Audiences looking for a less formal musical atmosphere, more affordable prices and sometimes edgier content are drawn to SummerScape’s Spiegeltent, which offers dining and entertainment throughout the festival. “Thursday Night Live” features danceable music from around the world from July 12 to August 16. The biggest draw will likely be Buckwheat Zydeco on August 9. Fridays and Saturdays from July 8 to August 18 will feature “Evening Cabaret,” open to audiences aged 21 and up. The lineup includes such perennial Spiegeltent favorites as the Wau Wau Sisters, Weimar NYC and the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, as well as up-and-coming singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright (yes, Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright, Jr.’s daughter and Rufus’ sister) on July 7.
Afternoons at the Spiegeltent from July 14 to August 12 are family-friendly, with a special double feature of Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals and Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf set for July 28 and 29. For the over-21 late-night crowd, there’s dancing until 1 a.m. at the SpiegelClub Friday and Saturday nights from July 6 to August 18. A big free dance party closes out the Spiegeltent season on Sunday evening, August 19.
A film festival is another affordable component of Bard SummerScape. It runs Thursday and Sunday evenings from July 12 to August 12, with tickets competitive with your local multiplex at $8. This year’s theme, “France and the Colonial Imagination,” explores the legacy of French colonialism in Africa and Southeast Asia. Films to be screened at the Ottaway Film Center include such classics as Casablanca, von Sternberg’s Morocco, Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers and Duvivier’s original 1937 version of Pépé le Moko, along with a couple of works by the great Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene.
Chloe Sevigny is set to star in Abigail-1702 at Powerhouse Theater this summer.
June 22 to July 29
Powerhouse Theater
Vassar College/New York Stage and Film, Poughkeepsie
Box office: 437-5599
https://bit.ly/2012_Powerhouse_Brochure
Nearly as ambitious as Bard SummerScape is Powerhouse Theater, the summer program organized at Vassar College by the group called New York Stage and Film as an incubator for new plays and a training ground for young students of the dramatic arts. Plays “workshopped” at Powerhouse frequently go on to become major productions on and Off-Broadway, sometimes rounding up Emmys and Obies. John Patrick Shanley’s multi-award-winning Doubt first saw the light of day here, as did the popular Broadway musical American Idiot and the production of Theresa Rebeck’s Seminar that starred Alan Rickman on Broadway just this past winter.
This looks like fun. Where can I get more information? We usually just stay with our local sun valley resort, but wed like to try somewhere new. 🙂