The composer-lyricist behind the Oz-inspired musical “Wicked” will blow into town (without benefit of tornado) this spring for a one-night performance benefiting the Old Globe Theatre.
Stephen Schwartz, who scored the Tony-winning show that chronicles the back story of the “Wizard of Oz” witches, comes to the theater March 7 for “Stephen Schwartz and Friends,” a concert of his music that also will include singer-actors Debbie Gravitte, Liz Callaway and Scott Coulter.
Globe executive producer/CEO Louis G. Spisto likens it to a one-night event the Globe hosted this year featuring Jerry Herman, who scored such hits as “Hello, Dolly!” and “Mame.” The Schwartz show, though, will feature “wall to wall performances,” with no interview segments, he said.
“It's just an incredibly rare treat to hear this man perform his work,” said Spisto. “Stephen is a powerhouse. He's very much in his prime, but he's absolutely a legend.”
By the time the event rolls around, the Globe likely will be a familiar place to Schwartz, whose work also includes “Godspell” and “Pippin” on Broadway and three Oscars for the Disney films “Pocahontas” and “The Prince of Egypt.”
Schwartz is bringing an updated version of his musical “Working” to the theater, featuring new songs by Manuel Lin-Miranda, the composer and actor behind “In the Heights,” this year's Tony-winner for best musical. “Working,” based on the late Studs Terkel's book about Americans and their jobs, runs March 6 to April 26.
Tickets for “Stephen Schwartz and Friends” are now available for Globe 2009 season subscribers, and go on sale Feb. 8 to the general public. Prices are $49-$79 ($139 for tickets that include a post-show meet-and-greet with the composer). For info: (619) 234-5623, or TheOldGlobe.org.
You may have noticed by now that a work by the major American sculptor Louise Nevelson, “Night Presence II,” has been absent from the May S. Marcy Sculpture Court and Garden at the San Diego Museum of Art. Actually, it's been gone since September 2007.
The sculpture, which was fabricated and purchased in 1976, was in need of restoration. So it's been in Bethany, Conn., at Versteeg Art Fabricators, where its corten steel surface has been repaired and weathered through what's called a wet-dry process, in order to restore the work to its original form.
Ths sculpture will return to public view again in mid-to late December and is accompanied at the museum by a show, already on exhibit, “Louis Nevelson's Night Presence II: Conservation, Contextualization, Celebration.” It contains drawings, prints and sculptures from local collections and the museum's own holdings.
Nevelson, who died in 1988 at age 87, acquired international fame for her sculptures fashioned from bannisters, moldings, columns, chair legs and the like, transformed into quasi-architectural compositions of a single color. Most were done in black or white. With sculptures intended for outdoor sites, these same forms were translated into steel.
Her work is represented in countless museum collections across the globe. Last year, a major retrospective organized by the Jewish Museum in New York, “The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson: Constructing a Legend,” toured to the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco.
The Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad is celebrating the release of its ongoing “The Magic & Mystery of the Slide Guitar” exhibit and concert series with the release of the first album to be compiled and distributed under the museum's auspices. Titled “The Magic & Mystery of the Slide Guitar Compilation CD,” the 15-song album features selections by Bob Brozman, Cindy Cashdollar, Henry Kaiser, Sonny Landreth, David Lindley, Freddie Roulette, England's Martin Simpson and India's Chitravina N. Ravikiran.
Not coincidentally, these same eight musicians were selected to participate in the museum's slide guitar concert series. It continues Wednesday with a 7 p.m. performance at the museum by Simpson, a Celtic-influenced guitarist and singer who counts Lindley and Los Lobos' David Hidalgo among his past recording partners.
“We just started with domestic sales of the album and just got an e-mail from someone in Norway who wants to buy it,” said B.J. Morgan, the museum's marketing and promotions director. “So we're going to expand our Museum Store's Web functionality to handle international orders.”
Priced at $15.99, the album is available at the museum's gift store and online: museumofmakingmusic.org. Tickets for the concert series can be obtained from the same Web site, and by phone: (760) 438-5996. The series continues with the genre-leaping Brozman, Jan. 10, and dobro and pedal-steel guitarist Cindy Cashdollar, Feb. 7. It concludes with a March 7 show by blues dynamo Freddie Roulette, who will be joined by the envelope-shredding Henry Kaiser and various friends.
“The Magic & Mystery of the Slide Guitar” exhibit continues through March 31. Museum admission is $5 for adults and $3 for seniors, students and military. Kids 3-and-under are admitted for free.
– JAMES HEBERT SCULPTURE RETURNS
