June Events at PVCC - Two Theater Productions, Drum Workshops and Free Concerts


UNDER THE BED (a play for children and families).  DIRECTED BY CRAIG KOSNIK
June 11th and 12th at 11:00am, June 12th and 13th at 7:00pm, June 14th at 2:00pm.
Performances held in the Studio Theater/M-East Building, Seating is limited. $5 adults/seniors/staff/students/military; $2 children
Click HERE to purchase tickets 

Mo and Jo are staying with their Aunt Flo as their mom is on her honeymoon with the new man she has married.  Mo and Jo cannot fall asleep because they think that there is something (or someone) under the bed.  They hear strange sounds from under the bed.  They smell strange odors from under the bed.  That means that there must be something under the bed, right?  Suddenly, a Hot Water Bottle comes to life and tries to help the siblings go to sleep.  He suggests that they travel somewhere else so that they can escape whatever is under the bed.  In their travels, the trio visit Antarctica and meet a Spanish Penguin that recites poetry, and a Monkey in the South Seas.  Will they ever be able to fall asleep?  For all ages!

NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY: AFRO-CUBAN DRUM AND DANCE WORKSHOP
June 16th, 6:30pm-8:30pm, KSC 1000A, Free Admission
Learn to play and dance to the exciting rhythms and music from Cuba and Brazil. 
All Drums will be provided. Featuring Guest artists Joe Goglia and Jesse Joaquin Parker

LUNCHTIME CONCERT SERIES: THE RATTLER HOT JAZZ ORCHESTRA
June 18th, 11:00am-12:00pm, Studio Theater/M-East Bldg, Free Admission
Local Phoenix Musicians Jordan Tompkins, Greg Lloyd, Kevin Bock, Eric Wells, and Josh Bennett invite you to enjoy the sounds of Traditional New Orleans Jazz with The Rattler Hot Jazz Orchestra! From classic Hot Jazz standards, to the music of Louis Armstrong, and even new popular songs RHJO brings the spirit of New Orleans to the Phoenix valley. So bring your friends and family and join us at Paradise Valley Community College on June 18th in the Black Box Theater as we celebrate the music that launched a new musical movement in America!

SPAMALOT (musical).  DIRECTED BY ANDREA ROBERTSON
June 19th, 20th, 26th, 27th @ 7:30pm. June 21st and 28th @ 2:00pm.
$15 adults; $12 seniors/staff; $10 students/military; $8 children

Click HERE to purchase tickets *4 additional ticket fee at the door 1hour prior to performance.
Lovingly ripped off from the classic film comedy MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, SPAMALOT retells the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and features a bevy of beautiful show girls, not to mention cows, killer rabbits, and French people. Did we mention the bevy of beautiful show girls?  The 2005 Broadway production won three Tony Awards, including "Best Musical," and received 14 Tony Award nominations.

NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY: AFRO-CUBAN DRUM AND DANCE WORKSHOP
June 23rd, 6:30pm-8:30pm, KSC 1000A, Free Admission
Learn to play and dance to the exciting rhythms and music from Cuba and Brazil. 
All Drums will be provided. Featuring Guest artists Joe Goglia and Jesse Joaquin Parker

LUNCHTIME CONCERT SERIES: PARADISE WINDS
June 25th, 11:00am-12:00pm, Location is TBD, Free Admission
The Paradise Winds are a collection of artists presenting chamber music concerts, educational programs, benefits, fundraisers and community events in Greater Phoenix, AZ. The variety of artistry provides a diverse background of other specialties, but each artist appearing with the ensemble has accomplished great feats in music performance, research and education. The Paradise Winds represent the past, present and future of wind chamber music.

NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY: AFRO-CUBAN DRUM AND DANCE WORKSHOP
June 30th, 6:30pm-8:30pm, KSC 1000A, Free Admission
Learn to play and dance to the exciting rhythms and music from Cuba and Brazil. 
All Drums will be provided. Featuring Guest artists Joe Goglia and Jesse Joaquin Parker 

For additional information about any of the listed events, please contact the Center for the Performing Arts Box Office at 602-787-7738 or email boxoffice@paradisevalley.edu.

Animal Tails: A Play Created by THP151 - Theater for Youth

Written by Craig Kosnik, PhD, instructor of Theater for Youth

This past spring twelve brave students and one instructor set out on a journey to create and adapt a brand new play for k-2 audiences - and all in one semester! Animal Tails was adapted from the folk tales of four different Native American cultures: Rainbow Crow (Lenni Lenape), How Rabbit Lost His Tail (Wabanaki), Coyote Stories (Cheyenne), and Rabbit Calls a Truce (Wabanaki). The instructor wrote the prologue, transitional scenes, and an epilogue to tie the four tales together. In these scenes, the PVCC students took on roles as second grade students who were preparing to act out the folk tales. After creating the script, the class had a few weeks to rehearse and then presented the production to over 1,000 people during school day performances and during the PVCC Festival of Tales.

 

W R I T I N G  T H E  S H O W 

Theatre is all about telling stories—to record our history, to teach life lessons, and to entertain us. We started our developmental process by reading other theatre for youth plays to see how they were structured and to identify what aspects of them we might want to incorporate into our own work. Then the creative writing process began. From the start, this has been a collaborative effort. First, we read a group of stories from several Native American tribes and decided on four that we wanted to adapt. This was based on a number of factors, including: the theme of each story, their potential for drama and theatricality, the inclusion of a variety of tribes/nations, animal characters that would be familiar to Arizona children, ease of portrayal, and, of course, the fun factor. 

The Paradise Valley students were divided into four groups, and each group produced a script adapted from one of the Native American stories. The group members worked together, contributed ideas, and formatted and proofread the scripts, which were then incorporated into a final script that included a prologue, an epilogue, and transitional sections written by the instructor. We decided that having the play take place in a second-grade classroom would make the audience feel at home. 

In adapting these tales, we took into consideration the language level appropriate to the target audience (K-2) and simplified some of the language in the original tales. The characters in each tale remained the same in our script with an occasional addition of other characters to make the transitions smoother. The tales were woven together by moving the action in and out of the classroom setting and through several characters who reappear throughout the play. Finally, we added some contemporary references, just for fun and to allow the audience members to relate easier to the material at hand. 

 

P L A Y  S Y N O P S I S

Miss Watuchi’s 2nd grade class is a group of rambunctious children. They are easily distracted and easily entertained. However, today is a special day for Miss Watuchi’s class. Principal Garfield has come to tell Native American folktales to the class, and the students are going to act them out. Follow the kids on a wonderful journey as they learn folktales through trickery, transformation, and friendship. 

 

A N I M A L  T A I L S  S T U D Y  G U I D E 

In addition to the Animal Tails script, students created a Study Guide for use by teachers and students. It contained information on the show itself, the tribes highlighted, audience etiquette tips, a list of resources, and pre and post show activities to use in the classroom to investigate what the children will see in the show. This study guide was wholly created by the students of Theatre For Youth after they examined study guides from professional children’s theatres from around the country. They weighed the pros and cons of each one, and as a class, decided what would be best and most useful to include in our own study guide. You can view the study guide here!

Radium Girls (play) - Based on a True Story

In 1926, radium was a miracle cure, Madame Curie an international celebrity, and luminous watches the latest rage—until the girls who painted them began to fall ill with a mysterious disease. Inspired by a true story, Radium Girls traces the efforts of Grace Fryer, a dial painter, as she fights for her day in court. Her chief adversary is her former employer, Arthur Roeder, an idealistic man who cannot bring himself to believe that the same element that shrinks tumors could have anything to do with the terrifying rash of illnesses among his employees. 

RADIUM GIRLS (play) by DW Gregory
DIRECTED BY GARY ZARO

April 17th - 26th
Friday & Saturdays 7:30pm
Sundays 2:00pm

$4-$10 Admission.
Click here to purchase tickets
*$4 additional ticket fee at the door 1‐hour prior to performance.

 

The Ballad of Downtown Jake

The Ballad of Downtown Jake centers around the charming but helplessly drug addicted Jake Delmonico as he traverses the streets of New York City in a desperate search for eternal fame. In his struggle to become the next greatest saxophone player in history, the lives of Delmonico’s friends and enemies tangle and become the fire that destroy and rebirths love, lust, and hope in this skillfully crafted tale of the human experience.

Inspired by the poetry collection High Notes, written by PVCC Creative Writing Program founder, Lois Roma-Deeley, The Ballad of Downtown Jake mixes rhythmic prose with the spirited jazz of the 1950s, composed by PVCC Fine and Performing Arts Division chair, Christopher Scinto.

March 12th – 14th @ 7:30pm
Sunday March 15th @ 2:00pm
$8-$15 Admission. 
*$4 additional ticket fee at the door 1 hour prior to performance.
ADVANCED TICKETS HERE: bit.ly/1BCKflW

The Center for Performing Arts
Paradise Valley Community College
18401 N. 32nd St
Phoenix AZ 85032

What I Did Last Summer - A Play by AR Gurney

In What I Did Last Summer fifteen year old Charlie is “captured” by an artsy woman who gives him a summer job in 1945, when World War II is still raging and there are fewer men around to work on her land. The boy’s employer is part bohemian and part Native American, and her values open him up to a world of natural simplicity and freedom very different from the contained and respectable world he is used to.

February 20th, 21st, 27th, 28th @ 7:30pm.

February 22nd & March 1st @ 2:00pm.

$4-$10 Admission.


Click HERE to purchase tickets *$4 additional ticket fee at the door 1‐hour prior to performance.

Auditions for THE BALLAD OF DOWNTOWN JAKE

Auditions will be held January 22nd-24th for the new contemporary music drama, THE BALLAD OF DOWNTOWN JAKE, created by PVCC Fine Arts Faculty Dr. Christopher Scinto (music) and Dr. Lois Roma-Deeley (book & lyrics).

Synopsis: Against the backdrop of the 1950s Civil Rights Movement, an interracial love story unfolds. THE BALLAD OF DOWNTOWN JAKE, a contemporary music drama, explores four character’s struggles with addiction, redemption, hope and one last shot at fame.

Character Breakdown:

HARRY JONES—age 45 hustler, drug dealer and addicted to power and control, Tenor.

JAKE DELMONICO—age 34 jazz saxophone great, addicted to heroin, Baritone.

JASMINE JUNE—age 52 sometime blues singer, waitress, civil rights, Mezzo-Soprano.

SUGAR BABY HAYES—Age 27 blues singer, common-law wife to Jake addicted to alcohol, heroin and grief, Soprano.

ANGEL/Woman in Red—spirit of grace and redemption, addicted to hope, Soprano.

Other speaking roles include: RICHIE—Club Owner, PAWNBROKER, CUSTOMERS IN CLUB and MUSICIANS.

Auditions are by appointment only. Please call (602) 787-6595 to schedule an audition.