UH Hilo Press Release

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Date: Tuesday, September 10, 2002
Contact: Larry Joseph, (808) 933-0881

For Immediate Release

UH Hilo Theatre announces new season

The University of Hawai'i at Hilo announces a full season of Theatre events for the 2002-2003 school year after being intermittently closed nearly three years for Theatre renovation.

Opening the season on Sunday, September 29 at 7:30 pm will be the Japanese traditional performing arts tour of Hachioji Kuruma Ningyo and Shinnai.
Sponsored in part by the Japan Foundation, the program features the puppetry of the Koryu Nishikawa troupe accompanied by the singing and shamisen playing of Shinnai Master Wakasanojo, who has been designated a Japanese National Living Treasure. Shinnai is fundamentally a storytelling art most often used to tell the stories for puppet performances. The Kuryuma Ningyo puppets are very large (nearly 5 feet tall) and very expressive.

On Saturday, October 19 at 7:30 pm, the Theatre is presenting a collaboration of San Jose Taiko and Japan's Hanayui entitled "Himawari (Sunflower)." The presentation premieres the union of six women artists in a unique collaboration where cultural boundaries and aesthetic sensibilities are shared and tested. The six women include three members of the San Jose Taiko group and three members of Hanayui who have been creatively exploring their common roots and new offshoots of their Japanese ancestry through music and dance with San Jose Taiko coming from the Japanese American community and Hanayui coming from Kodo Village on Sado Island in Japan. Big Island audiences will remember the spectacular Hilo performances by the now world-famous KODO drummers presented at UH Hilo several years ago.

Playing November 15 through November 23 will be the UH Hilo Drama production of Ed Sakamoto's "Stew Rice." The play centers on six local high school kids who go their different ways after graduation--some to the mainland and some remaining in Hawai'i. The six characters are reunited after 20 years. Poignant and funny, this two-act comedy examines what happens to friendship when time and distance have their way - and what happens when someone moves away and can no longer relate to "home" in the same way.

Double Grammy Award winning Bela Fleck and the Flecktones are in concert on Wednesday, December 11 at 7:30 pm. Bela Fleck is already the world's
most famous banjo player. When his band, the Flecktones, mix bluegrass, funk, fusion jazz, and space-age electronics, Fleck becomes the world's most innovative banjo player, and maybe the most emotionally expressive as well. The Flecktones feature equally talented and respected musicians Victor Lemonte Wooten, Future Man, and Jeff Coffin.

On January 18, 2003 at 7:30 pm the highly original group Imago will be returning to the Theatre with their new production "Frogz." Blending ingenious masks, creative costumes, and astounding invention, Imago Theatre creates a living world of animation in "Frogz." Larvae cavort with acrobatic �lan, an introverted frog challenges a bunch of athletic amphibians to a leap of faith, and a group of penguins waddle through a mad game of musical chairs. This incisively original, madcap show is filled with a multitude of creatures whose comical and clever occurrences provide striking visual entertainment.

The Theatre, in association with the Kona Association of Performing Arts, will be presenting David Henry Hwang's revolutionary hit play "M. Butterfly" at the Aloha Theatre in Kona on January 17, 18, 19 and at the UH Hilo Theatre on January 31, February 1 and 2. Under the direction of UH Hilo Drama Professor Jackie Johnson, the production will feature KAPA's Theatre Director Jerry Tracy in the starring role.

Based on a true story, Bernhard Bouriscot and his lover, a Chinese opera singer named Shi Pei Pu, were charged with spying against the French government. Bouriscot, a diplomatic functionary, met Shi in Beijing and they passed 20 years of on-again, off-again romance before they were arrested and Shi was revealed to be a man. The play contains adult themes, language and nudity.

On February 8 at 7:30 pm the San Francisco based Lily Cai Dance Company will present a concert of dance. Elegant, sensual and captivating, the Company melds ancient Chinese forms with modern dance in an artistic and inventive marriage of styles. They bridge the continuum from past to contemporary - from spectacular court dances of Chinese dynasties to contemporary works fusing classical Chinese and ballet, complemented by dazzling costumes, original music, and multimedia designs.

Jointly sponsored by the UH Hilo Theatre and the Hawai`i Concert Society, and under the baton of Maestro Ken Staton, the Ho'ulu Pila Chamber Orchestra will make their debut at the UH Hilo Theatre on February 16 at 2:00 pm. The members of the Orchestra are selected from the finest musicians on the Big Island and elsewhere in the State. The repertoire will focus not only on traditional orchestra literature of the great masters but also on music of contemporary composers as well as specializing in orchestral setting of music of Hawai'i. Founder Ken Staton has encouraged the development of Hawaiian music arranged for orchestra.

Rounding out the season will be the Theatre's musical theatre production of one of Broadway's most neglected masterpieces, Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music." The show deals with the universal subject of love, in all its wondrous, humorous and ironic permutations. Sophisticated, literate and stylish, the show is also disarmingly warm, funny, charming and very human. The lilting Ravel-inspired score contains Sondheim's most popular song to date, the haunting "Send In The Clowns."

Season subscriptions are currently on sale and may be purchased in person at the UH Hilo Theatre Espresso Bar school days from 9:00 am until 2:00 pm,
by phone during the same hours at 974-7310, or online at http://performingarts.net/Theatre.

Individual tickets are now on sale for the September 29 show. Individual tickets for the remaining shows will go on sale September 25. The UH Hilo Theatre is fully ADA accessible, and infrared assistive listening devices are also available by prior arrangement. For disability accommodations contact Box Office Manager Heidi Veilleux at 933-3209.

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