Playwrights and director capture awards
In New York City on May 18, Rajiv Joseph (“Guards at the Taj,” seen at La Jolla Playhouse earlier this season) received an Obie Award for best new play for the work. Former Old Globe Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Darko Tresnjak got an award for his off-Broadway direction of “The Killer” at Theatre for a New Audience. And playwright A. R. (Pete) Gurney, a great favorite at the Globe back in the day, received a lifetime achievement award. Our Utopia The Smithsonian magazine recently previewed a photographic book titled “Lost Utopias,” to be published this fall. Photographer Jade Doskow spent the better part of a decade traveling the world inspecting and photographing sites where millions of people went to world’s fairs. Some of us were among them, and others have since seen the structures. One is quite familiar. Of the 15 surviving world’s fair attractions in the Smithsonian, article two demand your attention – Buckminster Fuller’s Geodesic Dome, created for the 1967 World Exposition in Montreal, and the California Building, a survivor of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park, now home to the Museum of Man. Free screening at the Globe
Monday, May 23, The Old Globe hosted a special screening of “The Citizen,” a film starring Egyptian actor Khaled Nabawy, the extraordinary actor who plays President Anwar Sadat in the Globe’s production of “Camp David,” which continues through June 19. Nabawy said that his wife calls Balboa Park “heaven.” We already know that. San Diego Youth Symphony gets $40,000 NEA grant
San Diego Youth Symphony is one of 11 local arts organizations that recently received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. The grant (largest of 11) will support an effort to expand access to music education for public school students. The youth symphony plays its spring finale 2016 concert June 5 at Crill Hall, Pt. Loma Nazarene University, and June 11 and 12 at Jacobs Music Center’s Copley Symphony Hall. sdys.org or (619) 233-3232, ext. 115. Lenny
I’ve been researching Leonard Bernstein lately vis-à-vis Hershey Felder’s appearance as the iconic composer/conductor in “Maestro,” set for July 6 to 17 at San Diego Repertory Theatre. The New York Times announced May 25 that Hal Prince, 88, will stage Bernstein’s “Candide” at New York City Opera at the Rose Theatre at Jazz at Lincoln Center beginning Jan. 6. What a Prince! Chamber Players
San Diego Symphony Chamber Players closed their season at Scripps Research Institute May 24 with special guest artist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, who joined players Anna Skálova, Yeh Shen, Chi-Yuan Chen and Chia-Ling Chien in a performance of Antonín Dvo?ák’s incomparable Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major. Thibaudet, known early in his career for his red socks (not a glimpse of them Tuesday), is a model of facility and a most exciting pianist to lead this piano-driven quintet, a melodic times-two favorite of many people, including this listener. Déjà vu? Yes. The Mainly Mozart Spotlight Series opened Jan. 9 at Scripps, featuring the quintet as brilliantly played by Spotlight Series curator Anne-Marie McDermott and guest artists Geoff Nuttall, Amy Schwartz Moretti, Roberto Diaz and Christopher Constanza. The performances were different indeed, but each performance of the melodic work was played awesomely. Also featured in the May 24 program were violinists Kathryn Hatmaker and Caterina Longhi, who played Mozart’s String Duo No. 1 in G Major. Longi and Ethan Pernela (violas), Chia-Ling Chien (cello), Sarah Skuster (oboe) and Julie Smith Phillips (harp) played “lost” USSR-disapproved composer Nikolay Andreyevich Roslavets’ brief, impressionistic “Nocturne” from 1913.
San Diego Symphony should be proud indeed of the players fielded here. They hold their own compared with the international artists heard earlier. I overheard one excited audience member ask when the 2016-17 chamber series would be announced. The answer was “soon.” Look for it.
