IOWA CITY — At a time when unrest and upheaval have called into question the relevance of arts education and financing, upholding the arts has become even more important, “precisely because there are so many problems going on in the world,” said Paul Brohan, programming director at Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City. “Practically every culture on the planet have proved to us that the human voice raised together in song, that the beat of a drum, that the expression of a character onstage, that the right combination of composition and color on a canvas have ways of teaching us things, of connecting to our deepest sense of who we are as humans and of our deepest sense of who we are together as a community — that the arts are always available to us as a leader and a salve and a joy and an entertainment,” he said.
Some sites may require subscription
The Gazette - Saturday, January 12, 2019
Press Citizen - Wednesday, December 19, 2018
One of the biggest stars in recent Broadway history will be gracing Hancher's stage on New Year's Eve, and will help the audience usher in 2019.
Kristin Chenoweth, the Tony Award-winning star of the smash musical hit "Wicked" will perform at 9:30 p.m. New Year's Eve on Hancher's stage.
She and her quintet will bring a one-of-a-kind New Year's Eve celebration to Hancher. After her performance, a complementary champagne toast will be served afterwards and a fireworks finale will take place beginning at 11:50 p.m
Little Village - Thursday, December 6, 2018
Les Misérables, the epic musical based on Victor Hugo’s expansive 1862 novel, returns to Hancher this week. The play has a long and popular history in Iowa City. First performed at the Hancher during the 1989-90 season, the musical returned during the 1991/92, 1994/95, 1996/97, and 1999/2000 seasons. Nearly 93,000 have seen the show at the Hancher during this time. Now, after almost 18 years (just shy of Jean Valjean’s 19 year imprisonment for stealing a loaf of bread), Les Miz is back and 1,250 more locals attended the opening night performance on Tuesday, Dec. 4.
The basics of the plotline are likely familiar to most potential viewers, but summarized here: Before the play begins, prisoner Jean Valjean has stolen bread to feed his starving sister and his sentence has been extended to 19 years. We first see him toiling as a galley slave on a ship.
The Gazette - Wednesday, December 5, 2018
If you think you’ve seen “Les Miserables,” think again.
I’ve seen the musical multiple times, and yet, so much of the national tour’s opening night Tuesday at Hancher Auditorium felt completely new.
Emerging from the shadows of the award-winning 1987 Broadway production is a re-imagining of scenery and staging that breathes new life into Victor Hugo’s 1862 heart-wrenching journey through crime, hope, love and redemption. So many scenes take on a heightened level of intimacy — even in the large, group setting.
Daily Iowan - Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Les Misérables, the world’s longest running and arguably one of the best musicals created in the 20th century, opened at Hancher Tuesday night.
Seats filled up fast in the belly of Hancher’s main auditorium, and a large screen with a ship weathering a storm loomed over the stage. The “Prologue” song began with force filled with the beauty and strength needed to withstand prison for 19 years. The year is 1815, and Jean Valjean is being released by Inspector Javert and put on parole.
Press Citizen - Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Jack McLeod stood in front of a dark stage inside Hancher Auditorium. Dozens of people were testing lights, one standing on a fully-extended cherry picker on the set, a team setting up a row of costumes behind the stage, a group putting together a drum set with almost 50 different drums or instruments to strike.
"This is a normal day, a laid back one where everything is going right," McLeod, the production stage manager for the visiting tour of "Les Misérables," said Tuesday, around eight hours before curtain on the first showing of the musical playing all this week in Iowa City.
The Daily Iowan - Sunday, December 2, 2018
A little over 30 years ago, the Broadway production of Les Misérables made its debut, transforming the world of musical theatre for one day more. The massive production makes its way to Hancher for the sixth time, now in a sparkly new Hancher and with a new generation of Les Mis fanatics.
Les Misérables premieres on December 4 and will perform through December 9. Because of its large set and cast size, the production performs for a minimum of eight times at a single venue. Chuck Swanson, executive director of Hancher, recalls a memory leading up to Les Mis first performance at Hancher. Swanson had to remove a load of bricks at a loading dock in order to move the giant barricades into the building.
The Daily Iowan - Saturday, December 1, 2018
The five brass players entered through a side entrance, unnoticed at first by the audience. They had already begun to play; heads searched frantically, entranced by the smooth sounds coming from their golden instruments. They walked casually through the audience, and slowly made their way to the stage. They swayed side to side to the rhythm of the music. Their instruments were a part of them, an inseparable extension of their body.
The Gazette - Thursday, November 29, 2018
Nick Cartell dreamed a dream of playing Jean Valjean, and now that dream has come true.
The Phoenix native who played student rebel Marius about 10 years ago in his hometown, has jumped to the signature role in “Les Miserables.” The new national tour of the Tony-winning musical is coming to Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City for eight performances Tuesday (12/4) to Dec. 9.
The Gazette - Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Since 1981, Momix dancer-illusionists have been twisting, bending and shape-shifting in works defying physical boundaries and inventiveness. This Connecticut troupe founded by choreographer Moses Pendleton is returning to Hancher with “Opus Cactus,” grounded in the life and landscape of the American southwest. Created as a 20-minute piece in 2001, “Opus Cactus” has been transformed into a full-length work full of cactuses, slithering lizards and fire dancers. Clive Barnes of the New York Post said: “ ... Pendleton’s ingenuity, theatricality and cunning imagination are seen at full stretch in strange vignettes of the Sonoran desert.”