Hope may seem bold in this era of anxiety and uncertainty, but it is at the heart of three major new releases coming to Bird's Fisher Center, including the musical adaptation of “Yesiva Boy,” the Performing Arts Center announced Tuesday.
Fisher Center said Bard College will create a Civis Hope commission with a $2.5 million gift from the Civis Foundation, which Bard College matched to make his first $5 million contribution.
Gideon Lester, the Artistic Director and CEO of the Fisher Center, described the program in an interview as “a rally cry for the possibilities of art.”
“Art can explain things exactly as they are,” he said. “And we can see things, not only in the current news cycle. Great art has the ability to change our mindset and show what would happen if we truly lived in our best self.
The Civis Hope committee aims to continue forever, but the Fisher Center has announced three projects. “Jubilee” is a new musical with a script by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Susan Loriparks, based on Scott Joplin's opera “Tremonisha.” Courtney Bryan's first opera, Tennessee Williams' “Suddenly Last Summer” adaptation. And the “Yentle” musical will be the first project of the famous Barry Kosky developed in the United States.
These committees were already working at the Fisher Center, but were selected for the Civics program because they were suited to the task, Leicester added that working under the Civics umbrella will give him and the artist “there are opportunities to think about them in new ways.”
“Jubilee,” directed by Steve H. Broadnax III, will be unveiled in the early semi-stage version of this year's Bard's Summerscape Festival. This is Joplin's latest effort to adapt 1910 ragtime opera, never premiered in the composer's life, and always requires some modern intervention.
Brian's “Suddenly Last Summer” adaptation is scripted by Leicester and Daniel Fish. Fish was one of Fisher Center's biggest hits, a well-traveled sexy, dark revival of “Oklahoma!”, first announced at Summerscape a decade ago.
The story of Isaac Bachevis singer Yentle the Yeshiva Boy is best known for its 1983 adaptation of Barbra Streisand's liberal film. This new version features Lisa Kron's book and lyrics, a score from Adam Benzi and a score from longtime Kosky collaborator Adam Benzwi. One of Europe's busiest and most beloved stage directors, Koskie has traveled the project to the US, but this is his first production, built from scratch in American soil.
“When you make these projects adjacent to each other, patterns start to emerge,” Leicester said. “It's not a controversy, but they all turned out to be stories about strong women who are challenging the status quo.”
Civis President T. Eric Galloway gave a broader view in his statement, saying these committees reflect the Foundation's belief that “in the power of performance that stimulates shared connections and leads to personal fulfillment, not others.”
