New season announced!

Finally...months of work on the 2008-2009 season have come to an end. We're now able to announce our full roster of performers--favorite artists and ensembles returning to the Modlin Center and a large number of first-time musicians and attractions! We believe this is going to be a stellar year and we hope you'll be joining us in the audience come September. Our Web site is now loaded with events. Take a look--read about our artists, listen to their music, visit their personal Web sites. Subscription tickets are available starting June 2 when the box office opens for the summer. This is always the best way to reserve your seats in advance (and at a discount) for events that will certainly sell out--David Sedaris, Garrison Keillor, Cherryholmes, Cirque Eloize, Reduced Shakespeare Company, MOMIX. Order forms can be downloaded from our Box Office Information page. And please contact the Modlin Center Box Office with any questions! We look forward to hearing from you!

Not just a day at the beach!

Within the next few weeks, five of our arts management students will start their summer internships at various locations around the country, from New York City to Dallas, Texas. Each internship is a unique experience, customized to the needs and interests of our students. It is their opportunity to apply knowledge learned in the classroom to real-world situations in the field.

Here’s a look at our students and their internships:

Chloe Bailey (’10) is from Memphis, Tenn., and will be the Executive Intern at Atlantic Theater Company in New York. Founded by William H. Macy and David Mamet, ATC is an award-winning Off-Broadway theater that believes the story of a play and the intent of its playwright are at the core of the creative process. They have produced more than 100 plays, including the Tony Award-winning productions of Spring Awakening and The Beauty Queen of Leenane as well as The Lieutenant of Inishmore by Martin McDonagh.

Kathleen Callahan (’09) is from Westminster, S.C., and will be interning at Richmond’s own Theatre IV and Barksdale Theater. Under the leadership of two UR alums, Bruce Miller and Phil Whiteway, Theatre IV and Barksdale have become theatrical powerhouses in Richmond. This summer, Kathleen will help with their summer productions as well as help prepare for the launch of their 2008-09 season in the fall.

GlennMary Carroll (’10) is from Pasadena, C.A., and will be doing her summer internship in the licensing department of Disney Theatrical Productions in New York City. This highly competitive internship will give Glennie a behind-the-scenes look at how shows such as The Lion King and High School Musical go from Broadway to the local high school.

Paul Kappel (’10) is from Pittsburgh, P.A., and will be the ExxonMobil Development Intern at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. Paul follows in the footsteps of two UR alums who held internships at Arena: Kristen Mitchell and Emily Sever. One of the nation's leading regional theatres, Arena recently began construction on a $100 million renovation and expansion project. Paul will be witness to change as the theater has temporarily set up shop for two seasons in Crystal City during construction of the Mead Center for American Theater.

Veronica Seguin (’10) will be interning in the development and education department at WaterTower Theatre in Addison, Texas (a suburb of Dallas). WaterTower is known for its innovative and diverse mix of programming. The annual summertime Out of the Loop Festival presents new work by local and national writers. (I hope Veronica manages a visit to Southfork Ranch and brings back a souvenir for her favorite intern supervisor!)

In the coming weeks, you will be able to follow our students on our internship blog. Stay tuned for more details.

My First Top 5

I caught the last few minutes of the film adaptation of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity the other day, and I was struck with a sudden realization – I have never made a Top 5 list. For anyone that hasn’t seen the film/read the book, the Top 5 list plays a crucial role. Lists such as “Top 5 Monday morning work songs”, “Top 5 breakup songs”, “Top 5 songs about death”, “Top 5 musical crimes perpetrated by Stevie Wonder in the 80’s and 90’s” – the plot revolves around three record store employees so they’re mostly music related, but you get the idea. At any rate, I was inspired and realized that with the closing of my first season here I finally had a worthy subject matter for my very first Top 5.

So without further adieu, I proudly present…

Top 5 Moments in My First Season at MCA

1. Diavolo
This was the third show of the 2007-2008 season, and easily my favorite “dance” show. I put dance in quotes because the focus wasn’t so much on dance in the traditional “plie and arabesque” manner. I don't even know how to begin to explain it ... giant boat rocking back and forth launching people high in to the air, big metal wheel swallowing dancers between its crossbars, black fiberglass prisms on wheels forming variety of geometric shapes (while being danced on), Arvo Part ... I think the best thing to do is buy tickets next time it comes around.

As a side note I recently saw* Diavolo founder/artistic director Jacques Heim as a guest judge and instructor on an episode of Bravo's Step it Up and Dance hosted by Jesse Spano (Elizabeth Berkley). He is quite a character, as anyone that stayed for the post-show talk back could attest to.

*I don’t actually watch this show, it was just a preview I swear…

2. 3P07
I am a huge fan of the new music scene and I’m very grateful to our fearless leader (Ms. Kathy Panoff) for her relentless commitment to bringing in new music composers/performers to our venues. For those of you that don't know about it, Third Practice is an electroacoustic music festival founded in 2001 by Benjamin Broening (music department faculty here at UR). Here again text isn't the appropriate medium to convey meaning, but if I had to sum it up in one ugly run-on sentence-- Two days of mixed media, multi-channel, thought provoking compositions that blur the lines between music, sound and noise with a unique marriage of acoustic sound and modern technology. This was my second year as Assistant Technical Director for the festival, and it just keeps getting better. 3P07 featured So Percussion, a premier by composer Francis White, and a collaboration between UR faculty Andy McGraw, ensemble-in-residence eighth blackbird and Balinese puppeteer Gusti Putu Sudarta. For more information, check out the festivals web site here.

3. Steve Reich Double Sextet Recordings/Premier
In January I had the privilege and honor of sitting beside Grammy-award winning producer Judith Sherman, directing Grammy-award winning ensemble eighth blackbird in the recording of a new commission by Grammy-award winning composer Steve Reich. That’s a lot of Grammys! I acted as recording engineer, setting up the equipment and running the recording software for two frigid winter days in a heater-less room. If that wasn’t enough, I was also active as stagehand and assistant to the audio engineer for the world premier of the same piece in March, for which Mr. Reich was in attendance. Needless to say, that was a highlight of much more than just this year for me…

4. Ira Glass
Radio has a special place in my heart – I have vivid memories of Sunday morning car rides listening to Prairie Home Companion with my parents, and late night road trips full of old time radio shows like Dragnet and Have Gun Will Travel. I had actually never listened to Ira Glass until he graced our stage, but his opening monologue, a good five minutes in complete black with nothing but the sound of his voice and a well-told story, really took me back. It was truly a great night of entertainment, and it was so simple – one man, a chair, a table and two CD players sitting bare downstage center. No fancy lights, no pyrotechnics, no sets or backdrops, just a regular guy with a microphone and some funny stories. It was one of the very few times I sat in the booth upstairs and listened from start to finish, thinking to myself “This is work? People pay for this…”

5. Regina Carter
I won’t lie … a big factor in this making the list is the fact that it was the last show of the season. But not like that, not in the “Thank God it’s over!” sense (OK maybe a little bit…), but more in the summation of an entire seasons worth of hard work. It was a great show, her band was incredible and she’s an amazingly talented performer – I enjoyed every second of it. But it was more than that; they were genuinely good people that were a pleasure to work with and a joy to talk to. They hit the perfect (high) note to end my first season on. It’s people like them that make me glad to be in this field.

Can’t wait for next season!

The countdown to June continues

It's less than a month before we announce the 2008-2009 season on June 1. Moving our schedule up by a month has been harder than I expected. We had the season pretty well set in January, so I didn't think it was too much work to get the brochure printed and the web site up-to-date by June 1 instead of July 1. Easy--you just adjust your deadlines to accommodate the new schedule. Or so I thought.

Sometimes things don't go as expected and it puts a kink in the whole schedule. And so it was with a couple of our scheduled events for the coming season. It all started with a phone call. A manager calls Executive Director Kathy Panoff to say that an artist scheduled for an April 2009 concert (a concert that has been on the calendar for over a year) has decided that she can't perform in Richmond because she needs more time to prepare for some other engagement. I get the word from Kathy that we will probably have to cancel this event but we need a few days for confirmation. Confirmation finally comes (no way for us to keep this artist on our calendar, although much of our season has been scheduled with her as the focus) but we need to find a replacement. It may take a few days. 

By now, our designer is on hold because she doesn't know who the replacement will be or where during the year it will fall. Probably not on the same date.

Then, a phone call from another management company saying that the three shows we had contracted for January 2009 would need to be cut to two because the company needs more travel time between engagements. Now, this is the second time we've been asked to reduce the number of performances. We had booked four shows in four days, now we were being asked to do two shows in two days. Our answer: no way. It would be suicidal if we only offered our patrons two shows of this extremely popular attraction. We needed three shows or we wouldn't take any. Again, we waited, hoping to get our three shows.

Meanwhile, nothing much is happening with our print brochure design because we don't know what was going to happen with two major events. Our designer can work miracles, but she would prefer not to have to fill in a big gaping whole if we cancel more events.

Good news: we did find that replacement artist and we did get our requested three performances. And we got the brochure designed. So, a happy ending. But I've learned over the years that you just can't expect things to go smoothly when putting together a major presenting season. Some things are out of your hands. And, no matter what else happens between now and June 1, you can believe that we're doing everything we can to announce a fabulous season for you. Over the next few weeks, as your waiting for our "big" announcement, check out some of the events we've already announced. And just know that there are many more to explore beginning June 1!

Samantha

Putting It Together

I feel like I've done a lot of writing lately. This will come to a temporary end soon, though, as the semester officially ends tomorrow.

I am a part-time graduate student working to get my Master of Liberal Arts degree. Since our work schedule is a little bit crazy here at the Modlin Center, I only take one class per semester. The beauty of UR's MLA program is that students design their own courses of study, so we are truly able to study those topics in which we have a genuine interest. The way I look at it is that I'm taking all of the electives that I didn't have time for as an undergraduate here; my focus is arts and culture, and it's a blast! The three classes I've taken so far (besides the intro class) were Managing Performing Arts Organizations, Philanthropy in the Arts, and the History of Photography. My current class - I call it current because the final thesis paper is still in draft form on my laptop - is Sondheim and the American Musical. More on that in a minute.

Taking these classes has helped me to understand more about why I do what I do. The first two classes concerned the practical side of the arts - the business side. This is the part that I see every day, and it is just as exhausting, exciting, stress-inducing, and amazing as it sounds. When an event is a success (as it usually is), there's nothing quite like the feeling of accomplishment that comes from knowing that you played some sort of part (no matter how small) in making things happen.

This year's classes have helped me to understand more about the creation of the art that is displayed in venues like ours. I have come away with a greater appreciation for the true challenges involved in the genesis of art, be it performing or visual. As Stephen Sondheim said in Sunday in the Park with George (a work with which I've become fairly familiar, since it is the object of my thesis paper), art isn't easy.

During the Modlin Center 08-09 season, I will have the opportunity to put these two aspects of art together, particularly during one event. I will do extensive logistical planning and prep with my boss, and then I will sit in the house and learn more about the creative mind of Stephen Sondheim from Mr. Sondheim himself. I've learned so much this semester, and I know that when we present him in conversation with Frank Rich, I will learn even more. I can't wait!