wcw JANUARY 2023

out and about continued
collection of small and mid-scale
paintings, Mayer explores the light,
nature, harmony, and color of the
natural beauty of Canadian summers.
Runs to March 17, 2023.
Ringling College of Art + Design,
Patricia Thompson Gallery is located
on the first floor of the Keating Center,
2700 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota.
Art Center Sarasota has three solo
exhibitions:
• “Alexandra Hammond” revolves
around the artist’s “Quantum Blue”
series of acrylic paintings. According
to the artist, they invite the viewer to
enter “a zone of pure possibility—a
field of active emptiness from which
all forms arise out of formlessness.”
Runs through January 21.
• They also have “Jason Hackenwerth”
which reveals the painter’s
latest body of work — abstract paintings,
bursting with dynamic scenarios.
According to the artist, they’re his
way of working through his emotions
under the constant bombardment of
media and life drama.
• There’s also a juried show: “Black
& White” which showcases monochromatic
works created in a range
of artistic mediums. Elana Rubinfeld,
the founder of the New Art Agency
and former director at Yossi Milo Gallery
in NYC, will jury this exhibition.
Art Center Sarasota, 707 N. Tamiami
Trail, Sarasota. www.artsarasota.org.
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Sarasota Orchestra’s Harmony
Gallery has Claire Desjardins. Her
exhibition, Living in Color, runs
through January 23. Desjardins is
an award-winning abstract painter
based in Quebec and Sarasota. She
exhibits her paintings in galleries
across North America and her work
can be found in both private and corporate
collections worldwide. Desjardins’
paintings, though abstract, take
their visual cues from forms, colors,
textures and patterns in nature.
The Harmony Gallery is at Beatrice
Friedman Symphony Center at 709
North Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Exhibitions
are free and open to the public.
For information visit www.sarasota
orchestra.org.
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Island Gallery West has a member
artists exhibit through January 31.
The gallery has been invited to exhibit
at the Lakewood Ranch ComCenter
Professional Building, 9040 Town
Center Pkwy. Fourteen artists are
showing a variety of works in the
lobby on the first floor of the ComCenter,
which houses lawyers, realtors
and other local businesses.
A selection of twenty of members’
paintings also are on display through
January at the Key Royale Club on
Anna Maria Island at 700 Key Royale
Drive, Holmes Beach.
Visit islandgallerywest.artspan.
com or call 941-778-6648. Island Gallery
West is located at 5368 Gulf Drive,
Holmes Beach.
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Sarasota Concert
Association
The 2023 Great Performers Series
opens with the renowned Emerson
String Quartet January 30 at Riverview
Performing Arts Center, performing
in Sarasota as part of their
farewell concert tour and presenting
musical highlights of their 47-year history.
They will perform Beethoven’s
Quartet, Op. 59 No. 2, as well as other
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works by Haydn and Mendelssohn.
Pianist Awadagin Pratt brings his
artistry to the Riverview Performing
Arts Center on February 15 with a
varied program of works, from Philip
Glass to Rachmaninoff and Liszt. Acclaimed
for his musical insight and
intensely involved performances,
Awadagin Pratt performs a varied
program of works, from Philip Glass to
Rachmaninoff and Liszt.
In his final season as Music Director,
Riccardo Muti brings the internationally-acclaimed
Chicago Symphony
Orchestra to Sarasota for one night
only March 1 at Van Wezel. The program
includes Beethoven’s Symphony
No. 8 and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an
Exhibition.
The Sarasota Concert Association
will also present the National Philharmonic
Orchestra of Ukraine in
a performance on January 18 at the
Venice Performing Arts Center led by
conductor Theodore Kuchar in a program
which includes Brahms’ Violin
Concerto featuring violinist Vladyslava
Luchenko, and Dvořák’s Symphony
No. 9, From the New World.
To purchase tickets, visit www.
SCAsarasota.org.
Perlman Music
The PMP Winter Residency runs
through January 7 and offers unparalleled
musical training for gifted students
ages 12-18 who play the violin,
viola, cello and bass. PMP’s worldclass
faculty, led by Itzhak Perlman,
oversees a curriculum of solo, chamber
music, and orchestral repertoire at
the highest level. The public is invited
to watch these orchestra and chorus
rehearsals and works-in-progress
recitals in a performance tent on the
USF Sarasota-Manatee campus.
• Tent Rehearsals, Works in Progress,
and Recitals: through January
7 on the USF Sarasota-Manatee
campus. Non-reserved seats are free
to the public; reserved and VIP seats
are also available. The Winter Residency’s
daily schedule is available at
www.PerlmanSuncoast.org.
• Celebration Concert: January 5 at
the Sarasota Opera House. Tickets:
call Sarasota Opera House’s box office
at 941-328-1300 or at www.sarasotaopera.org.
• Celebration Gala is on January 5 in
the tent on the USF Sarasota-Manatee
campus. The evening includes
dinner and entertainment with PMP
students, faculty and the Perlmans.
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The Sarasota Concert Association present the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine on Jan. 18 at the Venice
Performing Arts Center led by conductor Theodore Kuchar in a program which includes Brahms’ Violin Concerto, and
Dvořák’s New World Symphony.
Tickets are $250 and are available at
www.PerlmanSuncoast.org.
The Chamber
Orchestra of
Sarasota
The Chamber Orchestra of
Sarasota join forces with the
Venice High School Orchestra,
Christopher Riley, conductor, to
present a free concert titled Making
Music Together on January 13 at the
Venice Performing Arts Center. For
information and to order tickets, visit
chamberorchestrasarasota.org/ or
call 219-928-8665.
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At The Ringling
Running through February 12,
2023, is Highlights from the Stanton
B. and Nancy W. Kaplan Collection
of Photography—a selection
of works donated to The Ringling in
2019, includes over 1000 photographic
objects and images, representing
some of the most important photo-based
artists of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries.
The Kaplan Collection includes
works by Berenice Abbott, Manuel
Álvarez Bravo, Eugène Atget, Ruth
Bernhard, Margaret Bourke-White,
Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lewis
W. Hine, André Kertész, Robert
Mapplethorpe, Edward Weston, and
James Van Der Zee to name but a few.
The John and Mable Ringling
Museum of Art, 5401 Bay Shore Rd.,
Sarasota. Info: www.ringling.org.
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Theatre
Sarasota Players has Proof running
January 12-22. Proof tells the
story of Catherine, a troubled young
woman, who has spent years caring
for her brilliant but unstable father,
a famous mathematician. Now, following
his death and on the eve of her
25th birthday, she must deal with her
own volatile emotions; the arrival of
her estranged sister, Claire; and the
attentions of Hal, a former student of
her father’s. Over the long weekend
that follows, a burgeoning romance
and the discovery of a mysterious
notebook draw Catherine into the
most difficult problem of all: How
much of her father’s madness—or
genius—will she inherit?
Held at Studio 1130, The Crossings at
Siesta Key, 3501 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota.
Visit www.theplayers.org.
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Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe
has “Flyin’ West” by Pearl Cleage. In
the 1890s, the lives of a small group of
African-American women change after
they leave the oppressive South and
settle in the all-black town of Nicodemus,
Kansas. Their hopes, dreams and
determination to survive in a harsh
region are tested as they build new
lives for themselves and their families.
With flashes of humor amid serious
themes, “Flyin’ West” sheds new
light on a chapter of American history
that’s seldom told, as it explores questions
and conflicts that still resonate
today. Chuck Smith, who serves as
resident director at WBTT and at the
Goodman Theatre in Chicago, will
return to Sarasota to direct this show.
Runs January 4-February 12.
Call the Box Office at 941-366-1505
or visit westcoastblacktheatre.org.
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Asolo Rep has Ken Ludwig’s
The Three Musketeers runs Jan.
11-March 26. Ken Ludwig’s adaptation
of the novel by Alexandre Dumas
tells the tale of a daring young man
who finds himself in the company
of the world’s greatest swordsmen,
as well as some of the world’s most
dangerous men and women. Directed
by Peter Amster, who most recently
directed Asolo Rep’s Murder on the
Orient Express in 2020.
• Silent Sky runs Jan. 19-March 5.
Silent Sky is the true story of Henrietta
Leavitt, one of the pioneering
women astronomers working at Harvard
Observatory in the early 1900s.
This extraordinary woman took
on the astronomy establishment
in order to discover the mysteries
embedded in the sky. Henrietta transcended
the odds while navigating
love, family and the universe, going
on to make a world-altering advancement
to the field of astronomy that
changed our view of the cosmos.
Tickets: asolorep.org.
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Asolo Conservatory has Stick
Fly (Jan. 3-22), a comedy-drama by
playwright Lydia Diamond. Race,
class and cultural expectations come
into play as an affluent Black American
family reunites at their Martha’s
Vineyard home. FSU/Asolo Conservatory
graduate Marcus Denard Johnson
returns to direct.
This winner of the Black Theatre
Alliance Award for Best Play chronicles
a weekend in the life of an affluent
African American family. Tensions
ride high as the Levay brothers
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bring their respective fiancées home
to meet the parents. Family secrets,
childhood demons and romantic
entanglements are revealed, leading
to collisions over race, class and privilege.
Gender roles and generational
dynamics further ignite this explosive
tragic comedy.
Tickets: asolorep.org.
FST’s Mainstage Series has What
the Constitution Means to Me by
Heidi Schreck runs through February
26 in FST’s Keating Theatre.
• The FST cabaret series has The ‘70s:
More Than a Decade by Rebecca
Hopkins, Richard Hopkins and
Sarah Durham. Musical arrangements
by Jim Prosser. Runs through
February 12 in FST’s Court Cabaret
An original Florida Studio Theatre
musical revue
• A Place in the Sun: A Tribute to Stevie
Wonder by Jason Cannon, Richard
Hopkins, and Sarah Durham.
Runs through March 26 in FST’s
Goldstein Cabaret
• NetworkAdapted for the stage by
Lee Hall Based on the film by Paddy
Chayefsky runs January 25 - March
19, 2023 in FST’s Gompertz Theatre
Visit www.floridastudiotheatre.org/
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ensembleNewSRQ
Crumb: January 16, 7:30 p.m.
“Black Angels,” the epic lament for
the troubled years of the Vietnam era
climaxes a tribute to George Crumb
(1929-2022), the Pulitzer Prize-winning
composer whose works are
among the most frequently performed
compositions in today’s musical world.
Soprano and enSRQ favorite,
Lucy Fitz Gibbon returns to sing
Crumb’s evocative “Madrigals,” and
the “Demeter Prelude” by Crumb’s
protégé, Margaret Brouwer. It will be
performed at First Congregational
Church, 1031 S. Euclid Ave., Sarasota.
Live streaming will also be available.
• Vespers For A New Dark Age:
February 6. The voices of the Dallas-based
Verdigris Ensemble rise in
collaboration with ensembleNEWS-
RQ to present the choral works of two
internationally acclaimed composers:
“The Branch Will Not Break” by
Christopher Cerrone—as inspired
by the poetry of James Arlington
Wright; and “Vespers for a New Dark
Age” by Missy Mazzoli—set to the
poetry of Matthew Zapruder. Held at
First Congregational Church, 1031 S.
Euclid Ave., Sarasota. Live streaming
will also be available.
For tickets, visit www.ensrq.org.
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At The Van Wezel
A sampling of upcoming shows:
• Legally Blonde is on January
4-5. Based on the beloved movie,
award-winning Legally Blonde - The
Musical takes you from the sorority
house to the halls of justice as Elle
Woods tackles stereotypes, sexism,
snobbery and scandal in pursuit
of her dreams, and proves that you
can be both legally blonde AND the
smartest person in the room.
• Riverdance 25th Anniversary Tour
is on January 10-12. Twenty-five
years on, composer Bill Whelan has
rerecorded his soundtrack while
producer Moya Doherty and director
John McColgan have completely
reimagined the ground-breaking
show with innovative lighting, projection,
stage and costume designs.
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8 WEST COAST WOMAN JANUARY 2023