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WordStage to present Walt Whitman programs at area public libraries

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by Mike Telin

Whitman

I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul? ……
—Walt Whitman

Beginning on Wednesday, June 4 at 7:00 pm at the Parma-South Public Library, WordStage presents “Walt Whitman — I Sing the Body Electric”. Directed by Tim Tavcar in collaboration with the Cuyahoga County and Cleveland Public Libraries, the production draws on excerpts from Whitman’s letters, diaries and poetical works, contemporary chroniclers and critics as well as Civil War era music and songs set to his poetry. Performances run through August 9. See below or consult our Calendar Listings page for dates, times and locations. [Read more…]

Preview: WordStage — Bloomsbury and The Great War at Shaker Historical Society

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by Daniel Hautzinger

Bloomsbury-GroupTake a historical artist’s letters and diaries along with the impressions of their contemporaries, string them together with narration, interject related music from the period, and you get WordStage. “Its official tagline is ‘chamber music reader’s theatre,’” said Tim Tavcar over the phone. Tavcar, who is WordStage’s artistic director, sees it as “a cross-pollination of the arts, the point of which is the words and their marriage to the appropriate music.”

It’s also educational, “a catalyst to excite people’s curiosities,” which explains why WordStage is often presented by institutions like the Beachwood, Lakewood, and Cleveland Public Libraries and the Shaker Heights Art Council. The latter commissioned the upcoming Bloomsbury and the Great War, which will be performed on Jan. 24 at the Shaker Historical Society in Shaker Heights.

The Arts Council wanted a work to commemorate World War I, which began 100 years ago. [Read more…]

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