Upcoming Events

It’s 1595, and brothers Nick and Nigel Bottom are desperate to write a hit play but they’re stuck in the shadow of the Renaissance rock star Will Shakespeare. When a local soothsayer foretells that the future of theatre involves singing, dancing and acting, all at the same time, Nick and Nigel set out to write the world’s very first musical.

This smart, subversive musical comedy mashes up the crass commercialism of today’s Hollywood with the people and plays of Shakespeare’s London, to ask fascinating, funny questions about commercial success, popular success, artistic success, and personal success. And beneath the rapid-fire Shakespeare jokes, the show comically deconstructs itself and musical theatre as an art form, exploring what makes musicals tick and why we love them. The show was nominated for ten Tonys, nine Drama Desk Awards, and twelve Outer Critics Circle Awards.

Documentia is a series of digital collages inspired by and in direct response to these recollective narratives. A body of work created in celebration of the dementia mind, Documentia visualizes the compression, the overlap, the incongruous conversations between memory and sense that occur in that human container. This exhibit invites viewers to contemplate their own stories and sense memories to consider how they organize shards of experience into novel constructions.

Benjamin Kaplan, 2022

HOME
Phillip Hamer
September 23 – January 7, 2023
Opening Reception Friday September 23, 4 – 7pm
The Dark Room

*Walk-in gallery visits to The Dark Room are open to the public during any show and concert happening inside The Grandel, including weekly Wednesday Night Jazz Jams and The Dark Room Concert Series. Private gallery visits can be made for all galleries by appointment with COVID-19 mitigation policies in place. To make an appointment, and for questions or concerns, please contact  [email protected] or (314) 549-9990 ext. 105

“When I think of Home, I think of a place where there is Love overflowing…”

This is exactly what my home has always felt like to me. Raised in a unique atmosphere where I grew up with 90% of my neighborhood being my blood relatives – It was a very beautiful experience. One that has molded my life. When I think of home, I think of the love that’s been poured into me by my family. I dedicate this project: HOME to my family: the Whittiers, the Pattersons, and those that I’ve yet to discover in my maternal lineage. The humans that passed down the inheritance of love, the ones who first taught me how to love and be loved. This Project is a full-circle moment, as I will be bringing my family back into a space they once called home, their Church Home. Home is a mixed media project of past and present images paying homage to my loved ones.

Throughout history, the queer community hasn’t always been able to be out and proud. The community developed sophisticated codes to coexist as queer in a world that criminalized their identities. Polari, a secret British slang used by gay men, allowed them to speak freely without fear of arrest. As time progressed this language became lost and very few within the community still know of it.

Drop Everything, is a collection of artwork exploring the history of the bathhouse within the queer community and its role as a cruising ground for gay men.

Utilizing the codex language of Polari, in combination with drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and digital techniques, I am giving the language a contemporary life. Combining contemporary items or images associated with acts within the queer community allows viewers to see items and then veils of text referencing the language.

Set in 1959 three French World War I veterans in a military convalescent hospital make a bid for one last moment of freedom. This poignant comedy “Heroes” was written in 2003 by Gérald Sibleyras and brilliantly translated and adapted by Tom Stoppard in 2005.

This is the inaugural presentation of Albion Theatre dedicated to producing plays (mainly) from Britain.

ST. LOUIS WOMAN
written and directed by Joe Hanrahan

The City.  The Songs.  The Women

A musical and theatrical tribute to the phenomenal women – the St. Louis Women – who created the music and art that brought the world to our city –
– Josephine Baker, Tina, Turner, Willie Mae Ford Smith, Katherine Dunham, Fontella Bass, Ann Peebles, Maya Angelou –

LAKA performs their tunes, their dance, their poetry – and presents their remarkable lives.

OCTOBER 6, 2022 / 8:00 PM
DOORS OPEN 7:30PM

Opening Reception October 7,  5 – 8pm

Dementia is described in many ways. Forgetfulness, absent-mindedness, senility, mental decay. Words did not matter as I watched my grandfather decline over 10 years, my grandmother over five, and, subsequently, my father over the past four.

As family members and caretakers, we navigate shifts in personality, manage paranoia, and witness the way our loved ones’ brains crowd out new memories in favor of a continuous loop of past recollections. I watched my grandparents and then my father regress into their younger selves, believing everyone to be either family or enemy or both, communicating sense and emotion as vividly as when they were children

These moments always catch present-day loved ones by surprise. Perhaps best described as hallucinations, the seemingly coherent becomes compressed within the twisted confines of a declining mind.

But is there refinement in that compression? Can beauty be harvested from the segments? Do these memories serve as a map, a document, an atlas to long-forgotten enchantments? Is it possible to imagine this disease, with its cruelty and corruption, as a chronicler of times long forgotten, an excavator of essential moments, a strange documentarian?

Documentia is a series of digital collages inspired by and in direct response to these recollective narratives. A body of work created in celebration of the dementia mind, Documentia visualizes the compression, the overlap, the incongruous conversations between memory and sense that occur in that human container. This exhibit invites viewers to contemplate their own stories and sense memories to consider how they organize shards of experience into novel constructions.

Benjamin Kaplan, 2022

InTRANSIT

An Outdoor Community Performance in Dance and Music this Fall

FRIDAY OCTOBER 7, 2022
5:30 – 6:30pm

IN THE GRAND CENTER ARTS DISTRICT

Karlovsky & Company Dance opens their 10th season with InTRANSIT, a community performance of site-specific dance and live music taking place at multiple locations around the Grand Center Arts District.

5:30 – 6pm: See performances of site-specific dance and live music at:

• Park-Like/The Pulitzer Arts Foundation (3713 Washington Blvd. 63108)
• Strauss Park (3534 Washington Ave.)
• Third Baptist Church (Stairs at the corner of Grand Blvd. and Washington)
• The Grandel Theatre (Stairs to the main entrance) (3610 Grandel Square, 63108)

6:00pm – 6:20pm:  See the full ensemble performance at:

• Grand Center Arts Plaza (3610 Grandel Square, 63108)

Joining Karlovsky & Company Dance are community performers of 20+ dancers and local musicians who offer roaming spectators an opportunity to experience these collaborative site-specific performances in real time. InTRANSIT is a free outdoor performance and will coordinate with First Fridays in the Grand Center Arts District in partnership with Grand Center, Inc.

Audiences are encouraged to walk, bike, or drive-by to view the performances taking place simultaneously at multiple outdoor locations. There will be 4-rounds of 4-minute performances at each location with a break in between for audiences to travel to the different locations.  All artists arrive together at the Grand Center Arts Plaza for a culminating full ensemble performance. InTRANSIT is a free public performance and family friendly.

Directed by Dawn Karlovsky, founder and director, Karlovsky & Company Dance

Performers: Dancers of Karlovsky & Company Dance and community dancers

Musicians: Lance Garger, Kalo Hoyle, Rick Kramer, Harvey Lockhart, Tory Starbuck

OCTOBER 7, 2022 / 9:00 PM
DOORS OPEN 8:30PM

OCTOBER 8, 2022 / 9:00 PM
DOORS OPEN 8:30PM

A vacant lot in a broken neighborhood in the middle of the city can become a lot of things. A garbage dump. A gathering spot for trouble. How could it ever be a source of hope? A dozen different characters and their stories come to life, beginning with Kim, a nine-year-old Vietnamese immigrant who plants six precious lima beans. One by one, the people of her community, many also immigrants, sow seeds of hope amid the dirt and grit, tending dreams to full bloom. As the garden grows, so does the community, blooming into something bigger, better, and beyond all expectations. As told by award-winning novelist Paul Fleischman, the garden draws neighbors out of their lonely isolation to rediscover and celebrate the community around them.

Adapted from the book by Newbery Medal-winning author Paul Fleischman.

Best enjoyed by ages 9 and up

Roll With It!
A new play by Katie Rodriguez Banister & Michelle Zielinski, Directed by J. Michelle Rebollo
After an SUV rollover leaves 25-year-old Katie paralyzed from the chest down, she and her former self struggle with physical, emotional, psychological, and financial challenges as they aim to recover, and find purpose and beauty in daily living. Katie’s journey with friends, family and caregivers is inspiring, difficult, funny, and honest.

OCTOBER 13, 2022 / 8:00 PM
DOORS OPEN 7:30PM

Opening Reception October 14,  5 – 8pm

Throughout history, the queer community hasn’t always been able to be out and proud. The community developed sophisticated codes to coexist as queer in a world that criminalized their identities. Polari, a secret British slang used by gay men, allowed them to speak freely without fear of arrest. As time progressed this language became lost and very few within the community still know of it.

Drop Everything, is a collection of artwork exploring the history of the bathhouse within the queer community and its role as a cruising ground for gay men.

Utilizing the codex language of Polari, in combination with drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and digital techniques, I am giving the language a contemporary life. Combining contemporary items or images associated with acts within the queer community allows viewers to see items and then veils of text referencing the language.

Von & Dat Dude Present:
All-Black Affair
ft. Cupid (the creator of The Cupid Shuffle)

Ages 21+ only

OCTOBER 14, 2022 / 10:00 PM
DOORS OPEN 9:30PM

OCTOBER 15, 2022 / 9:00 PM
DOORS OPEN 8:30PM

Jamo Presents... The Lot Series featuring:
DEL MCCOURY
Doors 6pm • Show 7pm
ALL AGES

Monday, October 17, 7:00p.m.

Enjoy an evening listening to local authors Vivian Gibson, Fred Venturini, Angela Mitchell, Michaela A. Thornton and Ron A. Austin read short works.

Doors open at 6:30p.m. Food and drinks are available for purchase. Adults.

High Low | 3301 Washington Ave. | St. Louis, MO 63103

Artist Talk October 19, 3pm

Documentia is a series of digital collages inspired by and in direct response to these recollective narratives. A body of work created in celebration of the dementia mind, Documentia visualizes the compression, the overlap, the incongruous conversations between memory and sense that occur in that human container. This exhibit invites viewers to contemplate their own stories and sense memories to consider how they organize shards of experience into novel constructions.

Benjamin Kaplan, 2022

OCTOBER 20, 2022 / 8:30 PM
DOORS OPEN 8:00PM

A Djembist, Composer, Producer and Folklorist of the highest caliber, Braimah has an almost insatiable knack to draw entire audiences into his groove, zigzagging through Africa on a breathtaking rhythmic roller coaster. His sound is the new voice of Djembe Music around the world.

Braimah comes from a long lineage of drummers including his mother, Ann Morris, a respected jazz drummer and his father, Oscar Sulley Braimah, a world-renowned composer and master drummer. Braimah has been a performer, teacher and preserver of African culture for over 30 years and continues to peruse new musical crossings every day. He also leads his own band, Weedie Braimah & The Hands of Time, where he mounts the Djembe as the frontage presenting music of the diaspora.

His band has appeared in Europe, Cuba, Dubai and the United States to name a few. Braimah’s debut album was also featured in Times Magazine as one of the top 10 albums of 2021. Braimah has been able to collaborate with world renowned artists such as Baaba Maal, Trombone Shorty, Pedrito Martinez, Oteil Burbridge, Terrace Martin and fellow bandmate, Christian Scott aTunde-Adjuah, who is nominated for Best Jazz Soloist on the song Sakoudougou, which is featured on Braimah’s debut album, The Hands of Time.

Weedie Braimah exemplifies tradition, evolution and soul as he brings his vision of building a reverence for folkloric West African music to life in hopes of it evolving and being placed in the world musical arenas of jazz, funk, fusion, world music, and hip hop, becoming the new face of African percussion both nationally and internationally.

OCTOBER 21, 2022 / 10:00 PM
DOORS OPEN 9:30PM

The 1st Annual Pines Fest
Hosted by The Mighty Pines
Featuring:
The Mighty Pines
River Kittens
Dave Grelle’s Playadors
Red and Black Brass Band
And artist at large Brian Owens Soul

OCTOBER 22, 2022 / 9:00 PM
DOORS OPEN 8:30PM

The California Honeydrops don’t just play music — they throw parties. Led by dynamic vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Lech Wierzynski, the band draws on diverse musical influences ranging from Bay Area R&B, Funk, Southern soul, Delta blues, and New Orleans second-line. The Honeydrops bring vibrant energy and infectious dance-party vibes to their shows. Assembling from 7 to 8 musicians, the band delivers an eclectic performance and innovative recording style. Since 2008, the Honeydrops have released 7 studio albums, 3 live albums and 2 cover albums. Their highly anticipated forthcoming album is set to release in the fall of 2022.

All Ages
$3 Cash Minor Surcharge
Kids 6 & under free

OCTOBER 28, 2022 / 10:00 PM
DOORS OPEN 9:30PM

Join Us Oct 29th & 30th for Preview Screenings with Cast and Crew of the new dramatic series “Broken Strings.”

“Broken Strings” follows the journey of a variety of artists, as they search for harmony against all odds. Created as a part of the Kranzberg Artist in Residency program, writer/director Catherine Dudley-Rose has gathered multiple local artists and activists for the first episode. Starring Marty K. Casey, Don McClendon, Sydney Russell, and Chrissie Watkins along with supporting cast, cinematography by Mallory Ingles, edited by Abbey Heise, sound by Bailey Hilmes and assisted by Once Films, and the Regional Arts Commission. Come find out how you can participate in future episodes, and the development of this community series!

OCTOBER 29, 2022 / 9:00 PM
DOORS OPEN 8:30PM