Visual and Performing Arts News

Just in time for Halloween, Bram stoker’s “Dracula” comes to the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts. The classic tale of seduction, desire and madness from the masters of motion theatre.

PUSH Physical Theatre’s “Dracula” is an acrobatic spectacle like nothing you have ever seen, a groundbreaking, thrilling and unforgettable ride into the warped world of one of literature’s most famous villains. “Dracula” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Saturday (Oct. 21), at the Rozsa Center.

It’s “un-theatre.” Intense athleticism, gravity-defying acrobatics and soulful artistry—award-winning PUSH Physical Theatre, the genre-defining masters of physical storytelling, express what it means to be human: the joy and sorrow, humor and tragedy, the big questions and the simple things.

Experience PUSH Physical Theatre’s all new adaptation of the classic horror story. In his hunt for immortality, Renfield stumbles upon the Amulet of the Vampir, a lost jewel buried in the legend of Dracula, The Master. Caged in a cell and under the watchful eye of The Doctor, Renfield uncovers the secrets of eternal life as a mysterious Maiden arrives at the asylum.

As the ties that bind the living and the dead begin to unravel, the lines between heroes and the devil begin to blur.

And, an added bonus: Come for the show, stay for the party! Keweenaw Young Professionals Present Cocktails After Dark, a Dracula after-party, in the Rozsa lobby, free for anyone with a ticket to Dracula. Enjoy a cash bar with Dracula-themed drinks, snacks, a “Dracula’s Lair” photo booth, and meet the cast of Push Physical Theatre’s Dracula.

Tickets for Dracula at the Rozsa Center are on sale now, $22 for adults, $10 for youth (PG-13), and no charge for Michigan Tech students with the Experience Tech fee. Tickets are available by phone at 7-2073, online, in person at the Central Ticketing Office in the Student Development Complex or at the Rozsa box office the night of the show.

Note: The Rozsa box office opens only two hours before performances.

The Michigan Tech Theatre Company will perform the Steve Martin comedy “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” again this week. Performance are at 7:30 p.m. Tomorrow (Oct. 18) Thursday and Friday (Oct. 19-20) in the McArdle Theatre in the Walker Art and Humanities Center.

Tickets are $13 for adults, $5 for youth and no charge for Michigan Tech students with the Experience Tech fee. Tickets are available by phone at 7-2073, online, in person at the Central Ticketing Office in the Student Development Complex or on the night of each performance at the McArdle Theatre, beginning one hour prior to showtime.

Tech Theatre presents Steve Martin’s Picasso at the Lapin Agile

Art or science, what has more power to change the future? Come, have drinks with Einstein and Picasso, at the Lapin Agile, a bar in 1904 Paris, as delightfully imagined by actor, comic, musician, and yes, playwright, Steve Martin. In his first full-length play, Martin puts Picasso and Einstein on a funny and poignant collision-course to drink, laugh, and debate the genius and imagination that inspires both. Members of the audience can even “drink” at the bar! There will be seats at the café tables for a few lucky audience members each night, with refreshments and snacks served as part of the performance. Tech Theatre, Directed by Christopher Plummer, Professor, Visual and Performing Art,  presents Picasso at the Lapin Agile, a thoughtfully comedic look at the power of imagination at the start of the 20^th Century, from the perspective of two giants of their time. The show will run for two weeks, Thursday – Saturday, October 12 – 14, and Wednesday – Friday, October 18 -20, at 7:30 pm in the McArdle Theatre.

A long-running and popular Off-Broadway play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile began with a first reading of the play at Steve Martin’s home. Tom Hanks read the role of Picasso, and Chris Sarandon read Einstein. Following further development, the play opened at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago on October 13, 1993. The show then enjoyed a successful run in Los Angeles and then made its way to New York City. The New York Times wrote, “It’s important to remember that the playwright of Picasso at the Lapin Agile is Steve Martin, stand-up comic, actor, writer, banjo player and something of a genius in his own right. So when big questions are being addressed, you can be sure that a layer of silliness is always in place (and, subversively, a layer of seriousness beneath that).”

 According to Alexandra Walker, Tech Theatre’s stage manager for Lapin Agile, “The play explores the question ‘what is the power of genius?’ As Picasso and Einstein argue over who will be able to change the century more with their work, we come to the conclusion: Both art and science are important, summed up in the words of Freddie, the Lapin Agile bartender/owner Freddie, proposing a toast with his patrons: ‘No movement will be as beautiful as the note across the staff, the line across the paper, or the idea across the mind.’”

Tickets are on sale now, $13 for adults, $5 for youth, and no charge for Michigan Tech students with the Experience Tech fee. Tickets are available by phone at (906) 487-2073, online at mtu.edu/rozsa, in person at the Central Ticketing Office in the Student Development Complex, or the night of the show at the McArdle door, which opens one hour prior to performances.