Oct 15 2010 - 8:00pm Clarence Darrow

Starring James Ivey

General Admission $15
($13 Opera House Members, $8 Students)

In David Rintels' entertaining play, Clarence Darrow, Darrow is depicted as the champion of the underdog, a lawyer for everyman from a time when the practice of law was a noble profession.  This one-man, two-act play highlghts the great cases that were the defining moment of Darrow's career.

James Ivey brings Darrow to life and portrays him as a passionate loner with a sense of humor, who fought for causes with every fiber of his being.

Ivey has performed in more than 100 plays and musicals with roles as diverse as Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha, File in The Rainmaker, Harold Hill in The Music Man, J. Edgar Hoover in Splendid Rebels, Cornelius Hackl in Hello, Dolly!, Cheswick in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, King Arthur in Camelot, and Edgar Lee Masters in Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight.

He began his undergraduate theatre training at Illinois State University in 1973 under the guidance of Drs. Calvin Pritner, Ralph Lane and Jean Scharfenberg.  He then followed his muse to the University of Kansas where he finished his bachelor's degree under the tutelage of Dr. Jack Wright, Paul Campbell and Dr. Robert Findlay.

Moving to Chicago he humbly began his performance career as a servant at the Goodman Theatre in Much Ado About Nothing.  He went onto act in various venues around the Chicago area earning his Equity card playing Forrest Tucker's son in Patches at the Drury Lane South Theatre.

James IveyIvey received his master’s degree in theatre history at the University of Illinois and his doctorate from Texas Tech University.  Upon completion of his doctorate, he became head of the department of theatre at Hardin-Simmons University, in Abilene, Tex.  During his nine-year stay at HSU he directed many plays including Tartuffe, Li'l Abner, Guys and Dolls, The Seagull, The Dining Room, J.B., The Triumph of Love and Exit the King.

In the fall of 2000, Ivey joined the faculty of the theatre and dance department at SUNY Fredonia as associate professor and chair of theatre.  His 10-year career at Fredonia has been highlighted by productions of The Learned Ladies, The Cherry Orchard, Our Town, Candide, The Wizard of Oz, The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Women's Guild Dramatic Society's Production of A Christmas Carol, Hansel and Gretel, Marat/Sade and most recently Sophocles' Electra.  Recently promoted to full professor of theatre, Ivey will direct Carlo Goldoni's The Venetian Twins this coming spring.

Throughout his career in academia, Ivey has kept his performance career alive by working with various theatre companies including Theatre Three and The Dallas Repertory Theatre in A Little Night Music, The Showoff and The Man Who Came to Dinner and with Chautauqua Opera in productions of Fiddler on the Roof, The Music Man and Street Scene.

Inaddition, he trained with Antonio Fava at the Scuola Internazionale dell'Attore Comico in Reggio-Emilia, Italy in the tradition of commedia dell'arte.  His continued study of the commedia has prompted him to create Il Piccolo Teatro dell'Edera a traveling commedia production in which he performs the characters of Dottore, Capitano, and Zanni.

 

Sponsored by the Robert H. Jackson Center

 

Oct 16 2010 - 2:00pm

FREE Admission (ticket required)

Acclaimed storyteller Christopher Shaw entertains the kid in all of us in this special interactive performance.  The program starts out with Chris telling one of his premier Adirondack Tall Tales that will have the kids (and probably the adults, too!) rolling in the aisles with laughter. 

Then, as the title implies, It's YOUR Turn ... Chris selects members of the audience to come onstage and leads them through the telling of their own "round stories."  The round story technique has long been used to introduce young storytellers to the craft, and challenges their verbal, memory and imaginative skills. 

We guarantee you'll be surprised at who shines during this performance.  Remember what happened to Art Linkletter when he featured kids on his show ... they said the darndest things!

This is a program for kids (ideally grades 3 through middle school) or anyone who has ever been a kid.

Although admission to this event is FREE, tickets are required and may be reserved by calling the Box Office at 716-679-1891.

Sponsored by the Fredonia Teachers Association.

Oct 16 2010 - 7:30pm

General Admission $10
Ticket includes onstage post-performance reception

An evening of storytelling & song for adults ... hosted by Fredonia's favorite irishman Doug Manly and featuring acclaimed Adirondack storyteller, singer and songwriter Christopher Shaw, this evening of wild and witty songs & stories is guaranteed to tickle your funny bone and make you laugh out loud.

Christopher Shaw was raised in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.  He was born the son of a commercial steamboat pilot on Lake George.  Shaw worked the big boats and grew up listening to the songs and stories passed down from generation to generation, never suspecting he later would bring them to audiences all over the world.

For more than 10 years, Shaw toured for Taylor Guitars traveling from Anchorage to Berlin as a clinician demonstrating American folk and country style guitars.  In addition to his trips for Taylor, he has sung songs and told stories at such highly respected venues as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the Old Songs Folk Festival and Chautauqua Insitution, as well as in music halls, festivals and coffee houses all across the U.S. and Europe. 

He has produced a number of TV soundtracks for Public Television.  He wrote the soundtrack for and was the voice of Seneca Ray on the television special "Seneca Ray Stoddard: An American Original," seen coast to coast on PBS.  Most recently, a live concert special titled "Chris Shaw: Live in Concert" was shown on PBS stations throughout the country.

Shaw has nine recordings under his belt.  His 1988 debut, "Adirondack," has been inducted into the Library of Congress Folk Archives.