Join scholars Dr. Lindsey Mantoan, author of It's All Happening: How Musical Theater Does High School (Oxford, 2026), and Dr. Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, author of Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist (Simon & Schuster, 2025) for a free conversation about high school on the musical theater stage. This evening will feature performances by PSU students from some favorite high school musicals--come to sing, chat, and cheer along!
Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Learn more about theTheater Arts program at PSU's School of Music & Theater.
For Tank and the Bangas, music is a vessel for unbridled joy and transcendent connectionâforces as integral to their essence as their wildly original sound. On their new album, The Last Balloon, the New Orleans-bred outfit channels those impulses into something celebratory yet profoundly human, exploring themes of frustration, resilience, and self-realization with equal parts raw emotionality and playful exuberance. A shapeshifting collective helmed by lead singer Tarriona âTankâ Ball and multi-instrumentalist Norman Spence II, the globally beloved group completed the LP after winning a Grammy for 2024âs spoken-word powerhouse The Heart, The Mind, The Soul, moving from incendiary poetry to a euphoric collision of soul and hip-hop and forward-thinking R&B. As the final installment in a trilogy of albums that began with 2019âs Green Balloon (a critical triumph that earned them a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist), The Last Balloon ultimately solidifies Tank and the Bangasâ legacy as one of modern musicâs most steadfast voices of sublime exhilaration.
With Ariel J., Zeus (DJ). All Ages
Choreographer Lai Hung-chung makes dances of striking beauty and intention. Birdy, his captivating signature work for Hung Dance, moves between suspense and explosive energy, between the weight of tradition and the pull toward something new. Hung Dance seamlessly blends traditional Chinese arts â including Tai Chi, Peking Opera, and classical Chinese music â with current dance techniques and driving electronic music to create work that is poetic and flowing, rhythmic and impressive. What you see on stage is a work in constant transformation: bodies that bend and resist, images that linger, a world where the tension between holding on and letting go becomes the dance itself. Tickets: $6-$89