LANSDALE - The North Penn Regional Council for the Arts has a sixth sense that opening night for the Lansdale Center for the Performing Arts will be spectacular.
A piano recital by the 12-year-old daughter of filmmaker M. Night Shayamalan and the vocal stylings of Erin Reilly have been added to the schedule for opening night at the Lansdale Center for the Performing Arts.
The benefit, scheduled for Friday, Nov. 7, will also feature performances by the Bucks County Choral Society, the Institute for Dance Artistry and the Robin Haffley Jazz Trio, according to Deborah Israel, a spokeswoman for the North Penn Regional Council for the Arts, the organization that will manage the facility’s daily operations.
Tickets for the performances, scheduled from 7 to 9:30 p.m., cost $50. Admission to the show and a reception, which begins at 6p.m., costs $100.
The reception - held in an art gallery adjacent to the theater - will showcase historic photos of performers and venues in the borough. Tickets are available to the public, according to Israel.
"The tracking for this event has been very strong," she said. "But we’ve got room for more people."
A public dedication will be held on Saturday, Nov. 22 - before the Mardi Gras parade - between 9 and 9:30 a.m., according to borough Manager Lee Mangan. He said public tours of the facility, located at 311 W. Main St. in what was the former Masonic Temple, will be available during the day.
Diana Scott, president of the board of directors of the NPRCA, and state Sen. Rob Wonderling, R-24th District, will deliver remarks commemorating the completion of a 210-seat theater, an art gallery and a music education facility.
A performance by students from the Institute of Dance Artistry will kick off the performances. Located in Fort Washington and Lafayette Hill, the school teaches modern, jazz, ballet, lyrical and hip-hop steps, and also offers pilates and yoga classes.
The Bucks County Choral Society, directed by Thomas Lloyd, will follow. The 100-voice auditioned ensemble’s repertoire ranges from classical to contemporary music.
Following intermission, Saleka Shayamalan will give her first public performance. A seventh-grade student who lives in Bucks County, Saleka has studied seven years under Marja Kaisla, a renown concert pianist.
Then Reilly, co-artistic director of the Theater Horizon in King of Prussia, will sing a series of Broadway favorites. She is an acting and playwriting teacher who has appeared in numerous commercials, local films and readings. She also has studied theater at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco and Theatre aux Mains Nues in Paris.
Wesley Stohler, who recently participated as an opening act for Jeffrey Gaines at Upper Merion’s Concert Under the Stars series, will accompany Reilly on the piano.
The center will serve as the home of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Symphony, according to Israel.
Officials have collected more than a quarter of the $3.45 million necessary to complete the project’s second phase, which includes a 455-seat theater on the top floor.
Utilizing a grant from the Montgomery County Revitalization Program, Lansdale Borough Council purchased the former Masonic lodge in 2005.
Two years later, the NPRCA was created to oversee the arts center. Conversion of the structure, which includes more than 20,000 square feet, began in July 2007.