SummerStage Tulsa 2018- Official Program

20 18

JUNE 1-30 T U L S A

P E R F O R M I N G

A R T S

C E N T E R

Welcome to SummerStage Tulsa!

SummerStage is a month-long performing arts festival held during June in the Tulsa Performing Arts Center’s John H. Williams Theatre, Liddy Doenges Theatre and Charles E. Norman Theatre. Performances include a variety of disciplines from musicals, drama, comedy and dance to cabaret theatre events. SummerStage provides local arts groups and individual artists the opportunity to work together in forming a showcase of artists from Tulsa and the surrounding communities. The result is a cohesive, colorful, balanced, diverse and high-energy festival that culminates in a unique departure from main season arts events and one that offers something for everyone. The Tulsa Performing Arts Center Trust is a major sponsor of the festival providing free rent/security and administrative support to all participants.

A Brief History SummerStage was originally organized in the 1980s to provide entertainment opportunities at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center in the off-season. With no major productions scheduled during the summer months, the Tulsa Performing Arts Center Trust offered to underwrite the cost of rent and security to five local arts organizations if they would produce events during the summer. In 2003, the Board of Trustees created a task force to examine the SummerStage festival and to produce a new model that would better reflect the Tulsa community as a whole. The festival was expanded from six to eight weeks and provided a greater variety of entertainment choices. The task force wanted to see more family events, more dance, more world music and the participation of more local artists from Tulsa’s diverse community. The Tulsa PAC Trust in no way benefits financially from hosting SummerStage.

Tulsa Performing Arts Center Trust The Tulsa Performing Arts Center Trust (TPACT) is a non-profit organization formed with private funds in 1977 after the construction of the City of Tulsa’s Performing Arts Center. Its Board of Trustees, appointed by the Mayor, share a passionate love of the arts. TPACTʼs goal is to offer a variety of performance choices to Tulsa’s diverse community at affordable prices. TPACT programming features a wide range of music, theatre, dance, film and comedy events that appeal to both families and mature audiences.

MOST PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHELLE POLLARD

Tulsa Youth Cabaret ONE PERFECT MOMENT

June 1 & 2

Liddy Doenges Theatre presented by Tulsa Youth Cabaret

Tulsa Youth Cabaret is an auditioned musical theatre performing troupe composed of the most gifted teen vocalists in the region. The group has appeared on stages from Singapore to New York. “One Perfect Moment” features solo and ensemble musical theatre numbers that depict the uniquely beautiful journey in the life of a teen.

Celebrating that teens are our voices of the future, Tulsa Youth Cabaret will speak to attendees’ hearts as they’re taken back to a simpler time and reminded of the importance and beauty of life at all stages.

MULTIPHONIC FUNK BOOGIE WONDERLAND: AN EARTH, WIND AND FIRE TRIBUTE

Multiphonic Funk is a unique fusion of funk and jazz that covers other artists’ music and performs its own original music. One of its biggest musical influences is Earth, Wind and Fire, and this show is a love tribute to that incredible band! Boogie Wonderland features many of your EWF favorites, plus some bonus songs by James Brown, Tower of Power and more, including several of Multiphonic Funk’s original tunes.

June 8 & 9

John H. Williams Theatre presented by Tulsa Jazz

WO

PORTICO DANS THEATRE

WO is a collection of dance pieces created and choreographed by women about women’s issues such as miscarriage, menopause, ovarian cancer, sexism in the workplace, etc. The concept was inspired by recent political events, the women’s marches and the #MeToo movement, as well as many personal stories within our community. We are honored to collaborate with fellow women artists in the Tulsa area (including Deborah J. Hunter, Living Water Dance Collective, and Holy Mother Collective) to perform and present within the production. WO is inclusive to all those who were born female and who identify as women, and we are ecstatic to include a performance art piece by a trans woman. This production is a love letter to all women and is dedicated to the rise of women everywhere.

June 8 & 9

Liddy Doenges Theatre presented by Portico Dans Theatre

Janet Rutland sings

GERSHWIN

“Janet Rutland Sings Gershwin” is the 14th SummerStage cabaret show for this popular vocalist. “In a way, I’m coming full circle,” Rutland notes. “The first cabaret-style show I ever produced — 20 years ago — was all Gershwin material for Tulsa Jazz Society. In this year’s show, I’ll share a little about the lives of those amazing brothers, George and Ira, and present their songs in the best way I know how with some of the finest musicians in Oklahoma.” Rutland will be backed by a jazz trio made up of Scott McQuade on piano, Nathan Eicher on upright bass, and Jared Johnson on drums. Terry Baxter and Barry Hensley will be guest vocalists.

June 14 & 15

Charles E. Norman Theatre presented by Janet Rutland

“Little Old Ladies IN Tennis

Shoes”

Kate Corrigan has her life in order, or so she likes to think. In what she describes as “not lower middle age” but “upper youth,” she has a lucrative job, a no-strings-attached man, and a new house in the suburbs. “Consider yourselves part of the clutter,” she blithely tells new neighbors Molly Blumenthal and her grandson, Jeff, when they pay Kate a call before she has even unpacked. And delightful clutter they soon become, overwhelming Kate’s tiny existence with a roller-coaster friendship, pot-roast, and the problems of all the elderly women on the block. As she meets these women, living in quirky isolation after outliving their husbands’ and their families’ need for them, Kate realizes the life she’s found looks a lot like the one she’d been running from. “Is it in the genes, an instinct,” she wonders, “like elephants heading for the burial ground? Am I a little old lady in training?” Confronted with old fears and new choices, Kate finds her life opening up—wide enough, for the first time, to admit love. “A sensitive comedy about friendship between generations,” said the Stanford Mail. “Full of wit and laughter...warmth and wisdom,” echoed the Sierra Madre News. “L’chaim!” say Kate and Molly. Audiences of all ages applaud their determination to “grow older, wiser, stronger in every way. But not old.”

June 15-17

Liddy Doenges Theatre presented by Sand Springs Community Theatre

ONWARD KARA STAIGER

There’s a point in every show where a decision has to be made. The song about the choice is always compelling. It’s a choice between two places or people... or even a choice within the character. And how each character embraces the choice is how they move onward. Join us for an evening of song and shenanigans with selections from Broadway classics about moving onward!

June 16

Charles E. Norman Theatre presented by Kara Staiger

ERICA PAPILLION-POSEY

The Standard Reimagined

Equally at home in the jazz and classical idioms, vocalist, recording artist and author Erica Papillion-Posey is not to be missed on any stage. The recipient of many accolades and awards, PapillionPosey was named a semifinalist in the 2014 Paris Opera Awards. In 2013, she was named a Continuo Arts Foundation Milton Cross Young Artists Award winner after being named one of the organization’s Rising Star Award winners in 2012. Papillion-Posey has a Master of Music degree and Certificate in Vocal Performance, both from the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music; a Bachelor of Music from Metropolitan State University of Denver; and an Associate of Business Management from Platt Business and Technical College. She is a member of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (Grammys), Italian Institute of Denver, L’Alliance Française de Denver, Friends of Music at Metro and serves as board advisor on performing arts to Grand Design Inc.

June 22 & 23

Charles E. Norman Theatre presented by Tulsa Jazz

SHADES OF WHITE A PLAY IN TWO ACTS

Set in Tulsa in 1996 — the 75th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre — “Shades of White” explores the relationships between an Israeli immigrant and a former member of the Ku Klux Klan and their wives. Narrow-minded Dr. Whitehill and his crone of a wife, Birdie, are set in their miserable ways until Dr. Whitehill encounters Yossi, an open-hearted musician who loves life. Uplifting, humorous and ultimately hopeful, “Shades of White” is a fast-paced serio-comedy that is relevant for our world today. The play’s themes, which include combating hate, prejudice and racism with unconditional love and paths to reconciliation, are in keeping with the Dan Allen Center’s mission “to promote social justice through education, outreach, advocacy and demonstration of social justice and caritas.”

June 22 & 23

John H. Williams Theatre presented by Dan Allen Center for Social Justice

Still I Rise Vidhya Subramanian Artist Vidhya Subramanian will perform in this dance/play combination based on the famous poem by Maya Angelou. It lends voice to women through the mythological character of Draupadi — a wife, mother, warrior and survivor. The show includes famous writings from five different languages and original music composed by Rajkumar Bharathi. It premiered in Palo Alto, California, this spring and is traveling across the U.S. this summer.

June 23

Liddy Doenges Theatre presented by South Asian Performing Arts Foundation

Steve Lancaster Family Magic Show Master Magician Steve Lancaster conjures up fun and exciting illusions with so many surprise endings, you will wonder, “How did he do that?” It’s a magical experience for children and adults alike. Special guest John Pansze joins the show as Sponji The Clown.

June 24

Charles E. Norman Theatre presented by Steve Lancaster

X

FORCE DISTANCE “Force x Distance� is an immersive and interactive performance experience in three acts. In Act I, audience members are asked to use their phone-flashlight to find and view the first performance and flash-photography only to view the second performance. Act II tells the story of a Modern Man who is transformed by Mami Wata, goddess of water and the fluid, into a powerful Simb Lion. The final Act is a collaboration with Astrophoria, providing live music and dancing alongside Luis-Eduardo that culminates in a audience-inclusive dance party.

June 29 & 30

Charles E. Norman Theatre presented by Luis-Eduardo