Category: Community Programs

The Hermitage Artist Retreat and Sarasota Contemporary Dance (SCD) are partnering for the biennial National Water Dance (NWD) event, with new work inspired by gratitude for water and the urgent need to preserve local water resources as part of this year’s NWD theme, “Dancing Out of Time,” on Saturday, April 23 at 3:30pm. Click here to register.

This performance by the SCD company of professional dancers on the Hermitage Beach (Manasota Key) will be broadcast simultaneously with performance groups from across the country and all around the world, with an introduction by Dr. Emily Heffernan, Associate Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies at New College of Florida.

“Sarasota Contemporary Dance is thrilled to partner with the Hermitage Artist Retreat on lands originally occupied by the Calusa people to perform in the National Water Dance awareness campaign,” said SCD Artistic Director Leymis Bolaños. “Partnering with National Water Dance and founder Dale Andree since the start of National Water Dance more than ten years ago, SCD is honored to continue this long-standing partnership to bring awareness to the socio-environmental issues concerning climate change and the sanctity of our waters.” 

“In addition to being a leading arts incubator for bold and original new works, the Hermitage is deeply committed to ecological preservation and restoration,” said Hermitage Artistic Director and CEO Andy Sandberg. “To that end, we are honored that this new creative work from Sarasota Contemporary Dance has been inspired by our historic, beachfront campus on Manasota Key as we partner to raise awareness for National Water Dance. We look forward to sharing this performance with the local community and participating in National Water Dance to highlight the importance of preserving our ecological resources.” 

Tony Award-winning stage and film composer Jeanine Tesori will present a free Hermitage community program, “Musical Storytelling: A Conversation with Jeanine Tesori,” at the Hermitage Artist Retreat on Friday, March 25 at 6pm. 

Click here to register for upcoming Hermitage programs.

Tesori has written four Tony Award-nominated scores for Broadway, including Twelfth Night (Lincoln Center); Thoroughly Modern Millie; Caroline, or Change; and Shrek the Musical. She won a Tony Award for Fun Home and recently served as supervising vocal producer on Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated adaptation of West Side Story. 

Her newest musical, Kimberly Akimbo, opened to critical acclaim Off-Broadway earlier this season and has just announced that it will be transferring to Broadway this fall. She has also twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, for her musicals Fun Home (written with Lisa Kron) and Soft Power (written with David Henry Hwang).

“We are honored to welcome Jeanine Tesori to host this special program for our Gulf Coast community,” said Hermitage Artistic Director and CEO Andy Sandberg, who will be moderating the conversation. “I had a ‘very Tesori weekend’ when I last returned to New York, seeing a matinee of her beautiful musical Kimberly Akimbo, followed by an evening screening of West Side Story. Jeanine is one of the most influential theater artists of our time. She is a brilliant composer, passionate theater-maker, and inspiring educator with a list of impressive accolades throughout her career. This promises to be an exciting conversation on the Hermitage Beach and an exciting opportunity for the members of our community to meet one of the true musical theater greats.”

Winner of the Tony, Drama Desk, and Obie Awards, and a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Tesori has also composed the music for The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival’s production of Brecht’s Mother Courage, starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline, as well as the film adaptation of Nights in Rodanthe, starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane. Her opera commissions include Met/LCT Opera/Theater and Glimmerglass Opera. She is on the council of the Dramatists Guild and teaches musical theater composition at Yale University. She has collaborated with numerous previous Hermitage Fellows throughout her distinguished career.

Jeanine Tesori’s Hermitage Residency is generously sponsored by Carole Crosby & Larry Wickless.

A 2022 Hermitage Fellow and the most recent recipient of the prestigious Kleban Prize for “Most Promising Musical Theater Lyricist,” songwriter and theater-maker César Alvarez will present a free community program — “Reimagining the Musical: Past, Present, & Futurity” — on Wednesday, March 23 at 6pm at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens (Downtown Sarasota Campus). Alvarez will share an informal hour of songs and stories about magic, domesticity, ghosts, and the way the universe works.

Events in this series frequently reach capacity quickly, so early reservations are strongly encouraged. Click here to register.

Alvarez (they/them/theirs) is a composer, lyricist, playwright, and performance maker whose genre-bending work engages the contemporary moment through worlds, ranging from a young girl who encounters a cosmic variety hour at the edge of life in The Elementary SpaceTime Show to a Civil War-era machine that creates peace in Futurity (Soho Rep / Ars Nova). Futurity was the recipient of the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding New Musical. With a background as a jazz saxophonist, band leader, and sound artist, Alvarez’s work draws upon theater, music, performance art, and social practice. A 2018–2020 Princeton Arts Fellow and recipient of the Jonathan Larson Award, Alvarez is currently an Assistant Professor of Music at Dartmouth College with a B.Mus. from Oberlin Conservatory and an MFA from Bard College.

“As we continue our ongoing partnership with Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, we are excited to introduce Sarasota audiences to Hermitage Fellow, musical artist, and theater-maker César Alvarez,” said Hermitage Artistic Director and CEO Andy Sandberg. “I had the pleasure of seeing César’s musical Futurity in its acclaimed Off-Broadway run, and look forward to hearing more from this leading voice in the worlds of musical theater and performance art. They bring a truly unique approach to storytelling, and Selby Gardens provides a unique backdrop for experiencing bold and innovative new work.”

The Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Van Wezel Foundation present the first program in the “UNSCRIPTED 2.0” series with poet, storyteller, and master teaching artist Hannah Hasan on Wednesday, February 16th at 5:30pm, outdoors and socially distanced on the lawn of the Van Wezel Hall. 

UNSCRIPTED is a unique collaboration between the Van Wezel Foundation and the Hermitage Artist Retreat in which audiences share an interactive encounter with an award-winning Hermitage artist, inviting audiences to be an active part of the experience by responding to a prompt as part of the program. To register for UNSCRIPTED, visit artsUNSCRIPTED.org.

“We are looking forward to re-launching the UNSCRIPTED series in partnership with the Van Wezel Foundation, building on last year’s virtual experiences and expanding our continued collaborations and community programming throughout the region,” notes Andy Sandberg, Artistic Director and CEO of the Hermitage Artist Retreat. “We are excited to revive this interactive series with 2022 Hermitage Fellow, storyteller, and master teaching artist Hannah Hasan, who will share her talents as an arts educator and invite audiences to actively take part in creating a story.”

UNSCRIPTED 2.0 attendees will be invited to interact with Hasan and learn more about her unique approach to creating narrative that centers ‘home’ and belonging in community. Drawing from her own experiences as a demonstration, Hasan will also lead participants through the process of unearthing and sharing their own stories, beginning with a prompt that all audience members will be asked to prepare prior to the event. 

“What is special about this series with the Hermitage is that the audience will come along for the journey and play an active role in the process,” said Cheryl Mendelson, CEO of the Van Wezel Foundation. “As we build the vision for a new Sarasota Performing Arts Center, our goal is to establish even more cultural partnerships that provide these interactive experiences with the arts.”

Hermitage Fellow Hannah Hasan is an award-winning spoken word poet, speaker, and storyteller who believes that our stories can set us free. With themes that center home, social justice, racial justice, women’s rights, and more, Hasan is often commissioned to write and perform, present keynote addresses, and facilitate workshops for events, conferences, and meetings. She has been engaged to write, perform, speak, and facilitate by numerous government agencies, non-profit organizations and charities, colleges and universities, start-ups, small businesses, and large corporations such as The Arts for Biden National Campaign, The Office of Community Services, Coffee Cup People, National Alliance of Community Economic Development Associations, Verizon, Levine Museum of the New South, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Promise Neighborhoods of Lehigh Valley, Brown University, Davidson College, the City University of New York Journalism School, and many others. Hasan has a specialized talent for creating safe and brave spaces for audiences. She has been awarded grants, fellowships, awards, and accolades for her work from organizations like The Arts and Science Council, Mobilize.Org, The Knight Foundation, Citizen’s University, The Hermitage Artist Retreat, and more. She also serves on multiple community advisory boards for organizations such as The Charlotte Symphony, Levine Museum of The New South, and The Charlotte Observer. For a complete bio, visit HannahHasan.com 

The Hermitage Artist Retreat brings the next installment of its “Artists & Thinkers” series to Longboat Key with “Theater Today: Process & Production,” a conversation with Tony Award-winning Broadway producer Tom Kirdahy (Hadestown; The Inheritance; Little Shop of Horrors).

A champion of new work and a resident of Longboat Key, Kirdahy will speak with fellow Tony Award winner and Hermitage Artistic Director and CEO Andy Sandberg about the inextricable link between theatrical development and production, and the multi-year creative journey from an idea to production. Following a successful event in 2021 hosted on the Hermitage Beach – part of the Hermitage “Artists & Thinkers” series – Kirdahy and Sandberg will continue their candid conversation in the town of Longboat Key, outdoors on Friday, February 25th at 5:30pm, at the Town Center of Longboat Key, 501 Bay Isles Road, Longboat Key, FL 34228. Click here to register.

“I am truly looking forward to continuing this dialogue with my friend and colleague Tom Kirdahy,” said Sandberg. “Tom is a thoughtful and accomplished producer who has shepherded some truly extraordinary plays and musicals to the stage, even amidst the most challenging of circumstances. Moreover, Tom is a true champion of artists and the creative process. He understands and appreciates the importance of early development and collaboration in guiding new work from the page to the stage, and we’re honored to have him in the Hermitage family!”

Kirdahy is a Tony and Olivier Award-winning producer whose projects have spanned Broadway, Off-Broadway, and the West End, as well as national and international tours. Select New York/London credits: Hadestown (8 Tony Awards, including Best New Musical), The Inheritance (Tony Award for Best Play; 11 Tony nominations), Little Shop of Horrors (Drama Desk Award, Best Musical Revival), Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (2 Tony nominations, including Best Revival). Additional Tony nominations: The Visit, Mothers and Sons, After Midnight, Ragtime, and Master Class. He is the recipient of the Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Achievement in Commercial Theater Producing. Kirdahy serves on the Broadway League Board of Governors and the Board of Trustees of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. As an attorney, he spent nearly two decades providing free legal services to people living with HIV/AIDS and served for many years on the Executive Committee of the NYC LGBT Center. Graduate Studies: New York University School of Law, NYU CAS.

Hermitage Fellow, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright, and American Theater Hall of Fame Honoree Paula Vogel returns to the Hermitage to present a community program as part of the “Hermitage @ Booker” series, a collaborative partnership with Booker High School’s Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) program, which launched in December 2021 with Hermitage Fellow and jazz musician Luke Stewart. The “Hermitage @ Booker” series features outdoor public programs intended for adults, as well as high-school and college students in the community.

“Pen to Paper with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright Paula Vogel” takes place on Friday, February 11th at 5pm (ET), in the outdoor courtyard at Booker High School where Vogel will lead a writing ‘bake-off’ in which the audience will collectively create and design a short play through writing prompts and exercises.

“We are honored to welcome legendary playwright Paula Vogel back to the Hermitage, where she will be sharing her extraordinary talent as a writer and experience as an educator with the members of our Sarasota community. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Dr. Rachel Shelley and the Booker VPA faculty as we build meaningful connections between some of the nation’s leading artists and our community,” said Hermitage Artistic Director and CEO Andy Sandberg. “We look forward to introducing more area residents and students to the bold new works and creative journeys of acclaimed Hermitage Fellows from around the world.”

Vogel has taught playwriting for thirty years at Brown University and at the Yale School of Drama. Her plays include How I Learned to Drive, The Long Christmas Ride Home, The Mineola Twins, The Baltimore Waltz, Hot ‘N’ Throbbing, Desdemona, And Baby Makes Seven, The Oldest Profession, A Civil War Christmas, Don Juan Comes Home From Iraq, and Indecent. Vogel has been developing her playwriting memoir How To Bake A Play as part of her Hermitage Residency.

The Hermitage’s 2022 outdoor programs are free and open to the public with a $5/person registration fee. “Pen to Paper” is intended for adults, college students, and high-school students. Due to capacity limitations and social distancing, registration is required. Click to register.