Some familiar yet some new names

A celebration of playwright Samuel Beckett’s centenary, violinist Gidon Kremer playing music by Bach and Busoni, and a rare Southern California appearance by Woody Allen and his New Orleans Jazz Band will highlight the 2006-07 UCLA Live season.

The season, which will begin Sept. 15 and was announced Monday, will consist of 62 events or about 162 performances, compared with 68 events comprising 153 performances in 2005-06. The budget, said series director David Sefton, is about $8 million, an increase of $2 million over last season.

According to Sefton, the university reinstated the $200,000 it cut from last season and will contribute about 10% of the $8 million. Of the rest, he said in an earlier interview, about 60% will come from ticket sales and the remainder from government and private support.

Although the offerings suggest a somewhat cautious mix of the new and the familiar, Sefton defended his choices.

“Introducing new artists and reintroducing familiar ones, that’s the balance, that’s how our season works,” he said.

“You can’t fill the season with people that people have never heard of, though there are plenty of those. The familiar artists will pay for the things people have never heard of.”

In support of that assertion, he said ticket sales had gone up every year since he took over in 2000.

“There are more tickets on sale next season because the season is larger,” he said. “But I’m confident.”

The season -- to be presented primarily at UCLA’s Royce Hall and Freud Playhouse -- will include classical, jazz, world, folk and popular music performances, dance events, lectures and family-oriented programs, among the latter the Los Angeles premiere of the off-Broadway show “Slava’s Snowshow” and the Grammy-nominated Dan Zanes and Friends.

The Beckett centenary will include the return of Gate Theatre Dublin’s production of “Waiting for Godot,” previously seen here in 2000, plus five performances of various Beckett works by the Gare St. Lazare Players Ireland.

“I was hoping to get the Gate Theatre to do more than that because they’re doing more on their tour,” said Sefton. “But I lost on that one. That’s why I also brought in Gare St. Lazare Players Ireland to do the monologues.”

The theater lineup will also include the West Coast premiere of Mabou Mines’ Obie Award-winning “Dollhouse,” a surrealistic adaptation of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House”; the world premiere of L.A. playwright Heather Woodbury’s “Tale of 2Cities,” a work inspired by the Brooklyn Dodgers’ 1957 move to Los Angeles; and the Los Angeles debut of China’s Suzhou Kun Opera Theater of Jiangsu Province in a three-evening performance of the epic 16th century drama “The Peony Pavilion.”

The classical music series will include the Kronos Quartet with the Bang on a Can All Stars and Czech violinist and vocalist Iva Bittova; mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves in recital; and the U.S. tour debut of the National Philharmonic of Russia, led by violinist-conductor Vladimir Spivakov, playing Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.

Among the dance offerings will be the U.S. premiere of “Sacred Monsters,” featuring Paris Opera Ballet star Sylvie Guillem and British South Asian choreographer and kathak dancer Akram Khan; Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras in a return engagement (the Spanish dancer and her company appeared at Royce in 2002) with “Sabores” (Flavors); superstar tapper Savion Glover in “Classical Savion”; and Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company with the U.S. premiere of Ohad Naharin’s “Three.”

The other music offerings will include a collaboration between Indian American jazz pianist Vijay Iyer and poet-performer Michael Ladd; Brazilian pop vocalist Marisa Monte; Roswell Rudd teaming with the Mongolian Buryat Band; the Gyuto Monks Tibetan Tantric Choir; John Scofield and Mavis Staples in a tribute to Ray Charles; Lucinda Williams in a rare engagement with her father, Miller Williams; and Roche sisters Maggie, Terre and Suzzy reuniting for a holiday program.

Cartoonist Garry Trudeau, novelist Zadie Smith and New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz are among the personalities scheduled in the spoken-word series.

“I think this is my best season,” Sefton said. “Of course, you’ll say I always say that. But I always have to try better than the year before. That’s my curse.”