The Chandler Music Hall in Randolph may be Vermont's coolest concert venue - the history, the intimate feel, the wonderful acoustics, the sweet little town, the great folks who run the joint - and on September 15, they're kicking off the 100th anniversary of the Chandler with a nine hour "101 Premieres" marathon performance.

Check it out here - and book your tickets now!

9-HOUR MARATHON PERFORMANCE TO KICK OFF CHANDLER CENTENNIAL SEASON

September , 2007 The anything-but-sleepy Vermont town of Randolph (pop. 5,000) will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of its beloved opera house with a rash of special events in 2007 - 2008.There will be 30 music, dance and theatre performances by noted soloists and ensembles, 8 gallery exhibitions, children's programs, the Central Vermont Chamber Music Festival, the New World Festival, the Fiddlehead Festival, and even a softball game between two deadly rivals in Randolph's cultural substratum. Arlo Guthrie will be on hand. So will Natalie MacMaster. The Chiara String Quartet, the Hilliard Ensemble and others will play new works by esteemed local composers, commissioned for the centennial.

All of these will have their moment, but it's likely that two will attract particular notice nationally. One is a live broadcast of the popular National Public Radio show “From the Top” to stations all over the country direct from the music hall stage. The other, the season opener on September 15, is a nine-hour marathon performance called “101 Premieres - Albert's Big Bash”.

The century-old theatre is performance space of the Chandler Center for the Arts. The premieres will be 101 short presentations of works of art that appeared in the U.S. or abroad between 1907, the year the Music Hall opened, and the present. The “Albert” whose bash it is was Colonel Albert Chandler, the Randolph benefactor whose generosity made possible the building of the music hall and its adjacent art gallery.

The September marathon performance at Chandler was conceived by Chandler board member Anthony Keller, who is directing the project. Keller says “We couldn't think of a better way to celebrate the birth of our cultural center a century ago, and the inspiration of its founder, than to pay tribute to the creative artists whose work, since the earliest recorded history, is the reason institutions like ours exist all over the world.”

Over one hundred and fifty performers will appear on the Chandler stage during the marathon to present excerpts from plays, musicals, choreography, novels, poems, operas, symphonic, folk, chamber, jazz and pop music that came to life between 1907 and 2007. Great photography, paintings, sculpture, movies, and architecture of the past and present will also be seen by the audience as digitally projected images.

The show has been divided into ten decades, each of which is being researched, organized and directed by a different Central Vermont artist. The ten “Decade Directors” are now at work, casting andpreparing their half-hour productions: John Jackson of Randolph, Bob Eddy of Braintree, Maria Lamson of South Royalton, Dorothy Robson of Hancock, Tony Keller of Braintree, Nina Gaby of Brookfield, Charlie McMeekin of Braintree, Kep Taylor of Bethel, Dawn Butterfield of Randolph and Shari Dutton of Chelsea. Betsy Cantlin of Randolph Center, the production manager, is in charge of the demanding technical aspects of the event which will require tag teams of lighting and sound technicians and stagehands.

The show starts at 3 p.m. and ends at midnight. It is assumed that no production this long or this ambitious has ever before been staged in Vermont. Keller's idea for the marathon goes back to a
production he saw in New York during the late 1980s, Peter Brook's dramatization of the ancient Indian epic, The Mahabarata, the world's longest poem. “It was thoroughly engaging,” he recalls. “The nine hours whizzed by.”

Why a marathon? “We could have divided the century into three standard length evenings,” Keller says, “but only by doing it all at one sitting will the audience experience the sweep of history.” “Besides,” he notes, “nine hours isn't really such a big deal. It's not all that much longer than many people's work day or a double-header that goes into extra innings, and it's much more interesting!”

Reserved seating will be $25, tickets for Part I (1907-1956) and Part II (1957-2007) will be $13 each. “We are giving awards to folks who sit through the whole thing - and stay awake,” Keller
noted, “but those with shorter attention spans can also come in and pay 25 cents a year.”

A sidewalk procession from Mari-Castle, Colonel Chandler's home, to the theatre, featuring the whole cast in costume will precede the show. The South Royalton Band, under the direction of Dick Ellis, will welcome patrons outside the Hall. There will be a one-hour dinner break mid-way, and a party afterward. At midnight the bell in the Chandler belfry will be rung for the first time in many years.

Among the artists whose work will be represented in “101 Premieres” are: Abbott and Costello, Maya Angelo, Samuel Beckett, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Aaron Copland, Beastie Boys, Leonard Bernstein, Constantin Brancusi, Dave Brubeck, Charlie Chaplin, Joel and Ethan Coen, Eames, Bob Eddy, Sabra Field, Anne Frank, Robert Frost, George Gershwin, Bobby Gosh, Martha Graham, Kenneth Grahame, Keith Haring, Langston Hughes, Michael Jackson, James Joyce, Jack Kerouac, Lee Krasner, John Lennon, Sinclair Lewis, Frank Loesser, William Luce, Norman Mailer, Robert Mapplethorpe, the Marx Brothers, Henri Matisse, Arthur Miller, Margaret Mitchell, Bob Newhart, Erik Nielsen, the No Strings Marionettes, George Orwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Cole Porter, Elvis Presley, Annie Proulx, Giocomo Puccini, Norman Rockwell, Sigmund Romberg, K.K. Rowling, Margorie Ryerson, J.D. Salinger, Jim Sardonis, The Shirelles, Budd Schulberg, Bessie Smith, Benjamin Spock, John Steinbeck,
Richard Strauss, Dylan Thomas, The Village People, Alice Walker, Gwyneth Walker, Andy Warhol, Frank Weatherly, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Hans Wegner, Thornton Wilder, Tennessee Williams, Grant Wood, Baron Wormser and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Technical director Mimi Burstein will oversee a team of technical assistants including stage manager Jesse LaRoque, sound technician Tanner Lake, and digital master Tom Harty, as well as high school aged technical theater students who will help to make the magic happen backstage.

This project is sponsored by The Bare Mexican Restaurant and the Vermont Community Foundation.

For tickets, please contact the box office at 802-728-6464 or tickets@chandler-arts.org . “101 Premieres” is running concurrently with the Tunbridge Fair. Taking in both events is being sold as an attractive weekend tourist package. “But the show is first and foremost a hometown event,” says Becky McMeekin, Chandler's executive director. “We're celebrating an amazing century - in the arts worldwide and here in
Central Vermont.”