EVENING WITH AUDRA Trained in classical vocal technique at the Juilliard School and born into a musical family, 29-year-old Audra McDonald has achieved remarkable success in her brief career. She starred in three Broadway shows — Ragtime, Master Class and Carousel — winning Tony Awards for each performance. This season, she took the lead role in the Lincoln Center Theatre production of Marie Christine, a new musical retelling of the Medea myth, and starred as Grace, Daddy Warbuck's secretary and love interest, in the Walt Disney Television produc- tion of Annie. Her debut solo recording, Way Back to Paradise, featured five composer/lyricists of her own generation, and was named Adult Record of the Year for 1998 by the New York Times. Audra McDonald takes the stage 8 p.m. Sunday, March 5, in Ann Arbor's Power Center in a University Musical Society-sponsored concert mark- ing her regional debut. She will appear with a jazz trio and will perform an evening of American song standards and original new songs. As a warm-up to the concert, Detroit Public Television-Channel 56 airs Audra McDonald in Concert, a program taped in August 1999 at London's Donmar Warehouse Theatre, Covent Garden, at 1 p.m. Sunday. Tickets for the Power Center concert are $24-$32. Call (734) 764-2538. that chronicled the brothers' misadven- "There is something magical in the tures in Ireland and America. way hate crosses the ocean and lands in McCourt's latest effort for the stage is The their bedroom," says Miller about Irish and How They Got They Way, which Broken Glass. "It's as if these grains of comes to Detroit's Music Hall for the dust come through the window." Performing Arts March 7-12. A humorous Jewish Ensemble Theatre (JET) pre- and irreverent look at the Irish in America sents Broken Glass March 8-April 9 in the through song, dance and storytelling, this Aaron DeRoy Theatre, in the lower level tribute to McCourt's Irish-American kins- of the West Bloomfield JCC. JET Artistic men spans a period between the 1840s Director. Evelyn Orbach directs a cast led GAIL ZI M ERMAN Irish potato famine and John F. Kennedy's by Joe Haynes and Chris Ann Voudoulis Arts & Entertainment historical ascension to the White House as Phillip and Sylvia Gellburg and Mark Editor and subsequent assassination. Rademacher as Dr. Harry Hyman. Ann "It is light, but there is a lot of revela- Arbor composer William Bolcom created tion," says McCourt of The Irish and How They Got original music for this production, which will be per- That Way. The production includes 32 songs, rang- formed by cellist Mifa Vortsman. ing from the traditional "Danny Boy" and "Wild Show times are 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays Irish Rose" to Broadway legend George M. Cohan's and Sundays and 8 p.m. Saturdays, with matinees at "Give My Regards to Broadway" and the music of 2 p.m. Sundays and Wednesdays. Tickets are $15- Irish rockers U-2. $25, with discounts for seniors and students. To Call for show times. Tickets are $15-835 (all opening purchase tickets, call (248) 788-2900. night tickets on March 7 are $15). (248) 645-6666. IRISH EYES Author Frank McCourt taught in New York City public schools for 27 years before penning Angela's Ashes, and winning the Pulitzer Prize. He has another literary hit on his hands with Tis: A Memoir, and enjoyed success on the stage with his brother Malachy in A Couple of Blaguards, a play `GLASS' ACT Last year, the Royal National Theatre in London, England, asked all the writers, actors and directors affiliated with it to vote on who they thought was the greatest playwright of the 20th century. It was expected they would choose a British writer, or at least a European one. But the playwright they selected as the greatest writer of the century was a Jewish American: Arthur Miller. It might be argued that Miller's most distinct- ly Jewish play is 1994's Broken Glass, winner of Britain's prestigious Olivier Award for Best Play. In this work, Miller employs the juxtaposition of a troubled marriage against events occurring in Germany to examine the anatomy of denial and the impossibility of intimacy in a relationship without equality. Set in 1938 Brooklyn, Broken Glass tells the story of a woman stricken with a mysterious ill- ness that prevents her from walking soon after reading about Kristnallnacht in the newspaper. Her husband is the only Jew in an otherwise exclusively WASP real estate firm. Her doctor is an eminent scientist, but even with ample resources and the best medical care, nothing seems to work. rba 16N 3/3 2000 74 Clockwise from top left: Audra McDonald makes her Michigan debut Sunday in Ann Arbon Beth Katleman: "Bacchus Fountain," at Royal O _ aks Sybaris Ga Arthur Miller: JET will - peforn his 1994play, "Broken Glass." CULTURAL COLLISIONS Since graduating from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1999, Manhattan-based artist Beth Katleman has become known for her exuberant, often humorous, ceramic sculptures that incorporate trinkets, icons of popular culture and rococo decoration. Baroque elements abound in Katleman's art: opulence, excess, artifice and grotesque ornamenta- don are all part of her work. From a distance her sculptures are simply beautiful works of art, but closer examination reveals that the adorning ele- ments depict social taboos, peculiar hybrid creatures and distorted cartoon characters. The artist, who is Jewish, flirts with the boundaries between high and low art, linking historical forms with contemporary icons, creating beautiful cultural collisions full of attitude, social commentary and dark humor. Her latest work explores the feminine notion of having it all. In a series of highly decorated wall panels, Katleman morphs her own image with those of famous women like Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Marie Antoinette and Princess Diana, trying on the role each has come to be asso- ciated with — from sex kitten to fairy-tale bride. Her teapots and working fountains, benign objects in themselves, turn ironic with adornments of nymphs clutching American Express cards, cherubs with prescription bottles of Valium, mer- maids devouring slices of cream pie. A one-woman exhibition of Katleman's ceramic sculpture runs through April 8 at Royal Oak's Sybaris Gallery, and opens with an artist's reception 5-7 p.m. Saturday; March 4. For more information, call (248) 544-3388. ticket prices and publishable phone number, FYI: For Arts and Entertainment related events that you wish to have considered for Out & About, please send the item, with a detailed description of the event, times, dates, place, Notice must be received at least three weeks before to: Gail Zimmerman, JN Out & About, The Jewish News, 27676 Franklin Road, Southfield, MI 48034; fax us at (248) 354-6069: or e-mail to gzimmermangthejewishnews.com the scheduled event. Photos are appreciated but cannot be returned. All events and dates listed in the Out & About column are subject to change.