Your Optimism is Not Required
2023-04-30 19:30 - 21:30 UTC | Center for the Arts at Kayenta
THEATER
Team Sunshine Performance (Philadelphia)
Walton Commons Plaza
YOUR OPTIMISM IS NOT REQUIRED is a performance event, facilitated workshop, and communal gathering all woven into an experience that illuminates the ways we might move immobilizing despair about our world into collective hope and action.
YOUR OPTIMISM IS NOT REQUIRED takes place at an intimate, outdoor performance site encircling a campfire. Guided by two performers, the audience comes to embody characters in the lives of Daughter and Dad: a fictional biracial teenager and her white father on a camping trip confronting futures potentially shaped by environmental and societal crises.
Inspired by renowned Buddhist ecologist Joanna Macy’s work Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in Without Going Crazy, OPTIMISM is an original piece of participatory theater from Team Sunshine Performance that aims to move despair, anxiety, and hopelessness from immobilizing obstacles to animating forces of human connection.

Director: Alex Torra
Associate Director: Rachel Camp
Performer/Creators: Benjamin Camp and Jackie Soro
Production Designer: Makoto Hirano
Purchase Tickets Here

The Last Five Years
2023-06-15 19:30 - 21:30, 2023-06-16 19:30 - 21:30, 2023-06-17 19:30 - 21:30, 2023-06-18 14:00 - 16:00, 2023-06-21 19:30 - 21:30, 2023-06-22 19:30 - 21:30, 2023-06-23 19:30 - 21:30, 2023-06-24 19:30 - 21:30
MUSICAL THEATER
The Last Five Years
written and composed by Jason Robert Brown
directed by Miranda Wright
June 15-24, 2023
The Lorraine Boccardo Theater
An emotionally powerful and intimate award-winning musical about two people who fall in and out of love over the course of five years, starring local actors Greg and Mimi Knell.
Jason Robert Brown’s Drama Desk winner, The Last Five Years, has been translated into a handful of languages and was named one of TIME Magazine‘s ten best shows of 2001. A testament to the show’s longevity, and spurred by the show’s regional popularity, The Last Five Years enjoyed an Off-Broadway revival at Second Stage in 2013. A film adaptation was released in 2014, starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan
Originally Produced for the New York stage by Arielle Tepper and Marty Bell
Originally Produced by Northlight Theatre, Chicago, IL
THE LAST FIVE YEARS is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI. www.mtishows.com
Purchase Tickets Here

Chautauqua: Living History -Voices From World War II
2023-09-29 19:30 - 21:30, 2023-09-30 19:30 - 21:30
LECTURES & IDEAS / THEATER
Chautauqua: Living History
Voices From World War II
Friday & Saturday, September 29-30, 2023 // 7:30pm
The Lorraine Boccardo Theater
Theater, History, and Storytelling: Chautauqua is an oral storytelling tradition that brings history to life through interactive theater and compelling discussion aimed at stimulating critical thinking and increasing appreciation for complex histories.
This year, we present Voices from World War II, starring General George Patton, favorite leader of the European troops (but often not politically correct) and Ernie Pyle, famous war correspondent who reported from the troops in the trenches.
Ernie Pyle will be presented by scholar Doug Mishler. Doug Mishler is an independent scholar who has taught at the University of Nevada and Western Washington University. He is the author of a history of the Ringling Brothers Circus and has consulted on several public television and Chautauqua programs, regularly appearing in Maryland and Colorado. He has studied and presented as P. T. Barnum, Theodore Roosevelt, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Ford, Jefferson Davis, George Wallace, Upton Sinclair, and Major General Robert Ross. In addition to Ernie Pyle, he also portrays Billy Sunday, William Clark, Andrew Carnegie, Edward R. Murrow, Thomas Hart Benton, and Nikita Khrushchev. Mishler has a Ph.D. in American cultural history from the University of Nevada, Reno.
Ernie Pyle was an in-the-trenches correspondent who reported on the actual conditions and trials of the GI’s living under terrible conditions as opposed to the uplifting propaganda put out by the government.
General George Patton will be presented by Tim Beasely. General Patton was a swash-buckling leader on the European Front and was known for his personal regard for the troops under his command. He was always seen with high top black boots, an infantry helmet and two silver pistols strapped to his hips. He had the capability of surpassing General Eisenhower in the European command but because of his offensive political rhetoric, he was ultimately relegated to lower posts and finally died in a car crash at the end of the war.
Tim Beasley, from Norfolk VA, has performed for over 30 years as an authentic and truly accurate General Patton, speaking for many formal military bases and patriotic events. His very believable impersonation of “Old Blood and Guts” as a motivational speaking special guest is a highly recognized leadership icon, combining powerful positive thinking with American pride.
Each speaker will present a speech “in character,” followed by an “in character” lively discussion with the audience. They will then appear as themselves, answering questions from the audience about World War II and these historical figures from a more contemporary perspective.
Purchase Tickets Here

What the Constitution Means to Me
2023-11-09 19:30 - 21:00, 2023-11-10 19:30 - 21:00, 2023-11-11 19:30 - 21:00, 2023-11-12 15:00 - 16:30, 2023-11-15 19:30 - 21:00, 2023-11-16 19:30 - 21:00, 2023-11-17 19:30 - 21:00, 2023-11-18 19:30 - 21:00
THEATER
What the Constitution Means to Me
by Heidi Schreck
directed by Zoe Aja Moore
November 9-18, 2023
The Lorraine Boccardo Theater
Playwright Heidi Schreck’s boundary-breaking play breathes new life into our Constitution and imagines how it will shape the next generation of Americans. Fifteen-year-old Heidi earned her college tuition by winning Constitutional debate competitions across the United States. In this hilarious, hopeful and achingly human new play, she resurrects her teenage self in order to trace the profound relationship between four generations of women and the founding document that shaped their lives.

“Uproariously funny, wrenchingly moving, critically challenging and politically inspiring.” – David Cole, The New York Review of Books
TICKETS

Liz Toonkel: MAGIC FOR ANIMALS
2024-02-24 19:30 - 21:30
THEATER
Liz Toonkel: MAGIC FOR ANIMALS
Saturday, February 24, 2024 // 7:30pm
The Lorraine Boccardo Theater
Magic for Animals is a one-woman magic show about agency, consent, and animal rights. Liz Toonkel uses sparkling, incisive humor to offer a refreshing antidote to the gendered and speciesist tradition of magic. She examines how we treat animals, and urges us to reconsider how we treat one another. By day, Liz is a production designer who’s shaped the look of such films as Marcel the Shell with Shoes On and Emily the Criminal, by night she’s a performance artist and magician.
Tickets $30

Heroes of the Fourth Turning
2024-04-18 19:30 - 21:30, 2024-04-19 19:30 - 21:30, 2024-04-20 19:30 - 21:30, 2024-04-24 19:30 - 21:30, 2024-04-25 19:30 - 21:30, 2024-04-26 19:30 - 21:30, 2024-04-27 19:30 - 21:30
THEATER
Heroes of the Fourth Turning
an Award-Winning Play by Will Arbery
directed by Rachel Park
April 18-27, 2024
Wednesday-Saturday at 7:30pm / Sunday at 2:00pm
The Lorraine Boccardo Theater

“The sneaky, simple brilliance of Heroes of the Fourth Turning is that it’s not actually about its characters’ talking points at all. It’s about them. It’s not shouting; it’s listening.”
Vulture
It’s nearing midnight in Wyoming, where four young conservatives have gathered at a backyard after-party. They’ve returned home to toast their mentor Gina, newly inducted as president of a tiny Catholic college. But as their reunion spirals into spiritual chaos and clashing generational politics, it becomes less a celebration than a vicious fight to be understood. On a chilly night in the middle of America, Will Arbery’s haunting play offers grace and disarming clarity, speaking to the heart of a country at war with itself.
Will Arbery is a playwright and screenwriter. His play Heroes of the Fourth Turning premiered at Playwrights Horizons in 2019 and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, OBIE winner, Lortel winner, New York Drama Critics Circle Award winner and John Gassner Memorial Award winner. It was named one of the best plays of the year by The New York Times, Vulture, Time Out and more. Corsicana premiered at Playwrights Horizons in 2022 and was a New York Times Critics Pick. Evanston Salt Costs Climbing had its New York premiere at The New Group and was the subject of a feature in The New York Times Magazine. Other plays include: Plano (Clubbed Thumb), You Hateful Things (NYTW Dartmouth Residency) and Wheelchair (3 Hole Press). He was the recipient of a Whiting Award in 2020. TV: Succession and Irma Vep. His work has been featured in The Paris Review. He’s currently under commission from Manhattan Theatre Club, Adventureland and The Met Opera. willarbery.com

“A perfect production that left me with my heart in my mouth.”
Time Out New York
TICKETS
Heroes of the Fourth Turning by Will Arbery asks its audience to engage with intense content and characters in spiritual crisis. This production is intended to create conversation, one we hope you will find worthwhile, entertaining, and challenging.
This show delves into mature subject matter, encompassing explicit language, complex adult themes, and thought-provoking explorations of religion, sexuality, abortion, race, politics, and gender.
This production may contain: very loud and sudden noises, including gunshots; the use of a non-firing prop gun, and simulated vomiting.

Chautauqua: Living History!
2024-10-05 14:00 - 16:30, 2024-10-05 19:30 - 22:00
HUMANITIES / THEATER
Chautauqua: Living History!
Technology that Changed the World
Featuring Hank Fincken as Thomas Edison
and Jeremy Meier as Steve Jobs
Saturday, October 5th 2:00pm & 7:30pm
The Lorraine Boccardo Theater
Experience history coming alive as performers take the stage in costume and character to portray two revolutionary innovators:
Hank Fincken as Thomas Edison
And Jeremy Meier as Steve Jobs
In this theatrical living history program, Edison and Jobs will give passionate performances transporting you back in time. Witness their genius, struggles, and world-changing inventions and products unfold through their own words.
Don’t miss this entertaining and educational experience!
Join us for an afternoon or evening of “Chautauqua: Living History!” that will enlighten and inspire!

Tickets $25

THE MINUTES
2024-11-14 19:30 - 21:30
THEATER
THE MINUTES
by Tracy Letts
November 14-17, 20-23
Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30pm
Sunday at 3:00pm
The Lorraine Boccardo Theater
“Explosive… Deftly captures the tension of patriotic grandiosity and provincial defensiveness found in city halls across the land.” – Chicago Tribune
This scathing new comedy about small-town politics and real-world power, from the author of August: Osage County, exposes the ugliness behind some of our most closely-held American narratives while asking each of us what we would do to keep from becoming history’s losers.
The Minutes premiered on Broadway at Studio 54 on April 17, 2022.
Programming at the Center for the Arts is intended for mature audiences.
Tickets $35
