Drops & Drama

admin — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 04:47:11 +0000

Drops & Drama III
Saturdays 1:00 pm & 3:00 pm shows
June 23rd - July 28th

Now a Winona tradition!

1909 hand-painted scenery - a great narrator script by Lynn Nankivil and dramatic readings from the classics by the GRSF apprentice actors. A truly unique experience!

Historic Main Street Theatre

Tickets are $5

Press

admin — Thu, 24 May 2007 16:19:15 +0000

As we continue to build our site, please check back for more information.

GRSF Prelude

admin — Sat, 05 May 2007 16:15:41 +0000

James Armstrong
Saturday, June 30th at 9:00 pm
Lake Park Bandshell
FREE and Open to the Public

In celebration of the opening weekend of the Great River Shakespeare Festival’s 4th Season, Theatre du Mississippi is proud to present the prelude series for the GRSF 2007 season.

Critics have said that James Armstrong was born to play the blues. His mother was a blues singer and his father played jazz guitar. As a child, he absorbed the sounds and lessons of his father’s friends, among them Irving Ashby, Nat King Cole’s guitarist. Today he travels the world and continues to infuse his voice and guitar-playing with his unique personal history, raw instincts and seasoned skills.

Known as an artist who respects the solid foundation of the blues tradition, Armstrong keeps the genre alive by injecting a contemporary groove into everything he does. He credits Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton as influences, and Armstrong has shared the stage with the likes of Roy Brown, Chaka Khan, Ricky Lee Jones, Jan & Dean, and Joe Louis Walker, just to name just a few.

“We saw James Armstrong at the Trempealeau Hotel Blues Festival last summer, and he was just outstanding,” said Greg Peterson, chair of the Theatre du Mississippi board. “The crowd loved his band, and we felt he was a perfect choice for this free community concert. It’s going to be a great, family friendly event.”

Cam Waters
Friday, July 6th at 6:30 pm
Winona State University Campus Green
Open to the Public

Cam Waters has spent the last twenty-odd years crisscrossing the country and honing his unique style on the stages of coffeehouses, clubs, concert halls, and festivals. Music writers across the country and in Europe consistently commend his understated, expressive singing and his simple yet inventive fingerstyle and slide guitar playing.

His literate, tradition-based songwriting mixes seamlessly with his arrangements of rural blues, jug band songs, and American folk music. He has appeared in concert with Doc Watson, Dave Van Ronk, David Bromberg, Maria Muldaur, Greg Brown, Spider John Koerner, Roy Book Binder, Steve James, Bob Brozman, Robin and Linda Williams, and many more of acoustic music’s most well-respected performers.

Liz Queler & Seth Faber
Saturday, July 14th at 6:30 pm
Winona State University Campus Green
Open to the Public

Hailed by Billboard Magazine as “a singer’s singer” Liz Queler continuously explores her diversity moving comfortably from theaters and coffeehouses to the stage of Carnegie Hall.

Known primarily as a singer/songwriter with three critically acclaimed CDs to date, Liz made her Carnegie Hall debut in the fall of 2002 as a soloist in Leonard Bernstein’s “MASS”, a production that was repeated with the Dallas Symphony to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy the following year.

A native New Yorker and the daughter of esteemed opera conductor Eve Queler, Liz grew up on the stages of Lincoln Center as a member of the NYC Opera Children’s Chorus. After graduating from Tufts University, she attended Berklee College of Music to study jazz piano and guitar. Liz then followed her songwriting muse back to New York where she gained entrance as backup singer for widely respected Cliff Eberhardt. Liz has played many of the high profile festivals such as the Newport Folk Festival and the Kerrville Folk Festival, as well as top clubs such as the legendary Bottom Line in NYC and The Birchmere in Washington, DC. She’s also opened for many artists including Richie Havens, Cheryl Wheeler, Steve Forbert, Janis Ian and Guy Clark.

Liz’s husband Seth Farber, was born into music. Raised in New York City by his mother, a piano teacher, and his father, a music aficionado and amateur violinist, Seth discovered his affinity for the piano at the age of four. It’s no wonder that years later he’d find himself one of the busiest keyboard players in Manhattan. Since 1984, Seth could be heard playing in the blues, rock and jazz clubs, piano bars, theatres and studios around town.

Over the past 15 years Seth has recorded and performed with artists Odetta, Billy Joel, Cliff Eberhardt, Joan Osborne, Phoebe Snow, John Prine, Lucinda Williams, Chip Taylor, Curtis Stigers, Chuck Jackson, Popa Chubby, Alejandro Escovedo, Little Steven, Liz Queler and many others.