TDPS's Fearless New Play Festival is a three-day celebration of new scripts in development. On Sunday, February 17, the festival kicks off with a panel discussion with local theatre professionals. After two weeks of rehearsals, we present: (1) a keynote speech by nationally renowned Keynote Playwright Sheila Callaghan and a staged reading of her newest play in development on Thursday, March 7, (2) staged readings of new ten-minute plays by current students on Friday, March 8, and (3) a showcase of new short plays by alumni, followed by a closing night celebration on Saturday, March 9.

UMRO explores the depths of music as a form of activism, resistance, and healing in this engaging program featuring guest conductors across UMD's graduate conducting programs.

Program:
Beethoven's Overture to Fidelio, Op. 72
Sibelius' Karelia Overture, Op. 10
Shostakovich's Symphony for Strings, Op. 110
Mahler's Symphony No. 3

Stuart Saunders Smith's work "The Xylophone Poems for Xylophonist, Actor, Singer" is a concert-length work for single solo performer on xylophone who speaks, sings and acts all while playing the xylophone. Originally composed in 1999, Dr. Smith expanded the work into an concert-length work in 2017 for faculty percussionist Dr. Lee Hinkle. The performance in 2019 would constitute the world-premiere performance of this work especially written for Dr. Hinkle. The Xylophone Poems are an opera for xylophone in twenty-one scenes.

Ravi Coltrane is more than the scion of spiritual jazz’s first family. The son of saxophone bellwether John Coltrane and fusion paragon Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, Ravi was not yet two when his father died. Still, in the subsequent five decades, he has inherited and cherished the call to push jazz ahead, honoring and preserving its past while ever aiming for its next step. In the early 1990s, he began playing with a murders’ row of genre titans, like his father’s longtime drummer Elvin Jones, and restless minds, like progressive jazz force Steve Coleman.