We are back on the stage.

Thank you guys for having us here.

And we are wrapping up the 20th season here at DeBartolo.

Thank you so much for having us.

And I have to say, you guys have a fantastic line up for the next season too.

Yes, and big stuff.

Now tell me more about the things that are wrapping up this season.

Yeah, well we still have our classics that are going.

These are films that, you know, might be from a past century that we revisit, repackage.

We have our classic seventh annual Jesus Christ Superstar singalong.

I'm going to be doing that seventh annual, that.

Yeah.

And, so open up your pipes.

Okay.

Is it a singalong?

Oh, yeah.

Singing along.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Now that's a whole nother level of lyrics on the screen.

Join in if you choose.

Oh, no judgment passed on your voice.

We just want to hear it.

I will be there.

And then we're wrapping up our film noir series.

This was a community class learning beyond the classics.

But you can still catch some of the films.

One offs just come for the screenings.

We have Orson Welles's Touch of Evil.

I had had Charlton Heston on it.

Bordertown noir.

As well as Infernal Affairs, a film from Hong Kong in 2002 that then gets remade by or remade by Martin Scorsese in The Departed, which we're showing as well, which won Best Picture at the Oscars.

And are you going to have any kind of a conversation around that too?

Yep.

There's about a ten minute introduction setting the film up, and we chat about the film for about 30 minutes afterwards and love that kind of stuff, like when you can actually take the time to debrief.

I love that.

Yeah.

So we have the educational component built right in.

So you can learn how these fit together.

And a broad history of film noir not only in America but around the world.

Absolutely, absolutely.

All right.

Now new stuff is coming up too.

We have a lot of new stuff, too.

Is there like a general theme for 2025, 2026?

You know, this is kind of where we we kind of get the odd stuff out things.

You know, we've been watching the show, and this is a chance to see the more real stuff.

There you go.

So we have a double feature of two kind of short features are long shorts.

We have Leos Carax.

It's not me.

Which is kind of, like Magritte.

This is not a pipe.

An autobiography film that he made about himself.

But it's not him.

And he's a French, goofball.

He made a net, and it's a really a comedy.

It's a little bit of everything.

Okay.

All around.

Gotcha.

And then we have from Argentina, Matteo Penas.

You burn me.

Which is an adaptation of, the Sappho, myth.

But it's done with footnotes and with interpretation.

And if people know his work is very literary, and those two will be in conversation one another, and together they're about two hours.

So it constitutes one film.

Okay.

We also have from Zambia, on becoming a guinea fowl, which is a dramedy that I think people will enjoy dramedy.

I feel like that's a newer phrase.

Right?

Yeah.

It's portmanteau.

Go.

It wasn't in the TV guide when I was a kid you know that.

And then also, a much more dramatic film, When fall is coming, which is from Francois Ozanne, whose French, he made thrillers like Swimming Pool or historical films like France.

And this is, a story about mature women and what's occurring toward, the sunset of their life for that kind of golden years.

And people will enjoy that as well.

I think we also have, two other films, a Serbian film called The Working Class Goes to Hell, which is a play on the 70s film, The Working Class Goes to Heaven and is some Serbian, factory workers who, when their union falls apart and their employer is cruel to them, with their conditions.

They go to a, lower power as it were.

Okay, and start a satanic cult.

In order to, in order to see if that can a comedy too?.

It's a little bit of everything.

It's a lot of what sets.

Okay, that's what we get at the interpretation, right?

Okay, okay.

But, but it's a really fascinating film about working labor, and, working conditions.

And then lastly, we have a film Eephus which is set in Massachusetts in the 1990s.

And it is a baseball game.

If, you know, Eephus like the Eephus pitch, like the slow roll.

I don't you tell me about, like a 40 mile per hour pitch.

Okay.

That's tough to hit.

So, and a great spelling bee word.

So, this is, shot and, or it set in Massachusetts in the 1990s, and it's the last game of an amateur baseball league before a stadium is destroyed.

Interesting.

So a very.

It's a sweet kind of sports movie.

Yes.

And it's such a wide range of options that you guys have.

I mean, you did this every year.

You've been doing it 20 years.

So you guys know what you're doing too.

Now we're also going to talk about performances because you still have one more to wrap up the 20th.

Exactly.

We have one last, performance to wrap up the 20th anniversary season.

And as an anniversary season, this is where we're looking back to artists who have been on our stage before.

But, seeing them in a new way.

Third Coast Percussion was the ensemble in residence at the Performing Arts Center for five years, a number of years ago.

So they're coming back with, Jesse Montgomery, who is a a composer and violinist.

She was the composer in residence for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

She's won Grammys.

She's amazing.

She wrote them a new percussion quartet, and then she'll be playing violin on a number of other pieces on the program.

Especially.

One is that one happened.

That is Sunday, April 27th at 4 p.m.. Coming up.

All right.

Got tickets for that?

Exactly.

And that's again the last one on the season to sort of wrap up, our celebration of 20 years was the 20th celebration here.

Been going.

Now that you're coming to the conclusion of it.

It's been phenomenal.

We've had a great, just great responses throughout the whole season.

We just a couple weeks ago, we had Mandy Patinkin, supposed to be singing with Nathan Gunn.

Nathan Gunn got sick at the very last moment.

And so it was a full Mandy Patinkin show.

You know, as you know, the show must go on.

This show must go at you.

Don't talk about that.

Like how do you guys pivot?

Because I mean, we're talking.

Yeah, I know you're a lot of cinema that's already ready to go, but I mean, that can even have some flips too, right?

Oh, yeah.

But like, what goes into making that pivot sometimes.

Yeah.

You know, I mean it's really the professionalism of the artists.

They, they got here.

Mandy was it was clear that Nathan wasn't going to be able to sing.

Mandy has a version of a one man show, and he was able to dusted off real quick.

They're back there going right in through and figuring out, scratching through what they.

He couldn't do, what they were going to do.

This is all in, you know, the last 90 minutes before the show supposed to start.

I threw it together and, gave a nearly two hour performance.

I know, and I've heard from people that it was just a phenomenal experience.

It was rave reviews.

I love that.

Okay, let's talk about things that we have still going on, because I think we're going to be doing some opera here in the in the next season.

Yeah, we we pipe in the opera, live, from New York.

And we have a couple of more screenings this year.

And one of them, that's coming up is The Marriage of Figaro, which is the comedic Mozart, opera.

So you can check that out.

And we also have some kids films, too.

Or films for people of all ages.

Family friendly family friendly.

And we have two more left in that series.

We have Alice in Wonderland.

The witch version of that.

You have to tell versus the older animated version, which Disney, you know, was working on for decades before it finally materializes in the mid-century.

And then lastly, on May the 4th, we're going a little bit janky to do it, doing something Star Wars.

Well, we're doing The Last Starfighter which is J v Star Wars, but also is really good.

Like, it's it's it's awesome.

And it presages a lot of things that are occurring with video games.

Yeah, sure.

So come check out The Last Starfighter before.

And you guys also have sneak peeks that are happening to you.

I know there's a big film.

There's a lot of big films coming up this year to at least, you know what we're our families excited about.

So every once in a while, we are able to show a film before it's in theaters and we do this free and, we have the live action version of How to Train Your Dragon, which will be showing before it is released on May 11th.

And for that date and for everything else that we have going on, you've got a performing arts dot ND dot EDU.

And see when that will be coming.

And then, even for the free events, you still want to make sure you get tickets though, correct.

And sometimes you can reserve them online.

Sometimes they're available an hour before a screening.

Just be sure to read.

I was going to say small print, but the large print underneath the screening.

So you know how to get your free ticket secured.

All right.

So we're heading into the 21st season.

I know you guys.

We're almost out of time, but there's some great stuff that you guys have on the docket.

Exactly.

And as Ricky said, please check out the website.

For all all the listings and up to date information.

This is a sneak peek.

So it's not the full list will actually be adding a few artists.

Especially as a Broadway artist along the way.

So it's not on the list yet.

But we did want to highlight we're super excited to be welcoming the Joffrey Ballet for the first time.

So one of the preeminent ballet companies of the world, right next door in Chicago.

They've never been here.

So they'll be on our season next year.

And to compliment ballet, we'll be bringing in urban Bush women in the second semester as a nice sort of compliment, to that dance offering that I love the variety.

Exactly.

And we have jazz legend Christian McBride coming with his group, Ursa major.

They're going to be clinicians for the Jazz Fest.

And then, of course, do their own, concert that weekend.

And then we're we're very excited about speaking of opera earlier, Terence Blanchard, who is a jazz trumpet player, wrote an opera that, premiered at the met.

Terence Blanchard, it's fire.

Shut up in my bones.

So we're doing a concert version of that.

So just really exciting, big, exciting things happening.

You know, we we knew the 20th anniversary is going to be big, but the 21st is looking just like.

Keep up with that.

Right.

Exactly.

Exactly.

I love it.

And for those folks who maybe haven't stepped foot here before, you know, obviously come and see what you guys have to offer.

Go online, check it out.

There's 200 events happening and yeah, something like that.

Well, yeah.

At all the screenings as closer to 500.

Are you sure?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, so I have to ask, is there any, like a red carpeted event?

Yeah, we have a we have an amazing one coming up.

So the Marshall Stark Development Center, down in Plymouth, last year, put together an hour long feature film, called I heard it Through the Blueberry Vine.

Oh, which is a, a wonderful story.

And it was written, directed, cast, crew like soup to nuts, clients and employees at the center.

And so we will be having a red carpet event.

I love it.

Clients will be coming up.

Everyone is welcome to it.

It's free, but ticketed.

And you can come on in and see a film that is, like, amazingly charming and local talent and local talent.

Yeah.

But you guys probably have ways that people can volunteer too.

Absolutely.

So we have volunteer ushers.

So we're looking for community members, that would be willing to work with us fairly regularly twice a month or so.

And we bring on new ushers twice a year in the summer and in the winter.

And they can check out our website.

There's information on how to volunteer.

Perfect, perfect.

Awesome.

Always a pleasure.

You guys, I know there's so much more we could talk about, but we're going to keep checking back in with you, especially as we move into the 2025 2026 season.

Thank you guys.

Thank you.