of 8 or more $30
COMPANY OF FOOLS 2016-2017 PLAY READINGS/SPECIAL PROJECTS
White Rabbit/Red Rabbit (reading)
October 27–29, 2016
By Nassim Soleimanpour
Liberty Theatre, Hailey / The Center, Ketchum
$30 Center members & seniors (62 and over), $35 nonmembers, $15 students (18 and younger)
Groups of 8 or more $30 per person. General Admission.
Imagine being 29 and unable to leave your country. Iranian Nassim Soleimanpour dissects the experience of a whole generation in a wild, utterly original play. He turns his isolation to his advantage with a play that requires no director, no set, and a different actor for each performance. The New York off-Broadway run just opened featuring Nathan Lane, Whoopi Goldberg, Alan Cumming, Brian Dennehy and many other well-known actors.
Bright New Boise (reading)
November 15, 2016
By Samuel D. Hunter
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
FREE ($10 suggested donation)
In the bleak corporate break room of a craft store in Idaho, someone is summoning The Rapture. Will, who has fled his rural hometown after a scandal at his Evangelical church, comes to the Hobby Lobby not only for employment but also to rekindle a relationship with Alex, his brooding teenage son, whom he gave up for adoption several years ago. Alex works there along with Leroy, his adopted brother and protector, and Anna, a hapless young woman who reads bland fiction but hopes for dramatic endings. As their manager, foul-mouthed Pauline, tries ceaselessly to find order (and profit) in the chaos of small business, these lost souls of the Hobby Lobby confront an unyielding world through the beige-tinted impossibility of modern faith.
Commissioned Performance Piece on contemplation
April/May 2017
Company of Fools will commission a new performance piece exploring creativity and contemplation to be performed throughout The Center’s BIG IDEA project on Contemplation.
ON-SALE DATES:
For Company of Fools 21st Season
INDIVIDUAL TICKETS on sale to members only: Friday, April 8, 10am
ALL TICKETS on sale to the general public: Monday, May 2, 10am
As always, tickets go on sale to members first!
For more information about the 2016 Summer Concert Series, Company of Fools 21st Season, membership information or to purchase tickets, please visit sunvalleycenter.org or call 208.726.9491.