Tickets went on sale for single shows at the Schwartz Center for the Arts Sept. 1, and already people have been stopping in and calling with questions. Tickets for the season are selling, too, and include a little bit of everything, according to Sandra Conner, executive director.
“This season is really focused more on family shows, theater, we have a lot more live theater, and literature,” she said.
Here’s what potential theater-goers should know about the season that opens with pianist Lisa Hilton Oct. 23.
1 Family package
New this year is a family package to encourage families to head for a night out together. The center took the five shows appropriate for younger children and bundled them in one ticket price so parents and children could attend together.
Shows included in the package are “Amber Brown is Not a Crayon,” “If You Give a Cat a Cupcake,” “Frindle,” “Scrooge!” and “The Secret Garden.”
Family packages are $94 for adults, $83 for seniors/military, $65 for students and $50 for children.
2 More literature, more drama
The center is tweaking its modus operandi by bringing in some serious drama. They’re tapping into a highly respected regional resource by hosting the Walnut Street Theater’s presentation of “The Glass Menagerie” March 4.
Other takes on literature include “The Secret Garden” and “Scrooge!,” an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”
The theater also is trying for more educational outreach to local students, Conner said, so a season heavier on literature adaptations was a good fit.
3 Patsy’s back
In 2008, CJ Harding first delighted a sold-out Schwartz Center audience with her Patsy Cline tribute. In 2009 she returned and did it again, making her two-for-two in sell-out shows. After taking a break from the Schwartz in winter 2010, she’s returning on Feb. 11, 2011.
“We just get asked to have her back all the time. If no one was asking to have her back, we wouldn’t,” Conner said. “She really does a great job. It’s not even that she looks like Patsy or sounds like Patsy, it’s that her show is entertaining.”
Harding has been selling out shows domestically and abroad for years with her high-energy take on what a Cline concert might have been like. Conner said Harding’s infectious energy tends to get the crowd a little rowdy, a little fiesty, and fans shouldn’t wait to get tickets until the last minute.
