Central Skagit Library District

Caustic comedian and best-selling author Jim Norton pulls no punches in this comedy special, going after jaw-dropping laughs not intended for the faint of heart. Among his targets: the national hypersensitivity epidemic - leading celebrities, talking heads and regular Joes alike to get offended by just about anything. Norton's got a message for those people, and it's in the title.

A deceptively simple tale: Dmitry Gurov, a comfortable, middle-aged husband, father and womanizer, has a casual affair with Anna Sergeyevna, an unhappy young wife, while vacationing in Yalta; to his amazement, the jaded Gurov falls in love for the first time in his life, just as Anna does with him.. Kama Ginkas has made a career of creating powerful theater based on the prose of classic Russian authors, including Fyoor Dostoevsky, Alexander Pushkin...

First staged in 1904 by Konstantin Stanislavsky in the very theater and on the very stage of this production, director Adolf Shapiro's interpretation asks the question, where would the characters of this play live today years after their cherry orchard has been cut down? The answer, which lies in the material world created by set designer David Borovsky, is, of course, on the stage. Russian star, Renata Litvinova, in her debut theatrical performance,...

Episode six features the history of Salsa music and dance in Philadelphia, the first Mexican-American Prima Ballerina Evelyn Cisneros, Tejana music pioneer Lydia Mendoza, and the father of Chicano music and National Medal of Arts recipient, Lalo Guerrero. A segment unveils the trajectory of Salsa music includes commentary on world renowned performers Celia Cruz and Tito Puente..

The film shows a recording of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the famous Balanchine choreography, which made the ballet such a popular staple with companies all over the world. Danced by three star-dancers in the main roles and a company that ranks among the best in the world, it guarantees first class entertainment. George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the summery counterpart to his Christmassy Nutcracker: Ist youthful charm and light...

Episode two features Miriam Colon and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater Company (PRTT) of New York, Tejana musical artist Selena, and the Santero art tradition of New Mexico. This episode unveils the stories of New Mexico artisans known as Santeros who engage in an art form heavily steeped in history and tradition. Santeros present an interesting juxtaposition of imposed religion and Native American culture. Santero artists Charlie Carrillo and Nick...

The “Dance Theatre of Harlem’s” birthplace was in a disused garage in Harlem, a black district of New York. Arthur Mitchell, the founder who still acts as its artistic director, set up the ballet school with the aim of giving black dancers the opportunity of sound training, as their skin color meant that they often encountered difficulties finding employment with existing companies which consisted mainly of white dancers. Since its humble beginnings...

Richard Strauss completed his second-to-last opera “Die Liebe der Danae” in 1940. Written under war clouds, the “merry mythology” based on an idea by Hugo von Hofmannsthal was given a provisional, by-invitation-only dress rehearsal premiere at the 1944 Salzburg Festival the day before all theaters in the “Reich” were closed by order of the Ministry of Propaganda. The official world premiere took place at the 1952 Salzburg Festival –...

Episode three features Luis Valdez and the legendary Teatro Campesino, a segment of San Antonio's Day of the Dead Celebration, the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe as a Latina icon, experimental border filmmaker Willie Varela, and a profile of Chicago's soapbox artist Carlos Cortez..

Dance, documentary, and drama. All converge in Parables of War in a meditation exploring the timeless question: can civilization bind the wounds of war? Using MacArthur "Genius"choreographer Liz Lerman’s, theatrical performance piece Healing Wars as a point of departure, Parables witnesses the journey of three men who are, in one way or another, all casualties of war: Bill Pullman, the actor; Keith Thompson, the dancer; and Josh Bleill, the former...