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Broad Stage’s 2010-11 season to feature artists including Joshua Bell, Judy Collins and Alan Cumming

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The Broad Stage in Santa Monica keeps growing.

Its third season, which will be announced Thursday, will be its biggest yet--with more than 60 theater, classical, jazz, dance and popular music acts featuring artists such as F. Murray Abraham, Joshua Bell, Branford Marsalis and Alan Cumming.

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Dale Franzen, director of the Broad, says the venue also is introducing contemporary dance, film and children’s music series and will experiment with converting the 99-seat Edye Second Space--the companion to the 499-seat main stage--into a ‘21st Century Cabaret.’

‘Our first year was abbreviated and in our second we were fleshing out,’ says Franzen. ‘This will be the year when we are closer to being who we are going to be.’

The 2010-11 season will begin the weekend of Oct. 7-9 with performances by jazz bassist-vocalist Esperanza Spalding, singer-songwriter Judy Collins and cellist Lynn Harrell.

The Broad also will present several pre-season shows--including the new musical ‘Daddy Long Legs’ in June and an evening with Cumming in July--what Franzen calls ‘a small foray into the summer market.’

Highlights of the season’s theater offerings include ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ from Shakespeare’s Globe in London, Abraham starring in the Theatre for a New Audience’s ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and two productions from director Peter Brook--a quintet of Samuel Beckett pieces and a monologue adapted from Dostoevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov.’

The dance series will feature Diavolo, String Theory and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. Besides Harrell and violinist Bell, classical artists will include violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg with the New Century Chamber Orchestra and guitarist Angel Romero and the Rossetti String Quartet.

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Saxophonist Marsalis will appear with trumpeter-composer Terence Blanchard.

Among the vocal performers will be Tony winners Christine Ebersole, Paulo Szot and Lea Salonga and opera soprano Nino Machaidze.

The Mariachi Divas will play at a free Sept. 19 celebration in honor of the bicentennial of Mexican independence, one of two community programs. The other will be a May 22, 2011, tribute to singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie.

The Broad will continue its low-priced ‘Under the Radar’ events aimed at what Franzen calls a ‘more spontaneous 35-and-under crowd.’

Also back will be ‘I Wonder,’ in which actor Dustin Hoffman, founding chairman of the Broad’s artistic advisory board, holds informal post-performance conversations with artists.

For the new season, Franzen hopes to create a cabaret atmosphere in the Edye by bringing in tables, a bar and ‘special kinds of shows.’

‘We’re still in the experimental phase,’ she says. ‘So we’ll keep adding things as we go along.’

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A complete schedule of events is available at the Broad website.

--Karen Wada

Top photo: Joshua Bell at the Hollywood Bowl in 2008. Credit: Alex Gallardo / Los Angeles Times

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