Stories indexed with the term ‘performing arts’

Editor’s note: Arbor Opera Theater is giving a free concert on Thursday, July 16 at the First Congregational Church, 608 E. William Street (on the corner of South State and William). The show, which starts at 7 p.m., will feature arias and ensembles from well-known operas. Never been to an opera? Neither had Helen Nevius, until she attended a performance of AOT’s “Die Fledermaus” last month. The Chronicle asked her to share her impressions.

I am not an uncultured person. I’ve been to the ballet once or twice, and I’ve seen a couple Shakespeare plays. Going to the opera, however, isn’t something I usually do. In fact, it’s something I’d never done before I went to see Johann Strauss Jr.’s “Die Fledermaus,” performed by the Arbor Opera Theater, for The Chronicle.

Up until that performance, my knowledge of opera consisted of impressions gathered from cartoons, movies and listening to the “Jesus Christ Superstar” soundtrack I got for Christmas when I was 13. So, as far as I knew, going to the opera would involve dressing up in a cape and top hat and using tiny binoculars to observe a rotund gentleman vocalizing in a Viking helmet. If I was lucky, he might knock over some money changers’ tables and break out into a guitar solo. [Full Story]

The woman is swaying in her seat, inhaling in a drunken hiss and dragging her feet along the floor. The driver stares straight ahead, looking mildly uncomfortable.

Grinning, her head wobbling slightly on her neck, she leans as far forward as possible and whispers loudly to the cabbie, “I looove you!”
The other people in the room – and the director, Paul Bianchi – laugh.

The woman and the man acting as the cabbie are seated in two chairs in the middle of the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre studio in downtown Ann Arbor – a high-ceilinged, mostly empty room with a wood-paneled floor and a piano at one end. It’s an evening in early June, and they’re auditioning for “Hellcab,” a play depicting a day in the life of a Chicago cab driver.

A day in the life of AACT itself is challenging in a different way. Like virtually all nonprofits, including those in the performing arts, the local theater faces some less-than-entertaining concerns this season. Although leaders of the theater say it isn’t in crisis, the nonprofit has made some cuts to save money, and is trying to get creative about ways to bring in revenue. [Full Story]