ArtCraft

The Kentucky Shakespeare Festival is moving forward with a 2013 summer season and with establishing an annual "destination model" summer theater festival in Louisville. 

Last summer, the festival’s board gave themselves a February deadline to raise an extra $300,000 to fully fund two summer productions in advance or cancel the 2013 season. The oldest annual free Shakespeare in the Park festival will open “Twelfth Night” in Central Park in June. 

Three live, free literary events are scheduled between now and next Monday, each with their own character of place and vibe. 

Friday, February 22: Punk Rock Poems & Novel Drinking Games

Louisville’s Center Stage opens Andrew Lloyd Weber’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” this week. The musical was the first Andrew Lloyd Weber/Tim Rice collaboration to be staged, but it didn’t really catch on until the two had a smash hit with “Jesus Christ Superstar” in the early Seventies.

The musical tells the Old Testament story of Jacob's favored son Joseph and his twelve jealous brothers. Joseph's a big dreamer -- and his dreams tend to come true -- so when he dreams that he will one day become king, his resentful brothers conspire to sell him into slavery. 

Ben Goddard, who plays Jerry Lee Lewis (and plays piano like him, too) talked with WFPL's Erin Keane yesterday about the touring life, acting vs. impressions, playing an American icon and growing up in England with rock and roll. The show plays at the Kentucky Center through Sunday, Feb. 17.

Producing artistic director Brantley Dunaway confirmed today that the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival will stage a summer season. Though the organization produces the oldest free annual Shakespeare in the Park festival in the United States, the future of the festival was uncertain at the end of last season. 

Gov. Steve Beshear appointed poet Frank X Walker the 2013-14  Kentucky Poet Laureate today.

On our audio diary series The Big Break, our emerging performers encounter some surprises on stage and learn that every show brings its unique challenges and opportunities. Actors Theatre of Louisville apprentice Samantha Beach receives her crew assignments from her Humana Festival "bible," Louisville Ballet trainee Claire Horrocks re-learns how to walk like "a real person" in "Romeo and Juliet" and Kentucky Opera studio artist Brad Raymond enjoys some noir-infused fun in "Don Giovanni." 

Stage One Family Theatre commemorates Black History Month with a play about Jackie Robinson, the first African American man to play in baseball’s major leagues. The first baseman broke the unwritten color barrier in 1947. The story takes a contemporary student back in time to witness Jackie Robinson’s historic first season with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Playwright Stephen Dietz adapted the play from Dan Gutman’s novel, a volume in his “Baseball Card Adventures” series.