This performance is supported in part by a memorial gift in honor of Dot and Don Fischbeck.

Admission: $4-children/students (aged 3 to 9); $8-adults; $7-senior citizens/ SUNY Orange alumni, faculty, staff; group rates; free-SUNY Orange credit students

The Paper Bag Players are returning to Orange Hall Theatre on Sunday January 31, 2010 at 2pm to present The Great Mummy Robbery.

This children-family show will have you laughing, singing, dancing—and sitting on the edge of your seat! Stories, songs, freewheeling dances, painting, audience participation, paper bag costumes, and scenery—and lots of adventure are all packed into a friendly, thrilling hour of theater with live music—perfect for children ages 3 through 9, with entertaining, inventive ideas and fun for everyone!

The Paper Bag Players is a company of adults who create and perform original, contemporary, musical theater for children. Their shows, based on a child's everyday experiences, combine short plays, rousing songs, dances, audience participation, mime, and painting and drawing on stage. Common household objects, cardboard boxes and brown paper brightened with splashes of poster paint and crayon become the sets, props, and costumes.

The first theater for children to perform at Lincoln Center and to receive a grant from the NEA, The Paper Bag Players have been recognized with an OBIE, three awards for excellence from the American Association for Theater and Education, three American Theater Wing Awards, the New York State Artists Award, the Broadway Theater Institute Award for Theater and Education, and the Children’s Theater Foundation Medallion.  Nick Jr. Magazine honored Judith Martin, the Bags originator, with a Playful People Award.

The New York City Public Library for the Performing Arts explored The Paper Bag Players' five decades in an exhibition in 2008, “The Paper Bag Players: 50 Years of Theater Art.”  The exhibition marked the agreement between The Paper Bag Players and The New York City Public Library to house “the Bags” archives.    

The Paper Bag Players touring has taken them to 37 states and to Canada, England, Scotland, Wales, Israel, Iran, Egypt, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan.  This year’s show will be seen by over 70,000 children in performances for the general public and for school children at 43 locations.

Click here to see more images related to the performance.

Reserved seat tickets may be purchased at the George F. Shepard Student Center 9am to 7:30pm Monday-Thursday and 9am to 4:30pm on Fridays. Tickets are reasonably priced at $4-children/students (aged 3 to 9); $8-adults; $7-senior citizens/ SUNY Orange alumni, faculty, staff; group rates; free-SUNY Orange credit students.

Orange Hall, which is ADA compliant, is located at the corner of Wawayanda and Grandview Avenues, Middletown, NY.

This is a Lyceum event. Questions may be directed to Cultural Affairs at (845) 341-4891 and cultural@sunyorange.edu.

This performance is supported in part by a memorial gift in honor of Dot and Don Fischbeck.

Admission: $11 adults; $9 alumni, faculty, staff; $8 senior citizens; $3 non-SUNY Orange students; group rates.

America/Amerique, a documentary play about American Immigrants—and America 1845 to the Present—will be performed on the stage of Orange Hall Theatre on Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 8pm.

The dramatic scenes and portraits of America/Amerique are based on real voices--eyewitness accounts of striking events and people. From Irish potato fields to Midwestern farms and New York tenements….from New England factories to the Union Pacific Railroad across the Rockies, to the Mexican border 2008, America/Amerique explains from where the broad ethnic diversity has come to the United States of America.

The National Tour of America/Amerique is presented by The JENA Company of New York, producers of new work by acclaimed theatre artists.  In February 2006, the JENA Company presented My Soul Is A Witness at Orange Hall Theatre. With America/Amerique, the JENA Company continues to bring American stories to life on stage.

The research and historical framework for the play have been developed and guided by an award winning young historian, Thomas Jessen Adams, PhD who currently teaches at Tulane University. The director of the play is Alex Levy who is the winner of five Joseph Jefferson Awards for Excellence in Theatre.

Tickets may be purchased at the George F. Shepard Student Center 9am to 7:30pm Monday-Thursday and 9am to 4:30pm on Fridays and beginning at 7pm the evening of the performance. Admission is $11 adults; $9 alumni, faculty, staff; $8 senior citizens; $3 non-SUNY Orange students; group rates.

Click here to see more images related to the performance.

Orange Hall, which is ADA compliant, is located at the corner of Wawayanda and Grandview Avenues, Middletown, NY.

This is a Lyceum event. Questions may be directed to Cultural Affairs at (845) 341-4891 and cultural@sunyorange.edu.

This performance is supported in part by a memorial gift in honor of Dot and Don Fischbeck.

"No individual or ensemble has done more to demystify chamber jazz, and to realize its potential for warmth, sensuousness and beauty ...than the String Trio of New York." —JazzTimes

Admission: $7 adults, faculty, staff; alumni, $6 senior citizens; free -all students

The String Trio of New York has long been regarded as one of the finest avant-garde chamber jazz groups in eastern United States. Since its formation in 1977 on the Lower East Side of New York City, the String Trio of New York has been delighting, inspiring, and thrilling audiences around the world with its singular acoustic improvisations and compositions for violin, guitar, and bass. Initially conceived as a composer/performer’s collective, the Trio has grown in scope and now features a repertoire of over sixty stylistically diverse works made up of originals by the members, works commissioned from composers such as Muhal Richard Abrams, Dave Douglas, Joe Lovano, Wadada Leo Smith, Mark Helias, Bobby Previte, Marty Ehrlich, and Anthony Davis, and arrangements of classics by Ellington, Mingus, Monk, Parker, Coltrane, Powell, and Shorter.

For over two decades, the String Trio has been one of the most active touring ensembles of its kind and has performed hundreds of concerts throughout North America, Europe, East Asia, India, the Middle East, and North Africa. The group’s international jazz festival appearances include Berlin, Paris, Zurich, Vancouver, Toronto, Leipzig, Cracow, Victoria, Edmonton, Lovere, Tampere, Leverkusen, and Warsaw . Hailed by critics worldwide, the Philadelphia Inquirer said that the Trio "...is solidly prepared, but offers the excitement of improvisation projected through unshakable musicianship."  JazzTimes  raved, "No individual or ensemble has done more to demystify chamber jazz, and to realize its potential for warmth, sensuousness and beauty...than the String Trio of New York." The New York Times observed that the Trio “...played jazz that was rhythmically alive, stylistically varied and consistently inventive.”

In the United States, the Trio has performed at the Mellon, Ravinia and Newport Jazz Festivals as well as Great Performers at Lincoln Center, Walker Arts Center, The Smithsonian Institution, The Kennedy Center, Houston's Da Camera Society, Stanford Lively Arts, Spivey Hall in Atlanta, San Francisco's Herbst Theatre, The Wexner Center at Ohio St., The University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, Wolf Trap and many others. The ensemble has been featured on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition and most recently on Public Radio International's Concerts from the Library of Congress.  The String Trio of New York’s remarkable music has contributed immeasurably to the chamber jazz idiom and has won an enthusiastic and increasingly expanding audience.

The Trio brings together three of the most dynamic, creative and unique individuals in jazz and contemporary music:

James Emery has performed his works in over 25 countries worldwide.  His celebrated recordings have been described as "innovative and imaginative" and "utterly distinctive" by the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD. A Guggenheim fellow, he has been described as "one of the world's finest guitarists" by allaboutjazz.com.

John Lindberg, has toured worldwide as a leader and released twenty-five albums featuring his compositions.  Downbeat Magazine recently noted "One of bassist Lindberg's most enduring distinctions is that he demonstrates how much having fun could--probably should--be central to modern jazz dynamics".

Rob Thomas is increasingly regarded as one of the most impressive jazz violinists currently working.  His breadth of ideas, stunning technique and total command of the jazz vocabulary inspire all who hear him.  His recent work includes projects with Andy Summers, Lee Konitz, the Jazz Passengers and the Mahavishnu Project.

Tickets: $7 adults, faculty, staff; alumni, $6 senior citizens; free -all students Tickets are available Mon.-Thur. 9 am to 7:30 pm & Friday 9 am-4:30 pm at Student Activities in the George F. Shepard Student Center, corner of South St and East Conkling Ave, Middletown, NY

Orange Hall, which is ADA compliant, is located at the corner of Wawayanda and Grandview Avenues, Middletown, NY.

This is a Lyceum event. Questions may be directed to Cultural Affairs at (845) 341-4891 and cultural@sunyorange.edu.

Admission: Free and open to the public and no registration is required.

You may think that improvisation started in the 20th Century with jazz or non-conventional theatre or comedy shows. Not so! Picture the 1500s-1700s with musicians jammin’. Our ancestors were pretty kool in playing music… “Improv” was alive and flourishing.

Come listen and learn how this was happening during a master class that will be given by two of the Hudson Valley’s finest musicians—Marka Young and Mary Jane Corry, who will demonstrate on their period instruments, violin and harpsichord, respectively. 

The session, which is free and open to the public, starts at 10am and continues for one and one-half hours in Orange Hall, Room 23 at Orange County Community College, Middletown on Wednesday, November 18, 2009.  No registration is required.

Orange Hall is ADA compliant and is located at the corner of Wawayanda and Grandview Avenues, Middletown, NY.

This is a Lyceum event. Questions may be directed to Cultural Affairs at (845)341-4891 and cultural@sunyorange.edu.

Admission: Free & open to the public

Poetry the Rooftop of the World is the poetry event on the Fall 2009 Lyceum Events schedule. The program features Nepalese poet and translator Yuyutsu RD Sharma who will read from his original works beginning at 7pm on Thursday, November 12.  The setting for the reading is Morrison Hall Mansion on the campus of SUNY Orange County Community College, 115 South Street, Middletown, NY. Morrison Hall  is ADA compliant. This Lyceum event is sponsored in part by the Department of English, SUNY Orange.

Presently on tour in Canada, Yuyu Sharma will come to Orange County in mid-November. At Morrison Hall, he will first acquaint the audience with Nepal and its poetry, and then read selections from his eight poetry collections*.

Sharma travels extensively for readings and workshops. Some of the cities where he has read his works include New York, London, Belfast, Dublin, Amsterdam, Bonn, Frankfurt, and New Delhi.  His writings can be found in eight languages including his native Nepali as well as German, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Slovenian, and Hebrew. Currently, he edits Pratik, A Magazine of Contemporary Writing and contributes literary columns to Nepal's leading daily, The Himalayan Times and Newsfront Weekly and The Kathmandu Post. He has also completed his first novel and a book of his prose writing on the ongoing political turbulence in Nepal entitled, Annapurnas and Stains of Blood. In addition to his books, his works have been published in several periodicals-- Poetry Review, Chanrdrabhaga, Sodobnost, Amsterdam Weekly, Indian Literature, Irish Pages, Delo, Omega, Howling Dog Press, Exiled Ink, Iton77, Little Magazine, The Telegraph, Indian Express and Asiaweek. Additionally, he has  launched a literary movement, Kathya Kayakalpa (Content Metamorphosis) in Nepali poetry.

Yuyu Sharma is the recipient of fellowships and grants from The Rockefeller Foundation, Ireland Literature Exchange, Trubar Foundation, Slovenia, The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature, and The Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature.

*Published poetry collections:

• Space Cake, Amsterdam, & Other Poems from Europe and America
• Annapurna Poems
• Everest Failures
• www.WayToEverest.de: A photographic and Poetic Journey to the Foot of Everest with German photographer Andreas Stimm
• Jezero Fewa in Konj
• Poemes de l’ Himalayas

Admission: $2 general; free all students from any institution

This film is part of the "Scary Movies" series.

It will be introduced by Chris Farlekas, columnist & arts advocate.

Harriman Hall 111 Film Theatre is at the corner of Wawayanda and East Conkling Avenues, Middletown, NY. It is ADA compliant.

Admission: $2 general; free all students from any institution

This film is part of the "Scary Movies" series.

It will be introduced by Mike McCoy, Instructor of History, Global Studies Department, SUNY Orange.

The Newburgh Campus is located at One Washington Center.

The venue is Assembly Room 221 (ADA compliant).

Admission: $2 general; free all students from any institution

This film is part of the "Scary Movies" series.

Chris Farlekas, film expert, will be introducing the Silent Vampire Movie Nosferatu which will be screened in Orange Hall Gallery on Friday, October 30 at 7:15pm. Dan Bradley of Matamoras, PA will accompany this film classic on the beautiful baby grand piano.

Nosferatu, starring Max Schreck and directed by F. W. Murnau, is known as one of the most compelling movies about the vampire myth, if not the most influential. As an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel it made artistic changes to character names and locale names in an attempt to fly under the radar. What was produced has enchanted lovers of the vampire mythology and other lovers of the grim and horrific since its release in 1922.

Admission: $2 general; free all students from any institution

Evil Dead 2 is a 1987 American cult comedy horror film.

The film was directed by Sam Raimi, written by Sam Raimi and Scott Spiegel, and produced by Rob Tapert. Bruce Campbell starred as Ash Williams and Denise Bixler played his girlfriend Linda who turns into a deadite after a recorded incantation of the "Book of the Dead" unleashes an evil force that soon takes possession of her.

Introduction by Steve Harpst, Director of Student Activities

This film is part of the Fall Films 2009 Series: Scary Movies.

Admission: $2 general; free all students from any institution

This film is part of the "Scary Movies" series.

It will be introduced by Steve Harpst, Director of Student Activities.

Bride of Frankenstein is a 1935 horror film, the first sequel to the influential Frankenstein (1931).

Director: James Whale

Starring:

• Boris Karloff as The Monster
• Elsa Lanchester in the dual role of his mate and Mary Shelley
• Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein
• Ernest Thesiger as Doctor Septimus Pretorius

The film follows on immediately from the events of the first film, and is rooted in a subplot of the original novel, Frankenstein (1818). In the film, a chastened Henry Frankenstein abandons his plans to create life, only to be tempted and finally coerced by the Monster, encouraged by Henry's old mentor Dr Pretorius, into constructing a mate for him. The Bride rejects the Monster however, resulting in her death, that of Pretorius, and apparently the Monster's own death, when he destroys Henry's laboratory.

Bride of Frankenstein was released to critical and popular acclaim, although it encountered difficulties with some state and national censorship boards. Since its release the film's reputation has grown, and it is hailed as Whale's masterpiece. Modern film scholars, noting Whale's homosexuality and that of others involved in the production, have found a gay sensibility in the film, although a number of Whale's associates have dismissed the idea.