Woodland Opera House State Historic Park [CA]

Description

Built in 1885, the original Opera House burned down in the 1892 fire that destroyed much of downtown Woodland. It was rebuilt on the same site, using some of the remaining foundations and bricks from the walls, reopening in 1896. Today, the interior of the Opera House has been painstakingly restored to the grandeur it enjoyed at the turn if the century. Careful attention was paid to reproduction of the wallpaper friezes, paint colors, and carpeting. The main floor carpet was manufactured in England and shipped to the Opera House for installation. Comfortable main floor theater seating was built on the East Coast for installation and the historic pew-like benches in the balcony area were repaired or carefully replaced.

A second, individual website for the Opera House can be found here.

The park offers tours and year-round performances, productions, classes, and workshops.

John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Ca d'Zan, and Circus Museums [FL]

Description

Located on a 66-acre estate on Sarasota Bay, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art was established in 1927 as the legacy of John Ringling (1866–1936) and his wife, Mable (1875–1929). Recognized as the official State Art Museum of Florida, the Museum of Art offers 21 galleries of European paintings as well as Cypriot antiquities, Asian art, American paintings, and contemporary art. The Ulla R. and Arthur F. Searing Wing hosts a variety of traveling exhibitions throughout the year. The estate features the spectacular Cà d'Zan ("House of John"), a waterfront mansion that was restored in 2002. The Circus Museums, including the Tibbals Learning Center, display the world's largest miniature circus, costumes, wagons, performance equipment, and other artifacts chronicling the history of the Circus. The estate also features Mable Ringling's Rose Garden, completed in 1913, and beautifully landscaped grounds overlooking Sarasota Bay.

The museums offer exhibits and tours; the Ca d'Zan offers tours; the museum complex as a whole offers performances, lectures, film screenings, educational programs, research library access, educational and recreational events.

Saturday for Educators: Celebration of the Circus

Description

Teachers can join the incredible Windjammers Education Band for a morning of music they will not soon forget. Through the music of Karl L. King, participants can relive the circus in its heyday, learning how each piece influenced the show and kept things moving along. A full band of circus musicians will break down the pieces into smaller parts, discussing the hows and whys of circus music composition as they go. Material covered can be related to both history and music study, and the workshop will include a lecture, gallery experience, and hands-on activity or lesson plan.

Sponsoring Organization
John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
Phone number
941-359-5700
Target Audience
PreK-12
Start Date
Cost
Free
Course Credit
In-service hours are available at each session.
Duration
One day

Ford's Theatre [DC]

Description

"The site of the April 14, 1865, assassination of President Lincoln, Ford’s Theatre holds a unique place in United States history. The theatre has enthralled millions of visitors since its reopening in 1968, and it is one of the most visited sites in the nation’s capital." Today, Ford's Theatre is first and foremost a fully functioning theater which hosts many professional performances throughout the year. The Theatre also contains a museum, which focuses on Washington, D.C. in the mid 1800s as well as Abraham Lincoln and will reopen in Spring, 2009.

The site offers an events calendar, a listing of upcoming performances, critical reviews of currently performances, visitor information, ticketing, historical information regarding Abraham Lincoln, and online multimedia lessons for elementary, middle, and high school students.

This is essentially a duplicate of listing 9503, the Ford's Theatre Society. The above listing was pre-existing.

Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music

Image
Annotation

Scanned images of more than 18,000 pieces of sheet music, including covers, published prior to 1923 are presented on this website. The collection, compiled by an American musicologist, covers the period 1780–1980 but focuses on 19th-century popular music, especially songs relating to military conflicts, presidents, romance, transportation, and songs from the minstrel stage.

Users may search for songs on hundreds of topics such as drinking, smoking, fraternal orders, the circus, and death, or look for composers, song titles, or other catalog record data. Descriptions by the collector of significant songs in 38 topical categories are also available. These materials are useful for studying 19th- and early 20th-century popular culture, especially depictions of ethnicity, gender, and race.