Tickets for 2012-13 University of Iowa Division of Performing Arts events handled by the Hancher Box Office go on sale Wednesday, Aug. 22.
Included are the Mainstage productions of University Theatre, the School of Music’s Band Extravaganza, and numerous productions of the Department of Dance, including the Dance Gala.
Hancher box office is located in the University Capitol Centre (Old Capitol Mall) in downtown Iowa City. The box office is open for walk-up and phone sales—319-335-1160 or 800-HANCHER—10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays.
A printed Division of Performing Arts brochure is being mailed to past patrons, and is available from the box office. Detailed event and ticketing information is also accessible online.
For more than 30 years, the Dance Gala has showcased some of the best choreography and performances from one of the country's most highly acclaimed dance programs. Dance Gala 2012 will feature special guest choreographer Jennifer Muller. With a four-decade history of notable collaborations, she has worked with artists including Keith Jarrett, Keith Haring, and Yoko Ono.
The perennially popular Band Extravaganza features three of the School of Music's major ensembles—the Johnson County Landmark jazz band, the Symphony Band, and the Hawkeye Marching Band.
The University Theatre season features:
• Lady M, Oct. 11-21. Adapted and directed by Matt Hawkins, Lady M is the story of Shakespeare's Macbeth through the eyes of Lady Macbeth, following her descent into madness. (Lady M is intended for mature audiences and contains adult themes and simulated violence.)
• The musical version of Spring Awakening, Nov. 9-17, is a bold, radical, provocative new rock musical based on the once-banned German play by Frank Wedekind. The musical, which won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, explores the secret yearnings, anxieties, disappointments, and rage of teenagers as their bodies and minds become consumed with their burgeoning sexuality. (Spring Awakening is intended for mature audiences and contains nudity, adult language, adult themes, and simulated violence.)
• The 2012-13 Iowa Partnership in the Arts project will be a collaboration with the Moving Company from the Twin Cities, Feb. 7-17. In a time of increasing disparity between rich and poor, this project will turn to Mark Twain’s faux fairytale, The Prince and the Pauper, as a jumping off point to explore what might happen if someone from the 1% and someone from the 99% changed places.
• A Dream Play by August Strindberg, adapted by Caryl Churchill, will be performed March 7-16. A young woman comes from another world to see if life is really as difficult as people make it out to be. In the innovative original, written in 1901, characters merge into each other, locations change in an instant, and a locked door becomes an obsessively recurrent image. "Everything can happen, everything is possible and probable, and time and place do not exist." (A Dream Play includes material and themes of an adult nature, including nudity, simulated violence, and imagery not suitable for children.)
• She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith will complete the Mainstage season, April 19-27. Think maintaining your social network and trudging through online dating is challenging? Not to mention dealing with your dysfunctional family? This plays demonstrates that 240 years ago things were just as challenging. (She Stoops to Conquer contains adult themes and is not suitable for children.)
The Division of Performing Arts is a unit of the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.