Westcoast Troupe follows the ‘Pipeline’
The Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe combines live theater and video for the Sarasota premiere of Dominique Morisseau’s timely drama “Pipeline.” The play, which WBTT originally planned to present live in the fall, is being filmed inside the theater and will then be shown in outdoor screenings in the theater’s parking lot Friday through April 30. Home streaming will be available May 1-23. The roughly 90-minute play is about an inner-city public high school teacher whose son is threatened with expulsion from an elite private boarding school after he attacks a teacher. It is directed by L. Peter Callender, an actor and artistic director of the African-American Shakespeare Company of San Francisco. Tickets are $20. For more information: 941-366-1505; westcoastblacktheatre.org
“We feel strong and we’re going to do a full season of in-person performances,” Artistic Director Iain Webb said. “If there’s a roadblock, we’ll just have to maneuver around it.” He said it is too early to know what COVID safety protocols still may be required when the season starts.
“Will we have to do as much social distancing or masking? We don’t have the answer. We feel it’s going to start slowly. From a box office point of view, we’re looking at budgeting around 50 percent of our usual revenue,” he said.
Webb and other local arts leaders are aware that while many patrons are excited about returning to “normal,” they may not yet feel ready to attend indoor performances at full capacity, at least at the start of the season.
It is one of three Ashton works that fill the revised lineup for the company’s sixth digital program. Artistic Director Iain Webb had originally planned to feature George Balanchine’s “Serenade” along with “Valses” and Ashton’s “The Walk to the Paradise Garden.” Because of health and safety protocols, he replaced the Balanchine work with a third Ashton piece, “Facade,” which the company has performed many times.
Rhodes and Hulland last danced “Valses Nobles” together about five years ago, and it’s been at least two years since they partnered. Even after a break, Hulland said, “There’s so much comfort there. We always danced together, and Rickey’s got my back.”
The venue is a stage built by Asolo Repertory Theatre out in front of the FSU Center for the Performing Arts, the home to both organizations, and a really pleasant spot to watch an hour’s worth of dance. The seats are well spaced out, and everyone wears a mask. The 6 p.m. start time means the sun slowly fades from the sky as the evening progresses.
On the sold-out weekend program, which runs through Monday, is a grab-bag of excerpts: the “Friends’ Dance” from “Coppélia”; a demonstration of male technique by Christopher Hird, head of the Trainee program; an ensemble from “Swan Lake”; another ensemble, from “Le Corsaire”; a male duet from a 2015 piece, “Choke,” by Dwight Roden, director of Complexions Contemporary Ballet. It concludes with a full performance of Graziano’s “Fiera de Castro.”
The Sarasota Ballet’s Digital Program 5, released this past weekend, featured ballets from past and present choreographers. George Balanchine’s Donizetti Variations and Ricardo Graziano’s Amorosa differ largely in style but are similar in that they are both choreographic sensations. Donizetti Variations, first performed by the New York City Ballet in 1960, is a plotless ballet set to music by Gaetano Donizetti. The choreography reflects many aspects of the August Bournonville style with a Balanchine flare. Principal couple Katelyn May and Yuri Marques danced with attack and precision during the pas de deux and solo sections. May’s musicality was spot on during her variation, and Marques nailed his turning sequences.