 Season 07/08
A Calendar Brimming
with Great Performances
By Leigh Baldwin
Photography Joan Marcus
You may be well past school age
and feeling a little left out of all the
excitement fall brings to children and
youth — a feeling of a fresh start, a
change of pace, a turning of the corner.
Luckily, classes aren’t the only things
that begin every fall. San Antonio’s premier
performing arts institutions also begin
a new season of beauty and enjoyment,
starting with strong opening acts and setting
up a full calendar of expectations to
take you through to next summer.
This season of Broadway Across
America, at the historic Majestic Theatre, is
billed as “The Holy Grail of Broadway.” It’s
an appropriate moniker, given that the
season is highlighted by two very different,
equally famous,takes on the Knights of the
Round Table. Lerner and Loewe’s classic
Camelot debuts Jan. 22 and stars La
Bamba and Young Guns actor Lou
Diamond Phillips, and the season ends in
June with the hysterical musical comedy
Spamalot, based on the much-loved film
Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
 October serves up both Mamma Mia,
the smash ABBA-soundtrack musical, and
Richard Thomas in the intense jury drama Twelve Angry Men. Other offerings this
season include Stomp and The Ten Tenors
in November, a four-week run of The Phantom of the Opera from Feb. 27 to
March 23, and The Wedding Singer from
late April to early May.
Arts San Antonio serves up a series of
dance and movement performances that
will transport their audiences from
Argentina to remote China to snowy
Russia. On Sept.13,Tango Buenos Aires tells
a story through the iconic dance of a
young couple who fall in love and stage a
tango performance to attempt to break
free of poverty. In October, Arts San
Antonio welcomes the Shaolin Warriors from Beijing, known throughout the world
for their disciplined and deadly martial-arts
prowess. The production features many
forms of Shaolin Kung Fu as well as a look
at the daily life of the warriors and their Zen
philosophy. And the Christmas treat, The
Nutcracker, returns Dec. 6 for four performances
with The Moscow Classical Ballet.
At Carver Community Cultural
Center, dance, poetry and all types of
jazz reign this season. It starts in October
with 3 Mo’ Divas singing all the R&B and
show tunes you’ve come to love. And if
you want even more of the musical theatre’s
best, come back in April for their
Gershwin on Broadway night. Kuumba
Kwanzaa drumming and dance celebrate
the holidays, and jazz goes both
Latin (Salsamba!) in November and old
school (The Langston Hughes Project) in
February. Dance performances by the Morgan Scott Ballet and Evidence
Dance round out the program.
For a more intimate experience,
Camerata San Antonio, the local professional chamber music group, will be
offering concerts throughout the area.
In San Antonio, they will be hosted by
Travis Park United Methodist Church
downtown, in Boerne at First United
Methodist Church and in Kerrville at First
Presbyterian. Almost all programs will
have multiple performances, so make
the drive if you miss your local one.
Concerts include All Beethoven,
Recording Miguel (the Music of Miguel
del Aguila), Songs and Serenades with
Susan Lorette Dunn, soprano, and a Big
Strings finale in April.
 More chamber music on the annual
agenda from the San Antonio Chamber
Music Society includes Enso Quartet,
Chanticleer, Trio Solisti, Orion String
Quartet, Turtle Island String Quartet and Trio con Brio Copenhagen. Tuesday
Musical Club adds Rastrelli Cello Quartet,
Lawrence Brownlee, Elina Vahala and the Santinelli Sisters to the classical music mix.
Beyond San Antonio’s borders, performing
arts venues continue to grow. The
Kerrville Performing Arts Society’s calendar
at the Kathleen C. Cailloux Theatre
goes global, with performances from
Japan, China, Spain, Canada, Africa and
England. Enjoy classical Spanish guitar with
the Romero Quartet in January, Celtic
dance with The Stepcrew in February, and
the African Children’s Choir in March.
At the historic Brauntex Performing
Arts Theatre in New Braunfels, the season
gets off to a rousing start with some small
town Texas talent, the Three Redneck
Tenors, and keeps it up with the show, Toying with Science, developed by the
Museum of Science in Boston and showcasing
wacky demonstrations of key scientific
fundamentals. Quartetto Gelato, The
Platters and Ray Anthony as Richie Valens
are also on their season schedule.
 But what if you miss something? The
great advantage of our thriving regional
arts scene is that certain key performances
will appear at multiple venues. Shaolin Warriors, for example, are scheduled for Oct. 24 at the Lila Cockrell
Theatre and Oct. 23 at the Kathleen C.
Cailloux. The Stepcrew are playing at
both the Cailloux and the Brauntex, Feb.
12 and 10 respectively. And we’re
blessed with several runs of The
Nutcracker this winter: Dec. 6-8 with the Moscow Classical Ballet at Municipal
Auditorium and Dec. 21-23 with our own Ballet San Antonio at the Cockrell.
San Antonio Opera will also call the
Cockrell home this season. Following their
successful run of La Boheme in August, the “Season of Love” continues with performances
of Elixir of Love, an Italian comic
opera directed by legendary Hollywood
director and producer Garry Marshall in
January and Puccini’s heart-wrenching
thriller, Tosca, in June.
At the time of this writing, the San
Antonio Symphony and the San Antonio
Symphony Players Association are in
negotiations for a long-term accord that
will keep the music playing for years to
come. Once the agreement has been
inked, the season will burst onto the
scene Sept. 14 with Bernstein on Broadway, a
celebration of the 50th
anniversary of West Side
Story. This will be followed
immediately by a muchanticipated
performance
by Itzhak Perlman on Sept.
16. Midori officially opens
the classical season for the
symphony on Sept. 28.
Over 20 more concerts follow
in their season, many
conducted by music
director Larry Rachleff and
newly appointed resident
conductor Ken Masur.
You may not be going
back to school this month, but you can
certainly go back to the exciting world of
live performance. Season .07 / .08 — it’s
going to be great!
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