Every year, the Staller Center for the Arts hosts world renowned performers from across the spectrum of live exertainment.
For more than four decades, the performance arts center in the heart of campus at Stony Brook University has loaded its lineup with an array of talent from classically trained musicians and dancers to pop singers and standup comics.
We’ve selected three artists coming to the stage this fall at the Staller Center for the Arts and learned what they have in store for their audiences.
Vic DiBitetto
As every snow storm nears, that video of a man yelling “I gotta get the bread and milk” yet again surfaces on social media. That anxiety ridden man in the clip is Vic DiBitetto, and he’s coming to the Staller Center on Saturday, Oct. 22.
While his “Ticked Off Vic” and other YouTube and social media videos may reach millions of followers, DiBitetto’s live sets before sold out crowds are the best way to experience his rantings on everything from current events to his family and anything else irking him lately.
The standup comedian born in Brooklyn who now resides in New Jersey tours the country, but it’s loyal followers from the northeast who routinely pack his shows.
“When I tour all over the country, it’s all New York and New Jersey transplants,” DiBitetto said. “When I go to Texas, there was nobody there from Texas. I didn’t see one cowboy hat or pair of boots. Even if there are local people, they love New Yorkers, they love the accent.”
Although he calibrates some of his bits when he performs around the county, the crowd at the Staller Center will fully appreciate his jokes about growing up an Italian New Yorker in a house with plastic slip covers on the furniture and photos of Jesus Christ shaking Frank Sinatra’s hand.
“You can’t talk about plastic slip covers in Texas or Ohio, you got to tweak it a little bit,” he said. “You don’t have to be Italian or from New York (to get it), but it helps.”
For anyone seeing him at the Staller Center, DiBitetto promises to bring the pain.
“I want their face to hurt, I want their stomachs to hurt, I want them to tell people you have never seen a comedian give it 101 percent,” he said. “It’s an hour on nonstop energy. I’m screaming. I’m spitting, the sweat is flying. If you want to smile, go see Jerry Seinfeld; if you want belly laughs, come see me.”
Get tickets to Vic DiBitetto at the Staller Center Saturday, Oct. 22 here.
Macy Kate
Singer and fashion influencer Macy Kate is perhaps best known for her 2019 breakout single “Cry For Me,” which garnered over six million streams on Spotify and made the rounds on TikTok.
“I take my personal experiences, whether that’s trauma whether that’s happiness, wherever I’m at personally in my life, and I bring it into my music,” said Kate, who will perform at the Staller Center on Friday, Oct. 14. “I think I was really all over the place emotionally when I was writing that record.
“I was in a place where I didn’t really know exactly who I was and was really struggling to find that,” she continued. “I think a lot of people, especially women in their 20s, even men in their 20s, are going through different phases of finding themselves.”
A lot has changed since she unveiled “Cry For Me” and her 2020 EP of the same name. The influencer who curates for her Mase By Macy fashion company recently attended her first fashion week.
Her music reflects her growth. More recent singles “Sugar” and “Married To The Money” detail a young woman with new found confidence as a person and an artist.
“With ‘Cry For Help,’ it was a super emotional song and although it was really witty and funny in some way, I also was going through some serious [stuff] at the time,” she said. “I was back and forth on a lot of things, versus on ‘Sugar’ and ‘Married to the Money’ I was coming out of relationships, and then after the relationship I was feeling like a boss woman. I was ready to take on the world.
“It was two very different places that I was in emotionally, but they came out in really cool ways,” she continued. “That’s what I love about music. I just think that whatever you’re feeling can translate into a song and translate into the sound of a song.”
When Kate performs at the Staller Center this fall, she said attendees can expect “an intimate feel” from her and her band’s performance. Fans will be excited to know she will perform some new material live that she has yet to release.
You can click here to get tickets to see Macy Kate at the Staller Center on Friday, Oct. 4 .
Peking Acrobats featuring the Shanghai Circus
For 30 years, the Peking Acrobats have amazed audiences the world over with their incredible performances.
The group, joined by special guests from the Shanghai Circus will take the stage at the Staller Center on Friday, Oct. 7, at 7 p.m. to showcase their current gratify-defying displays of contortion.
“This iteration is just infused with so much joy and so much energy, Peking Acrobot producer Cynthia Hughes said. The performers give 110%, and when the audiences come to the show, they can expect to be entertained, to hoot and holler … and just have a really wonderful night of theater that’s also cultural because they are sharing their culture from China.
“I want audiences to come and really appreciate what we have in theater because it’s so vital to our development not only as people, but to respect other cultures and to break down barriers between countries,” she continued.
Hughes teased a number of the spectacles attendees can expect at the Staller Center, including a high chair act, spinning plates atop bamboo poles, hoop diving and a highwire act.
“We have a marvelous hula hoop gal, she’s like a human slinky,” Hughes said of one of many performances in store. “She has all of these hula hoops, she’s engulfed in them and she keeps them going.
“For the sports fans, we have a basketball juggling act,” she continued. “The basketball juggler is hysterically funny, he’s really good. There is a roller skating act that involves a great deal of centrifugal force, I will say no more than that.”
You can get tickets to the Peking Acrobats at the Staller Center Friday, Oct. 7, by clicking here.
Top photo: Macy Kater
