San Diego's Top Weekend Arts Events: From Jane Austen To 'Game of Thrones'

Speaker 1: 00:00 This long weekend is all about skewing your expectations, whether it's a new take on Jane Austin or the music of game of Thrones translated to the Oregon plus the San Diego Jewish arts festival begins and local high school students try their shot at Broadway. It's all ahead on today's weekend preview and KPBS arts calendar editor, Nina Garren is here. Hi Nina. Hello. So sitting that theater recently opened Jane Austen's pride and prejudice. Is this a traditional staging? It's traditional in the terms that the language and the story is what you expect, but the staging is not traditional at all. You're going to get music from eighties girl pop bands. Um, the choreography is really fun. Think cheerleading. Um, and the actors, they play different characters. And so often you have men playing women. How will Jane Austin Purest feel about all this? So Kate Hamill is who adopted it and she's known for taking classic stories, um, and preserving the integrity. Speaker 1: 01:04 I think they'll like it if they know it's going to be a little bit different. And what's good is that it examined social and gender issues through a modern perspective. And in case some of us forgot the plot of pride and prejudice. Remind us of what it's about. It's a family of five daughters and the mom is desperate to find a perfect match for everyone. Um, but really it's about the romance of Elizabeth and Darcy. They're too prideful and prejudice to realize that they are very compatible. And you saw it last weekend. What'd you think? I loved it. I love things that are traditional but take a new form. It's very inventive. It's very outrageous, but also serious. I think. Um, you should check it out. And tickets for this are going fast. Okay. Pride and prejudice plays through June 16th at signature theater and the Broadway San Diego high school awards are also this weekend. Speaker 1: 01:57 Can you tell us what this is? It's a high school musical theater competition with San Diego's top 20 students competing to win a trip to New York where they compete on a national level. So what happens at the award show? Is it open to the public? Yeah, it's actually a really fun show. You get the top 10 boys and the top 10 girls and they perform a solo from their show and then alive in front of you, it gets narrowed down to the top six and then the top two and the grand prize is a trip to New York for a similar competition. Tell us about that. It's called the Jimmy awards and it has students from all over the United States and many people who have been finalists or one are now on Broadway. Like the winner from last year is playing Evan Hansen and dear Evan Hansen and the most famous is even know Bousada who first was in Miss Saigon and got a Tony Nomination and is nominated again for being in Haiti's town. Hmm. Let's listen to a clip from last year's winner and Jonas Mcmillan. This is try me from the musical. She loves me in this. Speaker 2: 02:59 I would let you down, Mr Meritech [inaudible]. Oh, I can tell by the uncertain way you frown that you've asked yourself why me for a first class working at dupont conscientious working Mr. Merritt check Wyandotte Speaker 3: 03:17 [inaudible] Speaker 2: 03:19 let me turn this jar, madam. Certainly rights. You are Madam, you say that it smells like a rounded cat does at that at Merritt text, madam be claimed with pride, the customer must be satisfied Speaker 1: 03:36 and we should mention that you're actually one of the judges in this competition, right? I am. It's my third year and it's one of my favorite things to do. I just love seeing all the talented kids in San Diego and talented. They are the Broadway San Diego high school awards happened Sunday at the Balbo with theater and the 26th annual San Diego Jewish arts festival kicks off this weekend. Tell us about this event. It's an arts festival that takes the Jewish experience and sees it through the Lens of art. So you have a mix of music, dance and theater and it is something that goes through July 11th and one of the first events is a collaboration between San Diego ballet and the musician Yale strong. Uh, tell me about that. Maelstrom is a world renowned Klezmer musician and historian and Klezmer is kind of the traditional music of European Ashkenazi Jews. And so this is going to be a ballet show that features romantic poetry, music and dance, and they're all world premieres choreographed by Javier Velazco and we have some music from yield. Strom and hot pastrami from the album. The absolutely complete introduction to Klezmer Speaker 4: 04:45 [inaudible] Speaker 3: 04:51 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 05:09 lots of energy there. Yes. So what are some of the other festival highlights? In June there's going to be a night of Bob Dylan songs. There's also going to be an Israeli operatic pop trio that's in town. And then there's going to be a staged reading of a new show by Herbert. See Gwen Zay called Asimov's last chapter in the San Diego Jewish arts festival runs through July at venues throughout the county. And finally there is an event for people having withdrawals from game of Thrones. Yeah, this actually just got put together for this weekend. The Spreckels organ society and the Organist Rye will Prietto Ramirez. They put together an extended mentally of music from the game of Thrones that'll be performed on the Oregon. Let's listen to the theme song from the show. Speaker 3: 05:54 [inaudible] there it is. Speaker 1: 06:12 So how does this translate onto the origin? All the organ is so powerful and this song is very layered. So the organist just going to bring all the magical qualities of the music. It's very lush and yet it's going to be great to hear it performed in this Oregon, which is the largest outdoor pipe organ in the world. And this is a free event. It's free and it's in the afternoon, so spots will be full and you need to arrive early. The music from the game of Thrones happened Sunday at the Spreckels organ pavilion in Balboa Park. You can find more events@akpbs.org slash. Arts I've been speaking with arts calendar editor, Nina Garren. Nina, thanks. Thanks. Have a good weekend. Speaker 3: 06:54 Yeah.