Washington and Lee University
Adult $35, Senior $35, Non-W&L Student $20, W&L Faculty & Staff $20, W&L Student $10
Box Office hours:
Monday - Friday, 9-11 a.m., 2-4 p.m.
and two hours before each ticketed performance
(540) 458-8000
Lenfest, Class of ’64 and Concert Guild join together to present Porgy and Bess. Featuring a cast of 30 with live orchestra, the George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess will celebrate the production’s 75th Anniversary in 2010.
Porgy and Bess is recognized as an American masterpiece. It is a story that intertwines pride, prejudice, pathos and passion through a jazz and blues-influenced score. Originally billed as a “folk opera,” Porgy and Bess introduced classic Gershwin songs including “Summertime,” “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” as well as magnificent and enthralling choruses that stunned music and drama critics alike at its premiere in 1935.
Based on the DuBose Heyward novel set in Charleston’s famed Catfish Row, Porgy and Bess tells the moving story of Porgy, a cripple, who witnesses a murder during a dice game and later gives shelter to the murderer’s woman, the beautiful, haunted Bess. The Catfish Row community is opposed to the union, but Porgy and Bess make each other happy and their happiness only increases when they take in a child orphaned by a hurricane. Their happiness is shattered when the murderer, Crown, returns for Bess and Porgy, defending his family, kills him. The police detain him for questioning but never dream that a cripple could be the killer, so Porgy returns triumphantly to the Row. The triumph turns to tragedy quickly when he learns that, while he was away, Sportin’ Life, the dope pusher and Bess’ former pimp, seduced Bess with “happy dust” and took her away to New York City to resume her career as a prostitute.
Lenfest, Class of ’64 and Concert Guild join together to present Porgy and Bess. Featuring a cast of 30 with live orchestra, the Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess will celebrate the production’s 75th Anniversary in 2010.
Porgy and Bess is recognized as an American masterpiece. A story that intertwines pride, prejudice, pathos and passion through a jazz and blues influenced score. Originally billed as a “Folk Opera”, Porgy and Bess introduced classic Gershwin songs including “Summertime,” “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” as well as magnificent and enthralling choruses that stunned music and drama critics alike at its premiere in 1935.
