FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (2/05)
Contact:Contact: Dr. Lisa Nicoletti, Associate Professor of Art, 318-869-5261, or Lynn Stewart or Kelsey Johnson, Centenary News Service, 318-869-5120

Nationally Acclaimed Holocaust Musical Drama Performance at Centenary College Feb. 22

	Dr. Claudia Stevens (Photo by Ben Greenberg)

SHREVEPORT, LA – Innovative performer Dr. Claudia Stevens will present her original musical drama, An Evening with Madame F., at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 22, at Centenary College. The performance will be held in Anderson Auditorium, which is in the Hurley Music Building on Woodlawn Avenue.

Sponsored by the Department of Art and Visual Culture and the Convocations Subcommittee at Centenary, this event will be free for the entire Centenary community. Admission for the general public is set at $5 for adults and $2 for students, payable at the door.

Stevens assumes the role of an elderly prisoner and musician at Auschwitz. By blending historical inmate songs and first-hand accounts, Stevens showcases her giftedness in singing, piano playing and acting to portray the struggle of inmates who survived the concentration camp by way of their artistic expressions.

A former concert pianist, Stevens has refined her skills in oration, conducting, composition, acting and music, making her an engaging multidisciplinary artist. She amazes audiences with the diversity of her performances as she continues to broaden her creative scope.

An Evening with Madame F. has been presented in over 100 venues nationwide, including the metropolitan areas of New York, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Boston and Washington, D.C., as well as several universities.

California native and daughter of Holocaust survivors, Stevens was commissioned to create this work by the Jewish Federation of Richmond, Va. It was produced for television by the PBS affiliate WCVE and was also broadcast over Voice of America. Stevens has received support in the form of grants from the International Theater Institute, the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

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