Clarice Smith Center to collaborate with CENTERSTAGE on The National Civil War Project

The National Civil War Project

We're proud to announce our collaboration with Baltimore's CENTERSTAGE as part of The National Civil War Project.

The National Civil War Project is a multi–city, multi–year collaboration between four universities and five performing arts organizations to create original works and innovative academic programming inspired by the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

Other partnerships include Alliance Theatre and Emory College Center for Creativity & Arts at Emory University in Atlanta, GA; American Repertory Theater and Harvard University in Cambridge, MA; and Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater and The George Washington University in Washington, DC.

Parts of our programming in the 2013–2014 and 2014–2015 seasons will examine the Civil War through the lens of civil rights and human rights.

The Washington Post describes the culmination of this collaboration:

Baltimore’s Centerstage and the University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center [have] already initiated a notably big project. The Kronos Quartet has been commissioned for a piece composed by jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard; the performance will involve a 500–voice choir and spoken word by 2011 National Book Award winner Nikky Finney. The result, 'At War With Ourselves,' will be performed at a historically significant site.

– NELSON PRESSLEY, The Washington Post, Wednesday, February 27, 2013

We will also open our 2013–2014 season with a national symposium and a performance. Entitled Civil War to Civil Rights: The Well-Being of a Nation, the symposium will be presented in partnership with the UMD School of Public Health and the UMD School of Public Policy. Following the symposium, jazz bassist Christian McBride will perform The Movement Revisited, his four-part suite dedicated to four major figures of the Civil Rights movement: Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

For more information about The National Civil War Project, visit www.civilwarproject.org or like The National Civil War Project Facebook page.

Video from press conference

Paul Brohan, our Director of Artistic Initiatives, and Gavin Witt, Associate Artistic Director of CENTERSTAGE, introduce the collaboration's involvement in the National Civil War Project at the press conference on Thursday, February 28, 2013: