Blair Thomas & Co, Lookingglass Theatre, and The House Theatre of Chicago are featured in EXPLORING MOBY-DICK – a night of three different adaptations of Herman Melville’s novel, in various sites of performance within the new Logan Center for the Arts in Hyde Park, Chicago. The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place on Tuesday, September 18 at 6:30pm at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, 915 East 60th Street, Chicago. Audiences will move from space to space to experience the three adaptations, and are invited to join the artistic staff in the courtyard following the performance to discuss the work. Free advance tickets may be reserved at www.mobydickatlogan.eventbrite.com
These three companies are all sharing mid-process works that explore this seminal American narrative from richly different artistic perspectives. According to Chelsea Keenan of the House Theatre: “What’s so exciting for the audience is to see that process, to get in on something rare and fleeting. What frames the three works at this stage will be not a traditional collaboration, but the source material and the astonishingly disparate directions the three groups will take them — we’ll likely witness surprising overlaps.”
This event takes place as a part of the Summer Inc Residencies with Theater and Performance Studies at The University of Chicago. This project is supported by a grant from the Boeing Corporation.
Blair Thomas & Company is a national and international touring puppet theater company that was founded in 2002 by puppeteer and director/designer Blair Thomas. They have made over a dozen original puppet theater pieces including: Cabaret of Desire, a staging of short works by Federico Garcia Lorca; The Ox-herder’s Tale an interpretive staging of the Buddhist parable of 10 painting of enlightenment; A Kite’s Tale a collection of piano pieces staged with silent narratives including Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Chopin’s Scherzo in b minor. They have also toured with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. They have made collaboration productions with other companies such as Pierrot Lunaire a staging of Arnold Schoenberg’s song cycle with the chamber music ensemble eighth blackbird; an original adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant and an adaptation of Brian Selznick’s The Houdini Box both with the Chicago Children’s Theatre. Twice Blair Thomas & Company has received the international UNIMA awards for excellence in the art of puppetry. Twice the company has performed at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, once during when Blair was the first artist chosen to fill the Jim Henson Artist-in-Residence position at the University of Maryland. www.blairthomas.org
Lookingglass Theatre Company, recipient of the 2011 Regional Theatre Tony Award, was founded in 1988 by eight Northwestern University students. 2012-2013 marks the company’s 25th anniversary season. Lookingglass is home to a multi-disciplined ensemble of artists who create story-centered theatrical work that is physical, aurally rich and visually metaphoric. Lookingglass has staged 58 world premieres at 23 venues across Chicago, and garnered 52 Joseph Jefferson Awards and Citations. Work premiered at Lookingglass has been produced in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, Berkeley, Philadelphia, Princeton, Hartford, Kansas City, Washington D.C., and St. Louis. Lookingglass original scripts have been produced across the United States. The Lookingglass Theatre in Chicago’s landmark Water Tower Water Works opened in June 2003. In addition to developing and presenting ensemble work, Lookingglass Education and Community programs encourage creativity, teamwork and confidence with thousands of community members each year. Lookingglass Theatre Company continues to expand its artistic, financial and institutional boundaries under the guidance of Artistic Director Andrew White, Executive Director Rachel Kraft, Producing Artistic Director Philip R. Smith, Artistic Director of New Work Heidi Stillman, a 22-member artistic ensemble, 15 artistic associates, 11 production affiliates, an administrative staff and a dedicated board of directors led by Chairman Richard Ditton of Incredible Technologies and President Joe Brady of Jones Lang LaSalle. www.lookingglasstheatre.org.
The House Theatre of Chicago is Chicago’s home for original works of physical and spectacle storytelling. Founded and led by Artistic Director Nathan Allen and driven by an interdisciplinary ensemble of Chicago’s next generation of great storytellers, The House aims to become a laboratory and platform for the evolution of the American theatre as an inclusive and popular artform. The House was founded in 2001 by a group of friends to explore connections between Community and Storytelling through a unique theatrical experience. In 2002 The House was hailed by the Chicago press as “The Next Big Thing.” In early 2007, following dozens of world premiere productions, and national attention from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Variety, and American Theatre Magazine, The House achieved even greater success with “The Sparrow,” which Chicago Tribune theater critic Chris Jones called, “Among the very best original theater pieces I’ve ever seen.” Since becoming eligible in 2004, The House has been nominated for 49 Joseph Jefferson Awards (18 wins) and became the first recipient of Broadway in Chicago’s Emerging Theater Award in 2007. Now celebrating its 10th year of original work, The House continues its mission to unite Chicago in the spirit of Community through amazing feats of Storytelling. www.thehousetheatre.com.
Culture/Demain Recordings announces its newest release: Fryderyk Chopin: The Two Piano Concertos, featuring Edward Auer, Piano, and the Shanghai Quartet with Peter Lloyd, Bass. The CD, which features Chopin’s Concerto in F minor, op. 21 (world premiere recording of Auer’s own arrangement) and Concerto in E minor, op. 11, was recorded in 2010 in honor of the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth and is now being commercially released in June, 2012. The recording is now available for purchase at 
Edward Auer has long been recognized as a leading interpreter of the works of Chopin. As the first American to win a prize in the prestigious International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, he has returned to Poland for well over 20 concert tours, playing in every major Polish city and with every major orchestra. Auer has played solo recitals and concertos in over 30 countries on five continents, collaborating with such conductors as Zubin Mehta, Charles Dutoit, Herbert Blomstedt, Sergiu Comissiona and Riccardo Chailly. Auer grew up in Los Angeles, where he studied piano with Aube Tzerko, a protégé of Artur Schnabel, and composition with Leonard Stein, a Schoenberg student. A precocious chamber musician and the son of an accomplished amateur violist, he was playing the Mozart piano quartets and the Schumann quintet with his father and his friends at the age of eight. When he was thirteen, the Budapest Quartet heard his trio’s performance of Beethoven and Mendelssohn; Auer later became a frequent participant in chamber music festivals including those in Santa Fe, Seattle, Sitka, Kuhmo (Finland), among many others. Auer’s studies continued at the Juilliard School of Music with Rosina Lhevinne. While in Juilliard he made his New York debut under the auspices of Young Concert Artists. Studies continued on a Fulbright Grant in Paris with Julius Katchen. Auer was a prizewinner in the 1966 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow (for which he was invited to the White House), the Beethoven Competition in Vienna and the Queen Elisabeth in Brussels, and took First Prize in the Concours Marguerite Long in Paris. Now, years later, these and other contests regularly invite him to be on their juries. Auer has made a number of acclaimed recordings, many of them of the works of Chopin. He is currently continuing his Chopin series, of which this is the third volume. Edward Auer is on the Piano faculty at Indiana University Bloomington.
Renowned for its passionate musicality, the Shanghai Quartet has become one of the world’s foremost chamber ensembles. Formed at the Shanghai Conservatory in 1983, the Shanghai Quartet has worked with the world’s most distinguished artists and regularly tours the major music centers of Europe, North America and Asia. The Quartet, now featuring Weigang Li and Yi-Wen Jiang, violins, Honggang Li, viola, and Nicholas Tzavaras, cello, has appeared at Carnegie Hall’s Isaac Stern Auditorium in chamber performances and with orchestra. They have been regular performers at many of the leading chamber music festivals in North America including Santa Fe and Ottawa. Penderecki’s String Quartet no. 3 was premiered at a special concert in Poland honoring the composer’s 75th birthday, followed by numerous subsequent performances worldwide. They will play it again in Poland for the composer’s 80th birthday celebration in November 2013. The Quartet has a discography of more than 30 recordings. Delos released the Quartet’s most popular disc, Chinasong, in 2003: a collection of Chinese folk songs arranged by Yi-Wen Jiang reflecting his childhood memories of the Cultural Revolution in China. They recorded the complete Beethoven String Quartets for Camerata, a seven-disc project that was completed in 2009. The Shanghai Quartet currently serves as Quartet-in-Residence at Montclair State University in New Jersey, Ensemble-in-Residence with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, and visiting guest professors of the Shanghai Conservatory and the Central Conservatory in Beijing. 
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