LI falls for performing arts in the fall

The football season is well under way. The baseball playoffs begin Friday. So it's also time for the fall season at Long Island's leading performing arts centers.

* Tilles Center's official opening is next weekend's sold-out "Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin." But tickets remain for Friday night's Classic Albums Live "White Album" performance and Saturday's "Let It Be" (both at 8). "Since Oct. 9 would have been John Lennon's 72nd birthday, we wanted to make this sort of a Lennon festival," says Tilles executive director Elliott Sroka. Portions of the documentary "Imagine" will be screened before each concert, and Beatles memorabilia is displayed in the Atrium.

* In its second season, Madison Theatre at Molloy College becomes the new home of the revitalized Long Island Opera Company. In its first fully staged production in more than a decade, the company performs Verdi's lusty "Rigoletto" Saturday night at 8 with a live orchestra and specially designed costumes and set. "This is a huge step for us," says director Joy Berta, crediting benefactor Marty Bevilacqua, also a major Madison Theatre contributor, for "making it possible." Another full-scale production, Puccini's "La Bohème," follows in April. A recent "Carmen" production, performed without orchestra at East Hampton's Guild Hall, "makes this a season for us," says Berta.

* Staller Center continues its season Oct. 13 with back-by-popular-demand saxophonist David Sanborn -- this time in the 400-seat Recital Hall. "We've switched our jazz series from the main stage for a more intimate setting," says Staller executive director Alan Inkles. Sanborn is followed on Oct. 17 by the Emerson String Quartet in its final season with cellist David Finckel. Paul Watkins replaces him next fall.

More season highlights:

"This is a major Broadway season for us," says Sroka. A "West Side Story" tour arrives on Nov. 11, followed by "Shrek The Musical" Dec. 16, "A Chorus Line" in March and "Hair" in May. The two-man parody "Potted Potter: The Unauthorized Harry Potter Experience" plays in January, and the current Broadway smash "Rock of Ages" in February.

The Long Island Philharmonic performs its New Year's Eve gala, plus Tilles' endowment concert in May, "Here to Stay: The Gershwin Experience."

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