Theater News

Smithsonian Institution-Flushing Arts Council Affiliation Will Launch With Seven-Week Musical Theater Festival

New York City
The Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts (FCCA) has just announced its new affiliation with the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum and research center. The affiliation, which will allow the Smithsonian to share its collections, programs, and expertise with Flushing Town Hall and to collaborate on the development of new local, regional, and national projects, will be launched with a seven-week festival celebrating American musical theater at Flushing Town Hall (137-35 Northern Blvd.) from May 17 through July 4.

The centerpiece of the festival will be a Smithsonian exhibition entitled “Red, Hot & Blue: A Salute to American Musicals,” a collective biography of producers, directors, composers, lyricists, and performers who created Broadway and Hollywood musicals. The five-part multimedia exhibition traces the history of the musical from its 19th-century beginnings and examines its cultural role today.

May 17 will be “Smithsonian Day” at Flushing Town Hall; it will be marked by a ceremony at 5:30pm that will include addresses by Smithsonian and local elected officials and the reading of a Mayoral proclamation. At 7pm on May 17, there will be a concert to launch the “Red, Hot & Blue” exhibition in the newly renovated, 340-seat theater at the town hall. Titled “On Broadway: A Musical Salute,” it will feature Broadway performers Ken Primus and Mary Stout in addition to the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts chorus. General admission tickets to the concert are $30, $27 for seniors, and students, and $24 for FCCA members.

Other events during the course of the exhibit will include a series of cabaret concerts saluting Harold Arlen, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and George and Ira Gershwin; a tap concert titled “Tap Your Troubles Away!” that will trace the evolution of tap from Broadway to Hollywood; screenings of classic Hollywood musicals on film, including Show Boat, South Pacific, West Side Story, and Cabaret; “Coffee, Culture and Conversation” gatherings; a presentation and discussion of The Jazz Singer; and a panel discussion titled “The Evolution of the Asian in Stage and Film.”

For tickets and/or more information, phone the Flushing Town Hall at 718-463-7700 or visit www.flushingtownhall.org.