Captive audience
From international opera to homegrown musicals and everything in between, the Tulsa spring arts scene is ready to take the stage. Your seat is waiting.
Every Saturday
The Drunkard and The Olio
Tulsa Spotlighters perform the melodrama “The Drunkard,” the nation’s longest-running play (since 1953!), and The Olio — in which you never know quite what you’ll get — weekly.
Spotlight Theatre
Tulsa Spotlighters
JANUARY
13 • Bill O’Reilly and Dennis Miller
The political commentator and comedian take the no-spin zone on the road in “The Spin Stops Here Tour.”
BOK Center
13 • Come Closer: an evening of intimate dance
Local choreographers and performance artists present works that challenge the typical audience-dancer relationship.
Living Arts
13 • Lisa Lampanelli
The insult comic performs.
Brady Theater
DCF Concerts
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13 • Luis Alberto Urrea: From Tijuana to the World
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Tulsa Town Hall
A 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, Urrea is most recognized as a border writer, though he says, “I am more interested in bridges, not borders.” Hailed by NPR as a “literary badass” and a “master storyteller with a rock and roll heart,” he is a prolific and acclaimed writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore themes of love, loss and triumph. Urrea’s highly acclaimed novel “Into the Beautiful North” has been chosen by nearly 100 cities and colleges as a “One Book” community read and Turner Network TV (TNT) has acquired the book to develop into a television series. For ticket information, call 918-749-5965. Tickets for the 2017-18 Speaker Series go on sale March 31. – MICHAEL WRIGHT
A separate event about the author and his book is available for nonsubscribers:
“Into the Beautiful North” by Luis Alberto Urrea, Reviewed by Lynette Hardy
Fri., Jan. 6, 10 a.m., Tulsa Central Library - Aaronson Auditorium
Event is free, but reservations are required. Contact info@tulsatownhall.com or 918.749.5965
14 • TSO Classics: Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony
Daniel Hege conducts the Tulsa Symphony in this concert, which features violinist Rossitza Jekova-Goza.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Tulsa Symphony
20 • Youth Speaks
This annual show is designed for young Oklahomans to share their vision, their art and their souls.
Living Arts
21 • 4 Girls 4
Four Broadway stars — Andrea McArdle, Maureen McGovern, Donna McKechnie and Faith Prince — share the stage for an evening of song, laughter and memories.
Broken Arrow Performing Arts Center
The Spotlight Series
21 • Copland Rodeo: The Harmonies of North America
Signature Symphony performs William Grant Still’s “Afro-American Symphony,” Michael Daugherty’s “Gee’s Bend,” Arturo Rodríguez’s “Mosaico Mexicano” and Aaron Copland’s “Rodeo,” with guest guitarist D.J. Sparr.
VanTrease PACE
Signature Symphony
22 • Nathan Gunn
One of the world’s most in-demand baritones, Nathan Gunn, performs opera and pop favorites.
John H. Williams Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Choregus Productions
25-29 • Cirque du Soleil OVO
BOK Center
Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil began as a handful of buskers, stiltwalkers, and performing artists making a go of it, with meager success, in early-‘80s Montreal. A $1.5 million grant from the government of Quebec in 1983 launched the company of itinerants on a path that would lead to a worldwide entertainment empire, earning almost a billion dollars annually with performances in 271 cities around the globe. (Governor Fallin, you listening?) “Ovo” is one of the more than 30 shows Cirque has produced since then, a vibrant insect world teeming with silk-spinning aerial spiders and flipping fleas. The show beams with wonder, skill, beauty, humor, and magic—some of 2017’s most needed medicine. – ALICIA CHESSER
27-Feb. 5 • Peter and the Starcatcher
This Peter Pan origin story shows how a miserable orphan became The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up and explores the bonds of friendship, duty and love.
Liddy Doenges Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Theatre Tulsa Next Stage
28 • Michael Carbonaro Live!
The comedian and magician, known for his “Magic Clerk” segments on “The Tonight Show,” performs.
Brady Theater
Outback Concerts
28-29 • Paw Patrol Live!
Ryder and his pup pals from the Nick Jr. show “Paw Patrol” come to town on their first live tour.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
VStar Entertainment
FEBRUARY
1 • Brown Bag It: Tulsa Opera Big Sing
Tulsa Opera presents an interactive opera singing experience.
Kathleen Westby Pavilion, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
PAC Trust
3-12 • The Philadelphia Story
A socialite’s wedding plans are complicated by the arrival of her ex-husband and an attractive journalist.
Sapulpa Community Theatre
9 • Concerts with Commentary: Violin Explosion
Violinist Maureen O’Boyle presents a program of music for unaccompanied violin, including pieces by Bach, Kreisler, Prokofiev and Stravinsky.
Meinig Recital Hall, Lorton Performance Center
TU School of Music
10-12 • Dorothy and the Prince of Oz
This new ballet features sets by McArthur Genius Award-winner Basil Twist, costumes by top designer Mark Zappone, libretto and score by Vienna State Opera musicologist Oliver Peter Graber and choreography by international master Edwaard Liang.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Tulsa Ballet
10-18 • Duck Hunter Shoots Angel
Two bumbling Alabama brothers think they shot down an angel, though they’ve never managed to shoot a duck, in this comedy by Mitch Albom, author of “Tuesdays with Morrie.”
Muskogee Little Theatre
10-19 • Avenue Q
This hilarious adult take on “Sesame Street” features puppets singing songs such as “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist,” “I’m Not Wearing Underwear Today” and “What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?” It won the Tony Award Triple Crown — Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book — in 2004.
John H. Williams Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Tulsa Project Theatre
17-26 • Andrew Lippas’ The Wild Party
Two lovers decide to throw a party in their Manhattan apartment and tragedy ensues — all told in an immersive dinner-theater experience.
IDL Ballroom
Theatre Pops
17-26 • Barefoot in the Park
Broken Arrow Community Playhouse
Author Neil Simon cut a wide swath through American entertainment history with his comedic and dramatic plays. He penned over thirty works for the stage and nearly the same for film, garnering four Tony awards, four Oscar nominations, a Pulitzer and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He is the only living playwright to have a Broadway theatre named for him. “Barefoot in the Park” is a romantic comedy about newlyweds coping with their cramped walk-up top floor apartment, an overbearing mother-in-law and a mysterious neighbor. It premiered on Broadway in 1963, starring Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley; the film version featured Redford and Jane Fonda. It was Simon’s longest-running hit, and is the tenth longest-running non-musical play in Broadway history. – MICHAEL WRIGHT
17-26 • Miró Quartet: Beethoven Winter Festival
The Austin-based group returns to the PAC, offering the rare opportunity to hear the complete Beethoven quartet cycle performed live over six nights.
Kathleen Westby Pavilion, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Chamber Music Tulsa
19-25 • Court-Martial at Fort Deven
When an openly racist colonel demotes a group of young black women in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II from medical technicians to cleaning duty, a battle of wills ensues as the women fight for their rights.
Liddy Doenges Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Theatre North
24-25 • Night at the Oscars
Signature Symphony performs pieces from the scores of Oscar-winning films.
VanTrease PACE
Signature Symphony
25 • Puccini to Pop
Six internationally acclaimed artists come together for this concert of opera and pop favorites: sopranos Leona Mitchell, Alyson Cambridge and Sarah Joy Miller; tenor David Miller (of Il Divo); baritone Michael Todd Simpson; and conductor James Lowe.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Tulsa Opera
28-March 1 • Shen Yun
Shen Yun celebrates 5,000 years of Chinese music and culture through awe-inspiring dance.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Falun Dafa Association Oklahoma
MARCH
1 • Brown Bag It: Lise Glaser
Tulsa Symphony’s principal oboist performs.
Kathleen Westby Pavilion, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
PAC Trust
2-5 • Little Women: The Musical
ORU Theatre presents a musical version of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel.
Howard Auditorium
ORU Theatre
3-4 • Remembering What Never Happened and Under the Skin
Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer perform mind-bending multimedia dance pieces.
Living Arts
Bridgmam | Packer Dance
3-12 • Sweeney Todd
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street seeks revenge on the man who banished him from London and, with the help of his friend Mrs. Lovett, bakes people into pies in this beloved horror-musical by Stephen Sondheim.
John H. Williams Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Theatre Tulsa
4 • Rockin’ Road to Dublin
The next generation of Irish song and dance — like a punky Riverdance.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Rockin’ Road to Dublin
9 • Concerts with Commentary: Poetry and Prose
Soprano Judith Raiford, cellist Diane Bucchianeri and pianist Brady McElligott perform Vincent Persichetti’s cycle, “A Net of Fireflies,” which is based on Japanese haiku verse, as well as the premiere of a trio based on texts by Eugene Field.
Lorton Performance Center, Gussman Concert Hall
TU School of Music
10-18 • The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
Adapted by Herman Wouk from his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Caine Mutiny,” this play depicts the court-martial of a young lieutenant who relieved his captain of command in the midst of a typhoon because, he claims, the captain was a psychopath who was leading the ship and its crew to destruction.
Liddy Doenges Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
American Theatre Co.
11 • Mozart’s Requiem
Signature Symphony and Tulsa Opera Studio Artists perform Mozart’s “Requiem.”
VanTrease PACE
Signature Symphony and Tulsa Opera
11 • TSO Pops: Route 66 — A Trip Down Memory Road
Tulsa Symphony performs a road trip soundtrack featuring songs that pay tribute to people and places along the Mother Road. Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Tulsa Symphony
12 • Tulsa PAC 40th Anniversary Concert: Jane Monheit and Nicholas Payton with the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra
Ella Fitzgerald was the featured performer when the PAC opened in 1977. This concert pays tribute to that inaugural performance with Monheit and Payton, who together released an album in tribute to Fitzgerald last year.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
PAC Trust
14-19 • Motown the Musical
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Celebrity Attractions
“Dancing in the Street,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “My Girl,” “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” and other classic songs of the 60s find a new audience in “Motown: The Musical.” Told through the songwriter-turned-music mogul who made them famous, Berry Gordy, “Motown” pays homage to the scope and effect of one of America’s greatest musical eras, celebrating works of greats like Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and the Temptations. Part of the Tulsa PAC’s 40th anniversary celebration, “Motown” celebrates the sound and record label that forever transformed American popular culture, paving the way for nearly a century of musical progress and integration. – MEGAN SHEPHERD
23 • The Road to Love is …
Dr. Barry Epperley’s jazz vocal group, Sheridan Road, performs songs for every kind of love.
John H. Williams Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Sheridan Road Ensemble
23-26 • Lysistrata
Lorton Performance Center
TU Theatre
This is a play for anyone generally frustrated by everything.
For our titular heroine Lysistrata, her frustration stems from the interminable civil war between Sparta and Athens.
Director Machele Miller Dill, who also teaches musical theater history and literature at the University of Tulsa, says she chose Aristophanes’ Greek comedy because it’s classic, but also political—and even feminist.
“Lysistrata” opens with a woman fed up, and she knows she won’t be able to cook or sew her way out of this one. So, she convinces all the women of Athens to take a holy oath to withhold sex from their husbands until the war ends. It’s not a “gentle” play, but it is hilarious.
“It’s tough for comedy to get the respect it deserves, but comedy can make you think just has hard as drama can,” said Dill. She plans to bring 70s and 80s punk rock aesthetics into the production, with key fashion inspiration coming from Debbie Harry, Joan Jett, and Chrissie Hynde.
Dill believes theater can be a vehicle for social change. She doesn’t want people to leave her production and forget what they just saw. “I really do believe that theater can change the world.”
And there are plenty of modern examples of women pulling a Lysistrata to negotiate for change: In 2002, women for the Liberian Mass Action for Peace went on a sex strike that helped, along with other nonviolent demonstrations, to end a 14-year-long civil war. A similar strike played out in Togo in 2012. In Turkey, women stopped sleeping with their husbands until clean water became available. “They won’t be able to get into our bedrooms until the water actually runs through the taps,” one village woman said in 2001, according to CNN.
Because it’s all about power: who has power, and who really has power.
Dill weaves a sort of linear thread when it comes to war, sex, and power: the war is about gaining power, but sex is about power too, and the women prove to be more powerful when they leverage it to ultimately stop the war.
Can we call Aristophanes a feminist? It can be problematic to assign such words to authors based on their work. What’s clear: “Lysistrata” is about women claiming and utilizing their sexuality. Though, much internal conflict comes from other women in her cabal unhappy about also not getting laid. If there is a lesson, I like to think it’s that everyone has a power within. The struggle is figuring out how to organize and harness whatever that power may be.
Of course, the “Lysistrata” scheme doesn’t truss out in 2017. But for a play older than Christ, it’s pretty radical. Add to that some ripped fishnets and dramatic eyeliner—shit, I’m excited.
If you plan to attend “Lysistrata,” keep in mind that this play, while not exactly shocking, is intended to be provoking. – KATHRYN PARKMAN
24-26 • Swan Lake
Tulsa Ballet performs this classic about a young woman trapped in the body of a swan, with choreography by Marcello Angelini.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Tulsa Ballet
March 24-April 2 • Fairy-tale Academy
Spotlight Children’s Theatre presents this world premiere play by Machele Miller Dill and Ed Dill.
Spotlight Theatre
Spotlight Children’s Theatre
29 • Brain Candy Live!
Adam Savage of “Mythbusters” and “Tested” and Michael Stevens of “Vsauce” will present in this scientific celebration of curiosity.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
35 Concerts
31 • Alexander, Who’s Not Not Not Not Not Not Going to Move
Alexander’s father has just taken a job in a city a thousand miles away, but Alexander likes where he is just fine and just knows he’ll hate the new place.
John H. Williams Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
PAC Trust
31 • Joel Sartore — PhotoArk: National Geographic’s Modern-day Noah
A freelance photographer for National Geographic, Sartore’s latest undertaking is to create portraits of the 12,000 captive species of animals before they disappear.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Tulsa Town Hall
31-April 2 • The Rainmaker
The N. Richard Nash play tells the story of Lizzie Curry, a spinster living in a drought-ridden town during the Great Depression.
Sapulpa Community Theatre
31-April 9 • The Last Days of Judas Iscariot
Set in a time-bending, darkly comic world between heaven and hell, this play re-examines the plight and fate of the Bible’s most infamous and unexplained sinner.
Liddy Doenges Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Theatre Pops
APRIL
1 • Black Grace
Inspired by Samoan and New Zealand cultures, Black Grace creates innovative dance that reaches across social, cultural and generational barriers.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Choregus Productions
1 • Greater Tuna
All of the residents of the third-smallest town in Texas are played by just two men in this comedy.
Broken Arrow Performing Arts Center
The Spotlight Series
2 • Hermitage Piano Trio
Pianist Ilya Kazantsev, violinist Misha Keylin and cellist Sergey Antonov perform pieces by Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich and Rimsky-Korsakov in their Tulsa debut performance.
John H. Williams Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Chamber Music Tulsa
5 • Brown Bag It: Tulsa Camerata
Tulsa Camerata performs contemporary chamber music.
Kathleen Westby Pavilion, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
PAC Trust
7-8 • Signature Celtic: Lucky Enough to be Irish
Cherish the Ladies, helmed by award-winning flutist Joanie Madden, performs traditional and forward-thinking Irish music.
VanTrease PACE -
Signature Symphony
8 • TSO Classics: Brahms’ Requiem
Unconvinced of the afterlife, Brahms composed “German Requiem” not as a mass for the dead, but instead as a work of consolation for those left behind.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Tulsa Symphony
11-16 • Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage
You’ll have the time of your life while watching this adaptation of the movie favorite.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Celebrity Attractions
12-13 • Harriet the Spy
Based on the popular children’s novel, an 11-year-old spy takes on her latest caper.
Howard Auditorium
ORU Theatre and The Playhouse Tulsa
14-23 • Bug
VanTrease PACE
TCC Theatre
For those still reeling from the election and the rise of fake news, “Bug,” Tracy Letts’ exploration of paranoia, schizophrenia and government conspiracy theories, will feel as if it was written on November 9, 2016.
Most of the play takes place in a run-down motel room in rural Oklahoma. Agnes, a lonely cocktail waitress, lives there, hiding from her violent ex-husband Jerry. She becomes involved with Peter, a Gulf War vet, who grows increasingly disturbed about the war in Iraq, UFOs, cult suicides, and secret government experiments on soldiers that include planting various kinds of bugs. Eventually he draws Agnes, and the audience, into his delusions; the play is a highly visceral experience.
As critic Ben Brantley wrote in “The New York Times” in 2004: “Tears, gasps, laughter, yawns: theater routinely elicits all these responses. But have you ever been to a play that made you itch all over?”
Director Mark Frank, who’s also the chair of the Visual and Performing Arts program at TCC, sees renewed relevance in Letts’ play, which was written over 20 years ago. “The story is a great example of why people shouldn’t buy into fake news or accept paranoid views of life and politics,” Frank said.
It is also a wonderful design challenge as the world of the play—the characters and the motel room itself—fall more and more deeply into devastation.
“The play will be produced in our studio theatre,” Frank said, “which means the audience will be close to the action and drawn into the world of the characters. We want to bring them into the story, make sure they understand that these characters are on a down-on-their-luck journey. Peter and Agnes represent very real people in society, highly affected by news—real and otherwise—and PTSD from the ongoing wars, as well as the experiences of daily life. Audiences will definitely identify with their experiences; this play is very topical for American society right now.”
The play will run over two weekends at the TCC Southeast campus. Anti-itch cream recommended. – MICHAEL WRIGHT
Note: the play has adult language and brief nudity.
18 • Che Malambo
This Argentine company presents a percussive dance spectacle inspired by the South American cowboys known as gauchos.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Choregus Productions
20 • Concerts with Commentary: Classical Benny
Clarinetist Kristi Sturgeon, violinist Paulo Eskitch, and pianists Brady McElligott and Allyson Eskitch perform works commissioned by “The King of Swing,” Benny Goodman.
Meinig Recital Hall, Lorton Performance Center
TU School of Music
20-29 • Annie Get Your Gun
Sharpshooter Annie Oakley rises to the top of Buffalo Bill’s “Wild West Show” in this Broadway classic that features such Irving Berlin standards as “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Anything You Can Do.”
John H. Williams Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Sand Springs Community Theatre
21 • Michael A. McFaul
Michael A. McFaul is one of the most renowned experts on foreign affairs in the country, a recent U.S. ambassador to Russia and the former senior director for Russian and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Tulsa Town Hall
21-23 • TBII: Emerging Choreographers Showcase
Studio K
Tulsa Ballet
Tulsa Ballet’s 60th Anniversary season continues with an avalanche of glitter (the world premiere of “Dorothy and the Prince of Oz,” Feb 10-12), a whoosh of feathers (“Swan Lake,” Mar 24-26), and a dose of cutting-edge wit and glamour (the Signature Series, featuring work by three young internationally praised dancemakers, May 11-14). Wedged in among all that big-time action is a sliver of the future: the Emerging Choreographers Showcase, a weekend of performances devoted to the newest in contemporary ballet. Gifted young choreographers Jennifer Archibald, Rodrigo Hermesmeyer, and Arman Zazyan (the latter are dancers with Tulsa Ballet, the former is a notable rarity, a woman in what’s historically a man’s world) will create new works for Tulsa Ballet II, the main company’s dynamite junior ensemble. Expect extreme intimacy, risky physicality, and go-for-it boldness from choreographers and dancers alike. – ALICIA CHESSER
21-29 • Spamalot
The Knights of the Round Table dance when e’er they’re able and sing from the diaphragm in Monty Python’s “Spamalot.”
Muskogee Little Theatre
21-30 • The Dixie Swim Club
Five Southern women — who met on their college swim team — convene for a long weekend each year to catch up and laugh. This play focuses on four of those weekends, spanning 33 years.
Broken Arrow Community Playhouse
22 • Mahler’s Symphony No. 1
Signature Symphony performs the U.S. premiere of Ross Edwards’ “Dawn Mantras” and Gustav Mahler’s “Symphony No. 1,” with the Tulsa Youth Opera and Signature Chorale.
VanTrease PACE
Signature Symphony and Tulsa Opera
22 • Chris Botti
The Grammy Award-winning, Billboard jazz chart-topping trumpeter performs.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing
Arts Center - 35 Concerts
23 • Pippin
A young prince searches for meaning and purpose in this musical, which features death-defying acrobatics by Les 7 Doigts de la Main.
Broken Arrow Performing Arts Center
The Spotlight Series
28-May 7 • And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank
This multimedia, ensemble-driven play combines videotaped interviews of Holocaust survivors Eva Schloss and Ed Silverberg, who were part of Anne Frank’s life, with live actors recreating scenes based on the interviews.
Liddy Doenges Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Tulsa Project Theatre
30 • Lysander Piano Trio
Pianist Liza Stepanova, violinist Itamar Zorman and cellist Michael Katz perform a program of (mostly) Mediterranean music, featuring pieces by Enrique Granados, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Ilan Baran and Franz Schubert.
John H. Williams Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Chamber Music Tulsa
MAY
3 • Brown Bag It: Strings and Pearls
The harp duo performs.
Kathleen Westby Pavilion, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
PAC Trust
5 • Tosca
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Tulsa Opera
“Tosca”: the pinnacle of passion, the epitome of emotion, the drama deluxe. Giacomo Puccini’s grand tragic opera about two mortal enemies both in pursuit of Floria Tosca has challenged a century’s worth of singers to reach the highest levels of vocal technique and expression (without chewing up the scenery). Last season, when Tulsa Opera, newly under the direction of acclaimed composer Tobias Picker, polled its audience for its most-wanted list, “Tosca” took the top spot. For this production, designed by the late French director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, both the conductor and the tenor make their American debuts; add a Finnish baritone and a Russian soprano and you have the makings of an operatic feast. – ALICIA CHESSER
6 • An Evening with Kristin Chenoweth
Broken Arrow Performing Arts Center
The Spotlight Series
Broken Arrow’s hometown hero comes back to her old stomping ground for “An Evening with Kristin Chenoweth.” The big-voiced, Emmy and Tony award-winning songstress is most famous for her role as Glinda the Good Witch in the Broadway smash hit, “Wicked,” (soon to be made into a feature film) but made a name for herself early on with turns in productions like “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” and roles in the short-lived but long-loved shows “Pushing Daisies” and “GCB.” Chenoweth’s live special promises song, dance, and audience participation. Expect classics from some of Chenoweth’s biggest roles, and a few original tunes, to boot. – MEGAN SHEPHERD
11-14 • Tulsa Ballet Signature Series
The company performs three of Artistic Director Marcello Angelini’s favorite pieces: Alexander Ekman’s “Cacti,” David Dawson’s “A Million Kisses to My Skin” and Adam Hougland’s “Cripple and the Starfish.”
Lorton Performance Center
Tulsa Ballet
12-20 • In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)
This funny and provocative play set in the 1880s tells of a young doctor who marvels at what modern technology can do for his female patients (though he’s not sure what keeps them coming back), and his wife, who longs to connect with him sans electric assistance.
Liddy Doenges Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
American Theatre Co.
12-21 • Abuela’s Tales
Spotlight Children’s Theatre presents this world-premiere musical by Machele Miller Dill and Rebecca Ungerman.
Spotlight Theatre
Spotlight Children’s Theatre
12-21 • Jesus Christ Superstar
Theatre Tulsa performs the epic Biblical rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.
John H. Williams Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Theatre Tulsa
13 • TSO Classics: The Firebird
Daniel Hege conducts Tulsa Symphony through Haydn’s “Symphony No. 90,” Kodaly’s quixotic “Háry János Suite” and Stravinsky’s ballet suite “The Firebird.”
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Tulsa Symphony
23-28 • Something Rotten!
In 1595, when a soothsayer predicts the future of theater will involve singing, dancing and acting at the same time, the Bottom brothers, a duo of desperate would-be playwrights, set out to write the world’s first musical.
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Celebrity Attractions
JUNE
2-11 • Little Shop of Horrors
Tulsa Project Theatre presents the classic tale of Seymour Krelborn, Audrey and Audrey II, the man-eating plant.
John H. Williams Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Tulsa Project Theatre
2-11 • Nunsense
The Little Sisters of Hoboken hold a fundraiser to raise money to bury sisters accidently poisoned by the convent cook in this musical comedy with a clerical slant.
Sapulpa Community Theatre
7 • Brown Bag It: Tulsa Rock Quartet
Tulsa Rock Quartet plays classic rock hits with classical instrumentation.
Kathleen Westby Pavilion, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
PAC Trust
16-25 • Picasso at the Lapin Agile
This absurdist comedy by comic Steve Martin depicts Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso in a Parisian cafe in 1904, just before both men changed the world forever.
Broken Arrow Community Playhouse
17-18 • The Snow Queen
Tulsa Opera presents the American premiere of Pierangelo Valtinoni’s fairytale family opera, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s story of the same name, which also was the basis of Disney’s “Frozen.”
John H. Williams Theatre, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Tulsa Opera
20-25 • Matilda the Musical
Chapman Music Hall, Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Celebrity Attractions
There’s never been a better time for a story about a young lady plotting the downfall of a fascistic leader. In this case, it’s the story of Matilda, the precocious heroine of Roald Dahl’s 1988 book of the same name, who takes down bully after horrible bully at home and at school with clever pranks and mindbending powers (literally: she’s telekinetic). A movie version of the story starring Danny DeVito became a hit in 1996, but when the Royal Shakespeare Company proposed giving it a go in musical form in 2010, it wasn’t expected to be more than a bit of fun. In the hands of composer and lyricist Tim Minchin, an Australian comic genius in the lineage of Cold War satirist Tom Lehrer, it became a critical and commercial sensation. Need a dose-by-proxy of revolt against thug tactics? Matilda’s your girl.
– Alicia Chesser
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