Saturday, July 22, 2017: Featuring a Special Performance by Tony Award and Grammy Award Winner Billy Porter. The After Party is hosted and curated by Susanne Bartsch at the Spiegeltent.
The 2017 SummerScape Gala, on Saturday, July 22, 2017, will celebrate all that’s special about summertime in the Hudson Valley, from world-class performing arts to outstanding landscapes, and superb local food to festive parties. The event will take place at Bard College’s Montgomery Place campus, the glorious nineteenth century estate overlooking the Hudson. Proceeds from the evening sustain the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, a center of inspired creativity whose vibrant SummerScape festival and year-round performances are at the forefront of cultural and educational life in the region.
The festive annual SummerScape Gala brings together special guests from the arts and culture and features an exclusive one-night-only performance. Billy Porter, Tony® and Grammy® Award-winning actor, singer, director, composer, playwright and recording artist, will take the stage with a special set at Montgomery Place. In 2013, Porter won the Tony Award (Best Actor in a Musical) and Drama Desk Award (Outstanding Actor in a Musical) for his remarkable performance as “Lola” in the Broadway smash Kinky Boots.
Porter’s other Broadway credits include: Miss Saigon, Five Guys Named Moe, Grease, Smokey Joe’s Café, the 20th Anniversary Broadway concert of Dreamgirls, and most recently Shuffle Along. His brand-new album, Billy Porter Presents the Soul of Richard Rodgers (Sony Masterworks) was released in April 2017.
The performance will be followed by a locally-sourced alfresco dinner created by Chef Ira Lee and Brenda Black and their creative team at Twisted Soul, the nearby, Poughkeepsie-based catering company and purveyor of eclectic, international delicacies. Cocktails will be specially conceived by Leo Robitschek, James Beard Award-winning mixologist and beverage director for the top Manhattan restaurants Eleven Madison Park and The NoMad Hotel.
The gala evening continues at the SummerScape Spiegeltent with Bartschland at the Spiegeltent, a sumptuous after-party hosted by nightclub impresario Susanne Bartsch. For more than three decades, Susanne’s sensational soirées have been the place to be and be seen for trendsetting New Yorkers. Beyond uptown or downtown, gay or straight, couture or street, Barstchland has long provided incomparable venues for creative souls to come together, express themselves, and dance the night away.
Susanne Bartsch’s Spiegeltent party features DJ Johnny Dynell, performances by Aquaria, Joey Arias, Amanda Lepore, Leonid the Magnificent, Cornelius Loy, and Untitled Queen along with hosts Marzia Aloisi, Ryan Burke, Joe!, Archie Goats, Devin Kelly, Linux, Muffinhead, Brandon Olson, to mention a few.
An impressive lineup of multi-disciplinary artists has joined the 2017 SummerScape Gala Artists’ Host Committee, to support SummerScape and the work of the Fisher Center, including: Anne Bogart, Justin Vivian Bond, Scott Frankel, Cherry Jones, Mary Stuart Masterson and Jeremy Davidson, Michael Mayer, Parker Posey, and Anna Deavere Smith.
Last year’s celebration, the first at the glorious nineteenth century estate overlooking the Hudson, was a resounding success. Over 200 guests enjoyed a magical summer evening with a performance by ballet star Sergei Polunin and dinner by Chef Rocco DiSpirito. The evening raised funds for the Fisher Center’s innovative programming and supported the creativity of hundreds of artists.
SummerScape 2017 Gala Co-Chairs | Carolyn Marks Blackwood and Gregory Quinn • Stefano Ferrari and Lilo Zinglersen • Manny Urquiza and Andrew E. Zobler
Advisory Board of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts | Jeanne Donovan Fisher, Chair • Carolyn Marks Blackwood • Stefano Ferrari • Rebecca Gold Milikowsky Denise S. Simon • Thurmond Smithgall • Martin T. Sosnoff • Toni Sosnoff • Felicitas S. Thorne Andrew E. Zobler
Gala Host Committee | Alicia Davis and Steve Ellis • Barbara Ettinger and Sven Huseby • Emily H. Fisher and John Alexander Gary DiMauro Real Estate, Inc. • Dr. Michael and Kate Kortbus • Christopher Lipscomb and Monique Segarra • Tricia and Foster Reed • David and Sarah Stack • Illiana van Meeteren and Terence Boylan ’70 • Aida and Albert Wilder
Artists’ Host Committee | Anne Bogart ’74 • Justin Vivian Bond • Scott Frankel • Cherry Jones • Mary Stuart Masterson and Jeremy Davidson • Michael Mayer • Parker Posey • Anna Deavere Smith
The evening will commence at 6:00 p.m. Tickets are available online from the Fisher Center or by email events@bard.edu or by phone (845) 758-7414.
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