Impromp2, The Community Blog

Miami City Ballet on WPBT2

Witness the grace and beauty of one of America’s finest dance companies, Edward Villella’s Miami City Ballet, in a trio of signature works by George Balanchine and Twyla Tharp. Watch the company’s critically acclaimed performances of Balanchine’s “Square Dance” and “Western Symphony” and Tharp’s “The Golden Section.” Actor Andy Garcia hosts. GREAT PERFORMANCES is a production of Thirteen for WNET New York Public Media. The evening’s presentation is in collaboration with PBS member station WPBT.

 

 

GREAT PERFORMANCES “Miami City Ballet Dances Balanchine and Tharp” airs Friday, October 28 at 9pm as part of the PBS Arts Fall Festival.

PJ20

I n honor of Pearl Jam’s 20th anniversary, award-winning director and music journalist Cameron Crowe creates a definitive portrait of the seminal band carved from over 1,200 hours of rarely and never-before-seen footage, plus 24 hours of recently shot concert and interview footage. Hosted by director Taylor Hackford, “Pearl Jam Twenty” chronicles the years leading up to the band’s formation, the chaos that ensued soon after their rise to mega-stardom, their step back from center stage and the creation of a work culture that would sustain them. Part concert film, part insider hang, part testimonial to the power of music and uncompromising artists, the film celebrates the freedom that allowed Pearl Jam a way to make music without losing sight of what mattered most to them — their fans and the music fans that they themselves had always been. “Pearl Jam Twenty” features interviews with original band members Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready and Eddie Vedder, drummer Matt Cameron, and friend and Soundgarden singer/guitarist Chris Cornell, as well as archival performance and interview footage of Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog, Kurt Cobain and Neil Young. AMERICAN MASTERS is a production of Thirteen for WNET. The evening’s presentation is in collaboration with PBS member station KCTS.

AMERICAN MASTERS "Pearl Jam Twenty" airs on October 21 at 9pm on WPBT2, as part of the PBS Arts Fall Festival.

Alex Kingston to join Upstairs Downstairs cast

Actress Alex Kingston is to join the cast of Upstairs Downstairs when the BBC costume drama returns next year.

The former ER star, recently seen in the BBC's Doctor Who, will play Blanche Mottershead, the younger sister of Dame Eileen Atkins' character Lady Holland.

"I simply couldn't resist the opportunity to get inside the iconic 165 Eaton Place," said Kingston, 48.

Her casting follows Dame Eileen's announcement that she would not be returning for the next series.

The 77-year-old conceived the idea for the original 1970s series with fellow actress Jean Marsh but did not appear in it prior to its revival last year.

The new series, which begins shooting in October, will begin in 1938 and span the months leading up to the outbreak of World War II.

 

Continue here on BBC News site

Dr. House Sings the Blues...

What do you get when you mix a sarcastic, yet lovable, doctor and a blues and jazz singer? Hugh Laurie! 

WPBT2 will premiere Great Performances: Hugh Laurie: Let Them Talk- A Celebration of New Orleans Jazz on Friday, September 30 at 9pm.

 

Versatile British actor Hugh Laurie, an American favorite for his role in the hit TV series “House,” showcases his musical side in an atmospheric special filmed in New Orleans. Defying simple categorization, Laurie finds his greatest satisfaction and inspiration from the mixture of blues and jazz that grew out of New Orleans at the beginning of the last century.

 

 

  “Let Them Talk” is his personal journey into the heart and soul of that music. Including documentary and interview segments during Laurie’s travels around the city, the program features his performances with blues legends Allen Toussaint and Irma Thomas, as well as a fellow countryman similarly inspired by this uniquely American music, Sir Tom Jones. With concert sequences filmed at the historic Latrobe’s building in the French Quarter, the musical selections include New Orleans blues standards along with some forgotten and neglected gems.

 

PBS TO DEBUT FIRST EPISODE OF KEN BURNS’S “PROHIBITION” ON FREE PBS APPS FOR IPAD AND IPHONE

PBS announced today that the first episode of PROHIBITION, the much-anticipated film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, will premiere on the free PBS for iPad and PBS Apps for the iPhone and iPod touch beginning Friday, September 23.

Set in the era of bathtub gin, bootleggers and speakeasies, PROHIBITION tells the true story of the rise, rule and fall of the 18^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It was called the “Noble Experiment,” but it was in fact one of America’s most notorious civic failures, an object lesson in the challenge of legislating human behavior. 

The entire series will air nationally on PBS Sunday-Tuesday, October 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th. Each episode will also be streamed live on video.pbs.org, timed to the national broadcast. Episodes 2 and 3 of PROHIBITION will be available on PBS for iPad and PBS Apps for Phone and iPod touch the day after each television airdate and remain available through Friday, October 7^th. 

The premiere of the first episode of PROHIBITION on PBS Apps also provides viewers of HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” an opportunity, two days prior to the premiere of that series on Sunday, September 25^th, to watch the real story of what gave rise to prohibition. 

“We are huge fans of ‘Boardwalk Empire’ and are thrilled that we can share the story of what gave rise to prohibition, the topic of our first episode, to viewers tuning in to the premiere of ‘Boardwalk,’” said Ken Burns.

 “PBS’ strategy of debuting high-profile shows on the iPad and iPhone before television broadcast has been enormously popular with users,” said Jason Seiken, Senior Vice President, Interactive, Product Development & Innovation. "Users of our apps watched more than 52 million video streams last month. The early premiere of the first episode of Ken Burns’s and Lynn Novick’s much anticipated PROHIBITION is part of our ongoing mission to provide all Americans with content where and when they want it.”

Great Performances: Miami City Ballet Dances Balanchine & Tharp

FREE Preview Screenings of MCB on Great Performances
Sunday, October 2, 2011
4pm & 7pm

Miami City Ballet Studios
at the Ophelia & Juan Js. Roca Center
2200 Liberty Avenue
Miami Beach, FL 33139

Free tickets are available in person Monday-Friday, 10am-5pm at Miami City Ballet Studios, or by phone at 305.929.7010 or toll free 877.929.7010.

Two free showings of the new PBS television program “Great Performances: Miami City Ballet Dances Balanchine & Tharp” at Miami City Ballet’s intimate Studio Theater, Lynn & Luis Wolfson, II Theatre.

WNET/THIRTEEN, New York’s PBS station, puts the spotlight on one of America’s finest dance companies, Miami’s own MIAMI CITY BALLET, in the new television program Great Performances: Miami City Ballet Dances Balanchine & Tharp.  This program – a trio of signature works by the renowned choreographers – will showcase the company’s critically acclaimed performances of Balanchine’s Square Dance (music by Antonio Vivaldi and Arcangelo Corelli) and Western Symphony (music by Hershey Kay) and Tharp’s “The Golden Section” (music composed and performed by David Byrne).

Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers.“Great Performances: Miami City Ballet Dances Balanchine &Tharp” will air Friday, October 28 at 9pm on WPBT2.


This is a screening only -- no live performance.

WPBT2 and FIU Present Women, War & Peace

WPBT2 and FIU's Women's Studies Center will screen the new PBS series, Women, War & Peace on Tuesday, September 27 at 9:30am-10:30am at the Graham Center (Room 243) on FIU's Modesto Maidique Campus.

A co-production of THIRTEEN and Fork Films, Women, War & Peace challenges the conventional wisdom that war and peace are men’s domain and places women at the center of an urgent dialogue about conflict and security. Featuring narrators Matt Damon, Tilda Swinton, Geena Davis and Alfre Woodard, the series reveals that the majority of today’s conflicts are not fought by nations and their armies, but rather by gangs, insurgent groups, and warlords armed with small arms and improvised weapons.  Women have become primary targets in these conflicts and though they are suffering unprecedented casualties they are simultaneously emerging as critical partners in brokering peace and as leaders in forging new international laws governing conflict.  With depth and complexity, Women, War & Peace spotlights the stories of women in conflict zones from Bosnia to Afghanistan, and Colombia to Liberia.

The event is free and open to the public.

WPBT2 and FIU Invite You to a Free Lecture

WPBT2 and Florida International University’s Center for Humanities in an Urban Environment present The Haitian Imprint on the Humanities on Wednesday, September 14 at 7:00pm at the Green Library, Room 220 on the FIU Modesto A. Maidique Campus. 

Gepsie Metellus, executive director of Sant La, will lead the lecture.  Metellus is a well-known community leader with a deep awareness of the diversity and complexity that characterize the Haitian community and a profound sense of the range of issues challenging all South Floridians. Her talk draws on personal experience and on the rich cultural history of the Haitian community. Her insights will be particularly welcome to all interested in seeing the humanities at work at the grass roots level, and it will also give a broad sense of how the humanities touch and enrich all of us.

The event is free and open to the public.

 

 

Farewell Don Taffner

Don Taffner was a 40-year veteran of the television industry. He began his career in an international theatrical agency and founded his own company in 1963. Under his stewardship, this company has grown into an organization that produces and distributes programmes around the world. He represented Thames Television, selling their product in the US for the twenty-five years that Thames was a broadcaster in the UK, introducing and selling into the US such Thames programmes as The World at War, Rumpole of the Bailey and The Benny Hill Show. Don Taffner was particularly well known for the successful transfer of formats of Thames’ programmes into US television successes, taking programmes such as Man About The House and remodeling it into the US programme Three’s Company - similarly taking Keep It In The Family and developing the US programme Too Close For Comfort.

In the mid-80s Don Taffner became a shareholder in The Theatre of Comedy and from that point on his interest was equally shared between television and theatre, trying to bring a synergism between the two that would cross-fertilize each other, protect each other from the particular problems of each one individually so that both areas could prosper and a company such as The Theatre of Comedy could move from strength to strength.