Wednesday-Saturday, Oct. 9-12: The premise of the play was inspired by an actual classroom roleplaying game that Sheppard experienced as a child in Hanover, Pennsylvania, in which middle schoolers were divided up into Union and Confederate battalions tasked with either retrieving or freeing black dolls representing escaped slaves.
Saturday, Oct. 12: Cirque Mei features a company of 40 elite traditional and contemporary circus artists and acrobats.
Saturday-Sunday, Oct. 12-13: Anna Librada Mazo Georges, who grew up in New Paltz, returned to the region with a mission to make flamenco accessible to the masses, and even a participatory celebration, the way it has always been in Spain.
The Bardavon commences its 2019/20 film series with the landmark thriller The Silence of the Lambs on Friday, October 4. The film’s five Academy Awards are the least of its claims to fame. Jonathan Demme’s masterpiece is a cultural institution, its scenes enshrined in the collective imagination, quotable by all as if it were the dark counterpart to Caddyshack. Mini-concerts on the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ take place 30 minutes before each film at the Bardavon. Admission costs a mere $6.
Wednesday-Sunday, Oct. 2-6: Of the more than 100 “Fiercely Independent” films being screened, 13 are having their world, North American or US premiere at Woodstock.
Saturday, Sept. 28: To put it mildly, Bard has found itself a new faculty superstar. Local audiences will get their first real chance to hear Tan Dun in action on Saturday, September 28 at 8 p.m., when he conducts the Conservatory Orchestra in a multimedia concert featuring excerpts from three classic martial arts movies that he scored.
Saturday, Sept. 28: After a successful freshman campaign in the summer of 2018, with more than 15 short films screened to an audience of over 300 at the Water Street Market, the organizers have moved the event to the larger venue on the SUNY campus. Predictably, submissions have greatly increased as well, topping 100 this year, coming from a wider range of independent filmmakers across the Hudson Valley.
Thursday-Sunday, Oct. 3-6: Of all the horrific dictators ever to plague Latin America, Rafael Trujillo was arguably one of the worst. Whether as president or behind-the-scenes military strongman, he ruled the Dominican Republic for 31 years with an iron hand. His personal hit squad roamed the capital, Santo Domingo – renamed Ciudád Trujillo during his reign – in a red Packard nicknamed the “car of death,” carro de la muerte. A national network of procurers rounded up preteen girls for him to rape. Within one week in 1937, he had his army butcher between 20,000 and 30,000 Haitians in a border incursion known as the Parsley Massacre.
Saturday, Sept. 21: Chris Wells, founding artistic director of the Obie Award-winning organization The Secret City, will be honored with the 2019 Voices in Action Award for his groundbreaking work in connecting community through the arts.
Friday/Saturday, Sept. 27/28: On Friday night, the zeitgeist comedian, writer, actor and podcaster for the memoir and confessional generation will deliver a traditional standup set, or as close to it as he is likely to get. On Saturday night, he presents a live onstage episode of his popular caller-based Beautiful/Anonymous podcast.