2011-12 Matinees for H.S. Student Groups
Each academic year, the UAlbany Performing Arts Center offers a series of weekday matinee performances that are geared for high school students. These performances are a mix of theatre, music and dance and are selected for their connections to high school curriculum.
Admission is $5 per student with chaperones free.
Teacher resource materials are available approximately one month in advance of the shows.
Directions and bus information are provided upon reservation of tickets.
Guided campus, Performing Arts Center and Art Museum tours as well as other activities are possible when your group is on campus. More information will be provided with your reservation.
Home school students and parents are welcome.
To make a reservation for your school group or for additional details, contact Kim Engel at (518) 442-5738 or kengel@albany.edu
American Place Theatre in Down These Mean Streets
Friday, October 14 at 10am - This show is SOLD OUT.
Piri Thomas’s lacerating, lyrical memoir tells of his coming of age as a Puerto Rican on the streets of
Spanish Harlem – a descent that ended when the 22 year-old was sent to prison for shooting a cop. This
60-minute stage adaptation recounts his plunge into the deadly consolations of drugs, street fighting and
armed robbery by following him from adolescence in El Barrio to a lock-up in Sing Sing to the freedom that
comes of self-acceptance, faith and inner confidence.
This program includes pre-and post-show discussions led by a member of American Place Theatre.
Pick Up Performance Co(s) in Dancing Henry Five
Friday, October 28 at 11am
Directed, choreographed & designed by Obie & Bessie award winner and Guggenheim fellow David Gordon,
this imaginative 70-minute whirlwind reduction of Shakespeare’s Henry V is told through an innovative
mélange of movement, theatre, narration, music by William Walton from the 1940s film and the voices of
Laurence Olivier and Christopher Plummer. “Gordon has condensed Shakespeare’s sprawling historical epic into
a layered novella of marvelous stagecraft, economical movement and emotional subtlety.” ~ Star Tribune
Fifth of July
Wednesday, November 16 at 10am
Through the reunion and turmoil of one family, this Broadway hit exposes the disillusionment Americans felt in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Set in a Missouri farmhouse belonging to the Talley family during the 1970s, it reveals how Wilson’s vision continues to resonate within our culture, and is being presented to honor the work and leadership of this playwright during a renaissance of American Theatre and the Off-Broadway movement.
Photo this page: Paula Court, Jeff Jacobson
Truth Values: One Girl's Romp Through M.I.T.'s Male Math Maze
Thursday, February 9 at 10am - This show is SOLD OUT.
Wri
ter, performer and “recovering mathematician” Gioia De Cari relates a 75-minute humorous,
scathing, insightful and ultimately uplifting true-life tale of the challenges of being a professional
woman in a male-dominated field. Winner of the Overall Excellence Award for Best Solo Show in
the 2009 New York International Fringe Festival, De Cari brings to life more than 30 characters
in a hilarious and deeply touching performance.
This program includes a post-show discussion with the performer.
Great Expectations
Wednesday, February 29 at 10am
This world premiere production celebrates the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth in a new adaptation. Orphaned as an infant and thrust into a childhood of cruel poverty, Pip clings to the hope of a brighter life. A chance meeting with a prisoner and an eccentric old woman sets into motion a life's journey beyond his wildest imaginings as he struggles to realize the American Dream.
Core Ensemble in Ain't I a Woman!
Thursday, March 29 at 10am
With a musical score drawn from the heartfelt spirituals of the Deep South, the urban vitality of the
Jazz Age and contemporary music by African Americans, this 80-minute chamber music theatre work
for actress and trio (cello, piano & percussion) celebrates the life of four passionate and accomplished
African American women -- renowned novelist & anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, ex-slave & fiery
abolitionist Sojourner Truth, exuberant folk artist Clementine Hunter and fervent civil rights worker
Fannie Lou Hamer.
American Place Theatre in The Kite Runner
Thursday, April 19 at 10am
Khaled Hosseini’s story is one of guilt and redemption, brutality and kindness, sin and forgiveness. It
portrays the doomed relationship of two boys - a privileged Pashtun and a Hazara servant - one rich, one
poor, one flawed, the other pure. This award-winning 60-minute stage adaptation based on the first half
of the best selling contemporary novel takes audiences on a heartbreaking journey of friendship and
betrayal in a society of severe class division set against a backdrop of 1970s Afghanistan in turmoil.
This program includes pre-and post-show discussions led by a member of American Place Theatre.
Circle Mirror Transformation
Wednesday, May 2 at 10am
A creative drama class in a small Vermont town becomes the catalyst that exposes its participants to tender moments of vulnerability . . . where honesty becomes both revealing and hilarious. The New York Times called it an “absorbing, unblinking and sharply funny play.” This rising-star playwright’s work simply asks, “What makes theatre the most human of all the arts?”
Photo this page: John Olsen
