reschedules more shows
The Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall continues to rearrange scheduled performances as its closure for the coronavirus pandemic continues.
The hall has announced that a concert featuring six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald scheduled for Feb. 13 will be rescheduled for a future date. Patrons have been asked to hold onto their tickets until the date is determined.
“Proud Tina: The Ultimate Tribute to Tina Turner” scheduled for March 9 will now be presented in Sarasota on Jan. 13, 2022. Rick Thomas: Mansion of Dreams has been rescheduled from April 8 to April 11, 2022. And legendary singer Johnny Mathis, who was scheduled to perform “65 Years of Romance” on April 14, will return to Sarasota on April 12, 2022.
Ortiz, a teacher who has been seen on stage at Asolo Repertory Theatre and the Banyan Theater, was part of the first SaraSolo festival in 2015 with his play “My Prodigal Son.”
His new piece, directed by Bob Vernon, deals with the impact Trayvon Martin’s death has an on an acting class for a group of multiracial at-risk students and their teachers. Ortiz is a former faculty member and administrator at Oasis Middle School in Bradenton.
Dennis McSorley of Vermont will perform “Box of Squirrels,” about the early experience of a teacher in an inner-city New York school and how it shaped his life.
All Broadway shows and touring productions have been shuttered since last March and it is not clear when theaters will be considered safe to reopen and when unions give the go-ahead for casts to resume working together. Last July, months into the pandemic, Disney Plus aired a film of the stage production that has been watched by millions on the streaming service.
Existing tickets will be honored for the new dates in Tampa, the Straz Center said. Those who can’t attend their new dates can send an email to comments@strazcenter.org to receive an account credit, request a refund or donate their ticket funds to the Straz, which is a nonprofit organization.
That’s one of the reasons she is appearing as the guest speaker and performing for the Signature Luncheon fundraiser for the Tidewell Foundation in Sarasota at noon Friday. Because of the coronavirus, it is being held virtually for the first time and tickets are available at tidewellfoundation.org.
“Hospice is an incredible thing,” she said in a telephone interview this week from her Palm Springs home. “Tidewell is so beloved and it’s a subject matter that people don’t want to deal with, but they make it so incredibly forceful in the way they really care for people, and that’s what I think is so desperately important.”
Even though staging shows during a pandemic is “twice as hard” as usual, Rick Kerby says he feels fortunate that the Manatee Players is able to keep producing while so many other theaters have shut down.
“It does make me appreciate the fact that we’re able to do anything,” said Kerby, the producing artistic director of the Manatee Performing Arts Center, home to the Manatee Players community theater. “So many of my friends who run theaters across the country are shutting their doors or waiting it out. It makes us feel good about us as a company, promoting our actors and working to keeping a product going.”