Sacramento's Community Center Theater came to life Thursday with the beautiful sound of The Hutchins Consort. Presented by Sacramento Community Concerts, the group performed a one-night concert that defied the range of a modern symphony orchestra string section. The Hutchins Consort is a unique Southern California-based group that plays eight scaled violins of the violin octet design. These acoustically balanced instruments range from a high treble violin to a low contrabass violin and together cover the musical scale that today's string instrument, the violin, viola, cello and bass, do not. These eight instruments, three similar to a violin and five upright, were created by Dr. Carleen

With the national tour of the smash Broadway musical Rent making its last stop in Sacramento, fans from all over the world are flocking to Sacramento's Community Center Theater to experience it one last time. The tour features a multitude of original cast members, including Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal. Some fans wait all day for the $23 rush tickets, which go on sale at 6 p.m. the day of the show, and provide the opportunity to see the musical from the first two rows. Morgan Macri, Beth Furmoff and Kayla Guminiak had been waiting in line together since 9:30 a.m. Friday morning. They were visiting California for the first time, and had paid more than $500 to visit Sacramento and see Ren

It's the "Season of Love" at the California Musical Theatre as the Broadway Musical Rent: The Broadway Tour comes to Sacramento. The musical follows a group of young artists who live in New York's East Village during the 1990s. Rent is a passionate story of friendship and love that challenges many tough subjects like AIDS, poverty, homophobia and drug addiction. Rent is a modern take on the opera La bohème, which was written by Giacomo Puccini in 1896. The show is the eighth-longest running on Broadway. Its success has been recognized multiple times, having received Tony Awards for Best Music, Best Score and Best Book, as well as Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1996.   The musical is maki

Musical genius and understanding exudes from piano duo Anthony and Joseph Paratore, who performed Thursday, January 14th at the Sacramento Community Center Theater in the Convention Center Complex. It was the first appearance of the internationally acclaimed brothers in Sacramento. The performance consisted of the brothers playing several orchestral compositions on two pianos unaccompanied. The first, a classical score by Sergei Rachmaninov, showed the power and strength of their musical talent with heavy notes and soft undertones. The brothers then played a condensed version of the "Nutcracker" suite which was as beautiful as it was perfectly on-point. After intermission, the Paratores

As children pranced around the well-lit and creatively-designed stage during Tuesday night’s dress rehearsal of the Nutcracker at the Community Center Theater, the Sacramento Ballet prepared for another season of Sugar Plum Fairies. Director of Production Kyle Lemoi, who has been with the company for three seasons, said he has done many Nutcracker productions around the country, but the stage setup and attention to detail is what sets the Sacramento production apart.   “The set was made in Russia and was designed by (Alan Vaes), who lives in New York,” he said. “Everything is hand painted and they painted it with dye.” The stage setup is a recent addition to the company and has only bee

Sex. It's controversial today, and it has been for more than a century. That's why Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play, Spring Awakening, which has strong sexual themes and language, was not produced in the playwright's native Germany until 1906. It opened to English audiences for the first time in New York in 1917, and closed after one performance. Times have changed. The winner of eight 2007 Tony awards including "best musical" and a 2008 Grammy for "Best Musical Show Album opens Wednesday as part of California Musical Theatre's Broadway Sacramento season. Well, sort of. Spring Awakening was not offered as part of the season subscription package, because the theater's executive producer, Richar

Sacramento Ballet has narrowly survived its budget crisis. After canceling the remainder of the 2008-2009 season last January, the ballet will dance on another season. "We're excited and thrilled to have made it through the crisis, and we've put together a program!" said Mimi Kent, the ballet's marketing director. Credit the work ethic of the dancers. After the season was canceled, they organized and executed their own fundraising campaign while continuing with a number of in-studio performances. On top of that, they took a 10 percent pay cut last season which has now been restored. In one silent auction, they raised about $20,000 for the organization. For the 2009-2010 season, Sacrame