Season Subscriptions for UT Tyler Performing Arts Series Begin July 21

July 17, 2003

Season Subscriptions for UT Tyler Performing Arts Series Begin July 21

Grammy Award winning country artist Lee Ann Womack will return to her native East Texas to kick-off the 2003-2004 Performing Arts Series at The University of Texas at Tyler R. Don Cowan Fine and Performing Arts Center.

Season tickets will be available on Monday, July 21. Tickets for the Performing Arts Series, six shows, are $133, $184 and $234 and are available at the box office. Summer box office hours are 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

Womack will perform in the Cowan Center’s Vaughn Auditorium on Friday, Sept 12. The performance is sponsored by Citizens First Bank and Waller Broadcasting.

Other performances this season include The Sound of Music, Saturday, Oct. 4, sponsored by The Vaughn Foundation; Bowfire, Saturday, Nov. 15, sponsored by Joyce Buford and Dermatology Associates of Tyler; Dance Theatre of Harlem, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2004, sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Z. Ornelas; and the Montana Repertory Theatre’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire, sponsored by Jack and Debra King.

MOMIX – Opus Cactus will be presented on Thursday, March 18, 2004. The Performing Art Series event is sponsored by the late Mrs. David G. Braithwaite as A Braithwaite Performing Arts Program jointly presented by UT Tyler Cowan Center and East Texas Symphony Orchestra.

A special event this season will be Cirque Éloize Nomade on Thursday, Feb. 26, sponsored by NBC 56. Tickets are $16, $26, $36. These tickets are available only to season subscribers at this time.

All proceeds from Cirque Éloize will fund scholarships for the UT Tyler School of Visual and Performing Arts.

Now a household name, Womack was born and raised in Jacksonville. After spending several years as a professional songwriter, she became one of the breakout contemporary country stars of 1997 with her debut album. Its release created a buzz in the country music industry for its originality and contributions by standouts like Mark Chesnut, Ricky Skaggs, Sharon White and Tony Brown.

Shortly after its release, her debut album reached the Top Ten on the country chart. “I Hope You Dance’’ won Single of the Year at the Country Music Awards in 2000, and she won the coveted Female Vocalist of the Year in 2001. This year, Womack and Willie Nelson, took the "Collaboration" Grammy Award for the song "Mendocino County Line" from Nelson’s "Great Divide" album.

Popular with audiences of all ages, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music tells the story of Maria, a spirited young novice who leaves the abbey to become a governess, endears herself to a family of seven motherless children and warms the heart of their stern widowed father. The production features a glorious score including “My Favorite Things,’’ “Do Re Mi’’ and “Climb Ev’ry Mountain.

Eleven sizzling violinists join fiddle forces to make Bowfire one of the hottest acts currently touring North America. This high-octane fiddling festival features electrifying music with solos by violinists in genres like jazz, classical, bluegrass, Celtic and modern.

Dance Theatre of Harlem is a world renowned, multicultural, neoclassical ballet company with an eclectic repertoire of 125 works, from pure dance to powerful dance dramas. Considered one of ballet’s most exciting undertakings, the company was formed 34 years ago as a ballet school to provide opportunities for young people in Harlem to study and excel in classical technique.

An American classic by Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire is recognized as one of the greatest American plays ever written. Streetcar chronicles the mental and emotional demise of Blanche Du Bois, which mirrors the disintegration of the antebellum south. The Montana Repertory Theatre has been touring since 1968 and has presented more than 300 performances in more than 100 communities from California to New York.

In “Opus Cactus,’’ MOMIX Artistic Director Moses Pendleton has choreographed a show consisting of 21 images – all based on the great landscape of the American southwest and the “Sunflower of the Desert,’’ the saguaro cactus. This multimedia event transports audiences into a theatrical fantasy world featuring MOMIX’s trademark use of props, light, shadow, humor and the never-ending beauty of the human body.

Nomade, a striking new production from the Canadian company Cirque Éloize, offers a festive celebration of song and dance. Providing audiences with an insider’s look into the “cirque’’ world of enchantment, humor and wonder, the theatrical, artistic show has a gypsy flavor and is similar to other great cirques touring the country.

For more information, call the UT Tyler Cowan Center box office, 903-566-7424.

www.uttlyer.edu/cowan