Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
By JOHN FLEMING
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 31, 2001
Nine concerts in Sarasota
Student and faculty musicians make up the Sarasota Music Festival, celebrating its 37th anniversary this year, under the direction of Paul Wolfe. The festival features such outstanding players as pianist Robert Levin, flutist Carol Wincenc, violinist Joseph Silverstein and violist Robert Vernon. They perform mainly chamber music at Holley Hall and Van Wezel Hall in a series of nine concerts that begins June 7. Tickets, information: toll-free 1-800-287-9634 or (941) 953-3434; www.fwcs.org/sarasota.
An updated version of an ancient play on that most ancient of themes -- the war between the sexes -- takes the stage at Shimberg Playhouse at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center tonight through June 17. Aristophanes' Lysistrata is named for an Athenian woman who convinces the women of Greece to seize the Acropolis and hold a "sex strike" in order to force their men to end the Peloponnesian War. The Center Theater Company promises to leave the togas and original dialogue out (the play was written in 410 B.C.) in favor of a contemporary approach.
Over the years, Lysistrata has sometimes been banned because of its provocative themes. This version is described as bawdy, but the director says the content is appropriate for older children. The play is at 8 p.m. Thur.-Sat. and 4 p.m. Sun. through June 17. Tickets: $15.50 Thur., $21.50 Fri.-Sun. Call (813) 229-7827 or toll-free 1-800-955-1045 or online at www.tbpac.org.