Past Columbia Alumni Arts League Nights

EVENT ARCHIVE AND GALLERY

Members experience the best of New York City culture through CAAL Nights! These evenings provide members the opportunity to meet fellow alumni over drinks, converse with artists about their work, and navigate the city's arts scene. Previous special guests include Academy Award winners Michael Douglas and Milos Forman, Grammy Award winners Paquito D'Rivera and Wynton Marsalis, Tony Award-winning actor Brian Dennehy (CC '60), Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright, and the cast of Cirque du Soleil's Wintuk! All past CAAL Nights are listed below. Click on any event link to view photos or see what other members have to say here.

TWO DOGS' VIEW ON LIFE AND AN EVENING WITH MENG JINGHUI

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2007

WHAT:

After a sold-out run this summer, Two Dogs' View on Life returns to Beijing's Pioneer Theater for a second run. Audience members get to explore some of the big questions facing Chinese society from a canine's perspective in this new cutting-edge drama directed by Meng Jinghui, an avant-garde Chinese director and playwright dedicated to redefining Chinese theater and satirizing contemporary society. Don't miss this opportunity to enjoy a humorous play with fellow alumni and explore all kinds of every day issues: from traffic jams to online relationships, weight loss campaigns to SARS, and even sky high education fees. In Chinese only.

WHO:

Immediately after the performance, enjoy a unique opportunity to take part in a Q&A with Director Meng Jinghui to be led by the Director of the Arts Initiative at Columbia University Gregory Mosher.

Meng Jinghui is arguably the most influential director of avant-garde Chinese theater today. He has helped to bring many modern Western classics to China, as well as iconoclastic productions which humorously deconstruct classic Chinese works. Meng's productions thereby become commentaries on community life, social order and artistic conventions. While still a graduate student at the Central Academy of Drama in 1988, he directed plays by Pinter, Ionesco, Beckett, and Genet. In 1992, he joined the National Theater Company of China, then known as the Central Experimental Theater Troupe, a breeding ground for new theater. In the ensuing years, Meng has created and directed more than fifteen plays. Working within a country and an artistic scene that is in the midst of rapid change, Meng's goal is to bring recent developments in Chinese art, "such as installations, multimedia, visual art, and action art," to the Chinese stage.

Gregory Mosher was appointed Director of the Arts Initiative at Columbia University in 2004 by President Lee C. Bollinger and brings 30 years of production and directorial experience to Columbia. He is credited with the resurgence of the Lincoln Center Theater, which he took over as director in 1985 at the request of former Mayor John V. Lindsay and led for seven years. He has directed and produced nearly 200 stage productions at Lincoln Center, on and off Broadway, and at the Royal National Theater and in London's West End. Many of his productions were premieres of work by emerging and established writers, among them Samuel Beckett, Leonard Bernstein, Spalding Gray, David Mamet, Arthur Miller, Richard Nelson, Wole Soyinka, Julie Taymor and Tennessee Williams. Mr. Mosher has received every major American theater award, including two Tony Awards.

TIME:

10:30PM Performance at CSV Cultural Center

WHERE:

Oriental Pioneer Theatre
8-2 Dongdan Santiao
East of Oriental Plaza

PRICE:

RMB160 for Columbia Alumni for the performance on 12/21/2007 only
(normally RMB 180, you save more than 10% off regular tickets price!)

BECKETT SHORTS - OPENING NIGHT!

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2007

WHAT:

Fearlessly imaginative, five-time OBIE award winning director JoAnne Akalaitis joins with dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and composer Philip Glass to bring four of Samuel Beckett's one-act plays - Act Without Words I, Act Without Words II, Eh Joe, and Rough For Theatre I - to NYTW as "Beckett Shorts". After a successful workshop this past spring, Akalaitis invited Bill Camp (currently Alceste in The Misanthrope at NYTW), Karen Kandel, and David Neumann to work with her and Baryshnikov on these funny and fiercely physical plays.

WHO:

Following the performance, enjoy AfterWords, New York Theatre Workshop's popular post-performance discussions, where audience members participate in an open conversation with members of the creative team, designed to provoke further thought and dialogue about the production and artistic process. The discussion on December 18th will be with the design team of Beckett Shorts.

TIME:

7:00PM Performance at New York Theatre Workshop
8:30PM AfterWords at the theater

WHERE:

New York Theatre Workshop
79 East 4th Street (Between 2nd Avenue and Bowery)
New York, NY 10003

PRICE:

$65.00

WAR AND PEACE

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2007

WHAT:

Join the Columbia Alumni Arts League for the Metropolitan Opera's production of Sergei Prokofiev's War and Peace, conducted by Valery Gergiev. Prokofiev's adaptation of Tolstoy's novel captures its sweeping worldview as well as its insights into individuals. The resources required for this opera (68 solo roles, a depiction of the largest land battle in European history, and the magnificence of Imperial balls in Czarist Russia) makes this one of the biggest productions in Met history. The dynamic Russian maestro Valery Gergiev marshals the musical forces of a predominantly Russian cast.

WHO:

Valery Gergiev is currently Director of the Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, home to the Kirov Opera and the Kirov Theater Orchestra. He has made the Kirov Opera one of the pre-eminent opera companies in the world and he regularly tours the world's great opera and orchestra halls. He is today's most prolific specialist in Prokofiev's operatic works. The cast of War and Peace also includes Irina Mataeva (Natasha), Ekaterina Semenchuk (Sonya), Larisa Shevchenko (Mme. Akhrosimova), Vasili Ladyuk (Prince Andrei), Vassily Gerello (Napoleon), and Samuel Ramey (Kutuzov). Before the performance, join fellow members for drinks at the Balcony Level Intermission Bar.

TIME:

6:45PM Drinks at the Balcony Level Intermission Bar
Join fellow members and Columbia Professor Cathy Nepomnyashchy for informal conversation about the opera!
7:30PM Performance in the Metropolitan Opera House

WHERE:

The Metropolitan Opera House
Lincoln Center
New York, New York 10023

PRICE:

$15.00 - $175.00

BEYOND THE SPANISH TINGE

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2007

WHAT:

Seven-time Grammy-winner and 2005 National Medal of Arts recipient Paquito D'Rivera and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis bring all the mambo, tango, salsa, cubop and bossa nova that the House of Swing can hold in tribute to the most beloved Latin composers of all time, including Tito Puente, Chico O'Farrill, Chucho Valdès, and more. After the performance meet the musicians backstage!

WHO:

Wynton Marsalis (Music Director, Trumpet) is the Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1961, Mr. Marsalis began his classical training on trumpet at age 12 and soon began playing in local bands of diverse genres. He entered The Juilliard School at age 17 and joined Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Mr. Marsalis made his recording debut as a leader in 1982, and since he has recorded more than 30 jazz and classical recordings, which have won him nine Grammy Awards. Wynton Marsalis has been described as the most outstanding jazz musician and trumpeter of his generation, as one of the world's top classical trumpeters, as a big band leader in the tradition of Duke Ellington, a brilliant composer, a devoted advocate for the Arts and a tireless and inspiring educator. He carries these distinctions well. His life is a portrait of discipline, dedication, sacrifice, and creative accomplishment. Born on the island of Cuba, Paquito D'Rivera began his career as a child prodigy. A restless musical genius during his teen years, Mr. D'Rivera created various original and ground-breaking musical ensembles. As a founding member of the Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna, he directed that group for two years, while at the same time playing both the clarinet and saxophone with the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra. He eventually went on to premier several works by notable Cuban composers with the same orchestra. Additionally, he was a founding member and co-director of the innovative musical ensemble Irakere. With its explosive mixture of jazz, rock, classical and traditional Cuban music never before heard, Irakere toured extensively throughout America and Europe, won several Grammy nominations (1979, 1980) and a Grammy (1979).

TIME:

7:00PM Pre-performance drinks at Landmarc
Grab a bite and try a new wine with fellow members at Landmarc's communal table before the show
8:00PM Performance in the Rose Theater
CAAL Members get to meet Paquito D'Rivera, Wynton Marsalis and his fellow band members after the show in the Green Room!

WHERE:

JALC's Rose Theater
Broadway at 60th Street
New York, NY 10023

Landmarc [at the Time Warner Center]
10 Columbus Circle [3rd floor]
New York, NY 10019

PRICE:

$24 (you save 36% off the regular ticket price!)
Seats are located in the mezzanine around the stage

CIRQUE DU SOLEIL'S WINTUK

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2007

WHAT:

See the world premiere of Cirque du Soleil's new production created exclusively for the Theater at Madison Square Garden. Wintuk uses a cast of 50 performers to tell a winter tale about a boy named Wintuk and his quest to find snow and adventure. The show weaves thrilling acrobatics, circus arts, breathtaking theatrical effects and memorable songs together in a touching story line that brings Wintuk and his companions on an extraordinary journey to the Arctic North.

WHO:

Richard Blackburn, the artistic director of Le Théâtre de la Dame de Coeur in Upton, Quebec has directed the show. Fernand Rainville, co-director of the bilingual Montreal production of Les Misérables is the director of creation. After the show join fellow members for drinks in Stitch Bar & Lounge.

TIME:

7:30PM Show at the Madison Square Garden's WaMu Theater
9:00 Drinks at Stitch Bar & Lounge

WHERE:

WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden
4 Pennsylvania Plaza
New York, New York 10001

Stitch Bar & Lounge (balcony bar is reserved for CAAL Members)
247 West 37th Street (between 7th & 8th Avenue)
New York, New York 10018

PRICE:

$65.00 (compared to $115.75 via Ticketmaster, CAAL Members save $50.75!)
Seats are located in the front of the WaMu Theater in sections 200 and 203

PYGMALION

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3

WHAT:

Join CAA and CAAL for George Bernard Shaw's classic play, Pygmalion. Shaw's classic comedy of love and linguistics is directed by Tony Award nominee David Grindley (Journey's End). When a pompous phonetics expert bets that he can teach a Cockney flower girl to act and speak like a lady, he gets more than he bargained for: Eliza Doolittle provokes his interest, his anger, and ultimately, his passion. As her lessons progress, it becomes obvious that it is Henry who has the most to learn about bad behavior. The New York Daily News review proclaims that Claire Danes "beams confidence as the Cockney flower girl made into a society lady… Pygmalion is her best work since My So-Called Life and Shopgirl."

WHO:

Golden Globe winner Claire Danes (The Hours, Romeo and Juliet) makes her Broadway debut as Eliza Doolittle, alongside Tony Award winner Jefferson Mays (I Am My Own Wife, Journey's End) as the inimitable Henry Higgins. Tony Award winner Boyd Gaines (Twelve Angry Men) returns to Roundabout as Colonel Pickering and Jay O. Sanders (A Midsummer Night's Dream) plays Alfred Doolittle. The cast also includes Helen Carey (Mrs. Higgins), Brenda Wehle (Mrs. Pearce), Kerry Bishé (Clara Eynsford Hill), Kieran Campion (Freddy Eynsford Hill) and Sandra Shipley (Mrs. Eynsford Hill).

TIME:

2:00PM

WHERE:

Roundabout Theatre
227 West 42nd Street (between 7th and 8th Ave.)
New York, NY 10036

PRICE:

$63.00 (normally $96.25, you save $33.25!)

ROCK 'N' ROLL

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2007

WHAT:

Rock 'n' Roll, written by four-time Tony-Award winner Tom Stoppard and directed by Trevor Nunn, comes to Broadway following a record-breaking run in London's West End. Rock 'n' Roll spans the years from 1968 to 1990 from the double perspective of Prague, where a rock 'n' roll band comes to symbolize resistance to the Communist regime, and of Cambridge where the verities of love and death are shaping the lives of three generations in the family of a Marxist philosopher. A deeply felt look at the connection between rock music and revolution, Stoppard's sweeping and witty play spans two countries, three generations and twenty-two turbulent years, at the end of which love remains - and so does rock 'n' roll.

"Hottest ticket in town is so flush with feeling that it never seems to stop trembling… directed with lightning crackle and flash by Trevor Nunn. Stoppard's dazzling whirligig of a mind may be in full spin here, but he is definitely leading with his heart." – The New York Times

WHO:

A pre-show discussion will take place with Professor Christopher Harwood and Arts Initiative Director Gregory Mosher. Professor Christopher Harwood is a Slavic Languages lecturer at Columbia University, specializing in 19th and 20th century Czech and Russian literature and Czech language pedagogy. Gregory Mosher is the director of the Arts Initiative at Columbia University and has over 30 years of production and directorial experience. He has received every major American theater award, including two Tony Awards.

TIME:

6:30PM Pre-show talk and reception with Professor Christopher Harwood and Arts Initiative Director Gregory Mosher
8:00PM Show at Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre

WHERE:

Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
242 West 45th Street
New York, NY 10036

PRICE:

$88.50 (compared to $107.50 via Telecharge, CAAL Members save $19!)
Seats are located in the Orchestra

A REQUIEM FOR ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2007

WHAT:

A Requiem for Anna Politkovskaya commemorates the life and death of a Russian journalist, who persisted in her clear-eyed reporting on the war in Chechnya despite having been poisoned and issued multiple death threats. She was shot on October 7, 2006 while entering her Moscow apartment. A Requiem for Anna Politkovskaya features new music by renowned Moscow-based composer, Alexander Bakshi, and the visual poetry of Amy Trompetter's giant puppetry. At the top of his field in the Russian theater world, Alexander Bakshi liberates and stretches sound to express narrative and dialogue. Amy Trompetter's iconoclastic puppets, ranging from the tiny to the gigantic, honor Anna's life and death, her tenacious observation of indefensible war, her bold expose of political folly, and her lament for the suffering of women and children.

WHO:

A pre-performance discussion will be led by Professor Catharine Nepomnyashchy and will include four speakers: Ann Cooper, coordinator of the Broadcast Program at the Columbia Journalism School, and the former Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, who will speak about press freedom in Russia; Rachel Denber, Acting Director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia Division, who will discuss the impact Anna Politkovskaya had on the human rights movement in Chechnya; Mary Holland, professor at the NYU School of Law, who will speak on impunity in Russia, and about developments in Politkovslaya's case; and Miki Pohl, professor at Vassar College, journalist, and Director at "Chechnya Advocacy," who will speak about Chechnya, and what it meant to Politkovskaya. The pre-performance reception will immediately follow the talk and commence at 6PM.

TIME:

5:00PM Discussion at the Union Theological Seminary's Refectory
6:00PM Reception in the Refectory
7:00PM Performance in the Union Theological Seminary's James Chapel

WHERE:

Union Theological Seminary James Chapel
3041 Broadway (at 121st Street)
New York, NY 10027

PRICE:

Free for members, RSVP required

MY TRIP TO AL-QAEDA

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2007

WHAT:

Written and performed by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright, the gripping, highly personal narrative My Trip to Al-Qaeda details the rise of radical Islam. Based on his recent bestseller The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 and originally presented as part of the 2006 New Yorker Festival, Wright's compelling production directed by Gregory Mosher brings to life the personalities behind the terror--and the toll the attacks of 9/11 have taken on America's civil liberties. This unique production uses facts, figures, sounds, and slides to weave the details of Al-Qaeda's rise to power into a compelling, eye-opening story.

WHO:

Lawrence Wright is an author, screenwriter, and a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. His screenplay credentials include The Siege, starring Bruce Willis, and Noriega: God's Favorite, among many others. Mr. Wright is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Gregory Mosher is the director of the Arts Initiative at Columbia University and has over 30 years of production and directorial experience. He has received every major American theater award, including two Tony Awards.

TIME:

6:30PM Reception at the Intermission Bar of the Terrace Theater of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
7:30PM Show at the Terrace Theater

WHERE:

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
2700 F Street, NW
Washington, DC 20566

PRICE:

$35.00

THE SEAGULL

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2007

WHAT:

Join the Columbia Alumni Arts League (CAAL) for the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of The Seagull presented at BAM's Harvey Theater. Anton Chekhov's masterpiece entwines comic and tragic situations in the lives of a famous actress, her son and their lovers. As the young strive for fulfillment, their older counterparts look back to youthful dreams that remain unfulfilled.

WHO:

A pre-show discussion will take place with Assistant Director Gemma Fairlie and Gregory Mosher. Trained as an actor and director at Mountview Academy, Gemma Fairlie works as an Assistant Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company and has directed and assisted at various Fringe venues in London and Edinburgh. Gregory Mosher is the director of the Arts Initiative at Columbia University and has over 30 years of production and directorial experience. He has received every major American theater award, including two Tony Awards.

TIME:

6:00PM pre-show talk in The Peter Jay Sharp Building
6:45PM meet with fellow alumni at the nearby Thomas Beisl and enjoy your first drink on the Arts Initiative!
7:30PM performance in BAM Harvey Theater

WHERE:

The Peter Jay Sharp Building
30 Lafayette Ave

Thomas Beisl
25 Lafayette Avenue

BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton Street
Brooklyn, NY 11217

PRICE:

$75.00

NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC: CONCERT IN CENTRAL PARK

TUESDAY, JULY 17, 2007

WHAT:

Enjoy the New York Philharmonic, a light wine and cheese picnic, and the company of other CAAL Members in the pastoral setting of Central Park! Sir Andrew Davis conducts a beautiful evening of late romantic orchestral music which will conclude with a fireworks display.

WHO:

Program includes Richard Strauss's Til Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, various arias by Puccini, Massenet, Catalani, Weber featuring soprano Measha Brueggergosman, and Mussorgsky/Ravel's Pictures at an Exhibition.

TIME:

6:00 - 9:00PM Picnic
8:00 - 10:00PM Performance
Please RSVP for exact meeting location. Or, you'll be able to find us by looking for our blue and white balloons!

WHERE:

The Great Lawn in Central Park
Mid-Park from 79th to 85th Streets
Westside entrances: West 81st or 86th Streets at Central Park West
Eastside entrances: East 79th or 85th Streets at Fifth Avenue

PRICE:

FREE

CAAL NIGHTS: ART AFTER DARK. FIRST FRIDAYS AT THE GUGGENHEIM

FRIDAY,
JULY 6, 2007

WHAT:

Join the Columbia Alumni Arts League for our seventh CAAL Night of the year: Art after Dark. First Fridays at the Guggenheim. RSVP to receive a complimentary Art after Dark pass which will give you free admission to the event and allow you and a guest to skip the wait and get into the fast track line for Guggenheim members and sponsors.

WHO:

Enjoy a drink with fellow alumni and friends, the spinning of DJs Justine D and Jacques Renault, the current exhibitions The Shapes of Space, Divisionism/Neo-Impressionism, Arcadia and Anarchy, and Solomon's Gift: The Founding Collection of the Guggenheim, 1937-1949, all in the spectacular Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building. Art after Dark at the Guggenheim… it doesn't get much better than that!

TIME:

9 PM to 1 AM

WHERE:

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 5th Avenue (at 89th Street)

PRICE:

FREE for the first 25 CAAL Members to RSVP and for Guggenheim Members.
Remember to bring your Art after Dark pass in order to receive free admission!
$25 at the door for guests, cash only, limit one guest per CAAL Member.
Cash bar.

INHERIT THE WIND

THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2007

WHAT:

Join the CAAL and the Columbia Alumni Association for a Columbia exclusive. CAAL & CAA offer you discounted tickets to the classic Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee play Inherit The Wind.

Inherit the Wind is a fictionalized retelling of the famous 1925 "Monkey Trial," in which science teacher John Scopes was tried and convicted for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution, violating a Tennessee law that forbade teaching any theory that conflicted with the Biblical conception of Divine Creation. Brian Dennehy plays the role of attorney Matthew Harrison Brady (based on William Jennings Bryan), and Christopher Plummer plays attorney Henry Drummond (based on Clarence Darrow).

WHO:

Enjoy a Columbia alumni-only talk with award-winning actor Brian Dennehy (CC '60) following the show.

TIME:

8:00PM show at the Lyceum Theater
10:30pm post-show talk

WHERE:

Lyceum Theater
149 W. 45th Street
New York, NY 10036

PRICE:

$50.00 for CAAL Members ($60.00 for all other Columbia alumni)

CARLA'S LIST

TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 2007

WHAT:

See the New York premiere of Carla's List, a new film by Marcel Schüpbach that gives viewers unprecedented access behind the scenes of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. A highlight of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, the story follows prosecutor Carla Del Ponte and her team between The Hague, New York, Zagreb, and Washington as they fight for justice and the extradition of the last remaining war criminals on the run, such as wartime leaders of Bosnian Serbs Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. Read more about Carla's List.

WHO:

A reception and conversation between prosecutor Carla Del Ponte and Richard Dicker, Director of HRW's International Justice Program, will follow the screening.

TIME:

6:30PM Screening
8:15PM Post-show conversation
8:30PM Reception

WHERE:

Walter Reade Theater
65th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam

PRICE:

$12

CORAM BOY

TUESDAY, MAY 22, 2007

WHAT:

In its North American premiere after two sold out runs in London, Coram Boy tells the tale of two orphans at the Coram Hospital for Deserted Children: Toby, saved from an African slave ship and Aaron, the abandoned son of the heir to a great estate.