Dinner, Exhibit and Shoshana!

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After a relaxing, casual dinner at an old favorite, Pita Jungle, with Cindy & John, we made our way to "The Tempe Center for the Arts". We visited the exhibit "Breath: Between Word and Image" which pairs eleven visual artists and eleven poets in a series of collaborations exploring how words and images reflect, resonate, and reshape one another. The exhibition features works that move between visual art, poetry, sound, artist books, installation, and image-making. Existing works take on new meanings through unexpected relationships. Breath considers collaboration not as the merging of two voices into one, but as holding space for possibility between them. I have included two pairs of art and poetry and the write-ups for 6 others. See the exhibit and imagine the conversations that were had between the arts/poets.

The highlight of the evening was the Shoshana Bean concert. Now we are FANS!!!

Shoshana Bean is a Grammy Award winner and Tony-nominated powerhouse, most recently in the musical Hell’s Kitchen. In 2022, she received Tony and Grammy nominations for her starring role opposite Billy Crystal in Broadway’s Mr. Saturday Night (we happened to see her in that). She was the first replacement for Elphaba in Wicked and later took on the role of Jenna in Waitress. She made her Broadway debut in the original cast of Hairspray, appeared Off-Broadway in the 2000 revival of Godspell, and starred in Songs for a New World at City Center Encores and as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl earned her an IRNE Award and an award for Beaches.

Beyond the stage, Shoshana has made her mark as an independent recording artist. Her six albums have topped the Billboard charts, including reaching #1 on the Billboard Jazz Chart. Shoshana recently performed her first sold-out solo concert at New York City’s renowned Carnegie Hall. We saw Shoshana tonight in her one week tour while on hiatus from starring in Lost Boys on Broadway (where Karen & Lee saw her a few months ago). We had such a good time tonight with her versatile music styles, humor and great personality telling personal stories to this intimate audience!Read more