Bat Boy to fly again
Couldn’t get tickets to this month’s SpeakEasy Stage Company production of Bat Boy: The Musical at the Boston Center for the Arts? Don’t despair. The campy, sci-fi farce that draws blood with its sharp takes on tabloid news and musical theater was scheduled to run through this Saturday, October 26. But tickets go on sale this Friday for two additional performances on Sunday, at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Ticket prices range from $24 to $35.
The even better news is that SpeakEasy is bringing Bat Boy back to the BCA for another four-weekend run early next year, from January 3 through 25. Director Paul Daigneault had been looking to extend the production but could not find a suitable alternate space. "There is," he says, "a shortage of flexible space in town. With small- to medium-sized companies dedicated to cutting-edge or adventuresome projects, every show is a risk. As much as you believe in a work, you just don’t know what the fate of your production will be. You usually play it safe in deciding how long to book a theater. But the BCA has been great, and we are excited about bringing Bat Boy back."
Giselle steps up for a Corsaire lost at sea
Bat Boy may be getting a second chance, but American Ballet Theatre’s Le Corsaire won’t even have a first. The ABT production of the 19th-century work that Boston Ballet staged back in 1977 was scheduled for the Wang Theatre next month, as part of the FleetBoston Celebrity Series/Wang Center for the Performing Arts Dance Series, but the sets and costumes (which were coming from Japan, where the company performed Le Corsaire this summer) are still on the West Coast. And the ship that brought them, the Paris Express, is too large to navigate the Panama Canal. "There are just no options," says ABT general manager Nancy Fleeter.
So ABT will stage Giselle, the world’s oldest continually performed ballet, instead; all tickets sold for Le Corsaire. will be honored. Remaining Dance Series dates are the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (January 17-19), the Mark Morris Dance Group (March 13-16), and Pilobolus (May 16-18.)
It’s Mamet, goddamn it
For Newton’s Basement on the Hill Stage, it’s David Mamet 2. After staging Mamet’s The Shawl earlier this year, the Basement Stage will return to the Boston Center for the Arts with Mamet’s A Life in the Theater, with Lilia Levitina again directing. Performances of this exploration of illusion run Thursdays through Saturdays, October 31 through November 16. Call the BCA box office at (617) 426-ARTS/2787.
AGNI and ecstasy
The superb BU-affiliated literary journal AGNI is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a mammoth 56th issue: a 480-page anthology of the 243 best poems to have appeared in its pages. The issue also marks the magazine’s change in stewardship, with critic and author Sven Birkerts taking over the helm from founding editor Askold Melnyczuk. The issue will be unveiled at a gala reading tonight featuring Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, former US poet laureate Robert Pinsky, and the cream of the local crop, including William Corbett, Diana Der-Hovanessian, Fred Merchant, Gail Mazur, David Rivard, the Phoenix’s Lloyd Schwartz, and Tom Sleigh. That’s tonight at 8 p.m. at BU’s Metcalf Center, 590 Commonwealth Avenue. Admission is $15; call (617) 353-7135.
The ICA bangs a drum
The Institute of Contemporary Art aims to expose the younger crowd to modern art with its new series "Family Days." If you don’t own a kid, borrow one. Geared toward kids ages five through 12, the program explores contemporary art through hands-on workshops with professional artists. The first of these, "Chairs, Stairs, and Lightbulbs," uses Chinese artist Chen Zhen’s work as a trampoline for encouraging young minds to create their own art objects. Chen Zhen’s installation and sculpture pieces, as seen in the ICA’s "Chen Zhen: Inner Body Landscapes" (through December 31), combine philosophies from East and West to explore contemporary global issues. If that sounds a little lofty for your five-year-old, rest assured that the artist uses everyday materials — wax candles, abacus beads, chairs, and drums — to make his statements. "Chairs, Stairs, and Lightbulbs" will be offered on November 9 and 23, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The workshops are free with museum admission ($7, $5 for students, seniors, free for children under 12.)
Ansel and Georgia
The Fitchburg Art Museum’s current "Adams and O’Keeffe on the Road" exhibit (through January 12) includes a rare and never before seen set of photographic proofs by Ansel Adams. He took these photographs on a month-long Southwest camping trip with friends including David Hunter McAlpin and Georgia O’Keeffe, and though the resultant black-and-white landscape images are typical of Adams in composition and dramatic effect, the exhibition gems of the exhibit are actually his casual snapshots of the camping group, including revealing and never-before-published portraits of O’Keeffe.
Fitchburg Art Museum photography curator Stephen Jareckie will lecture on these photographs on November 17 at 1 p.m. Jareckie will conduct a walking tour of the work of Adams and also that of pioneer landscape photographer Eliot Porter, whose work is likewise on display through January 12. The tour is free with museum admission ($5, $3 for seniors, free for students.)
Hola!
In Providence, the RISD Museum has expanded its roster of tours to include a series of Spanish-language gallery talks. Francisco Araujo, a RISD student, will conduct tours of the museum’s collection in Spanish on November 2 and December 7 at 2:30 p.m. The tours are free.
