Rudi Stern's Theater of Light, which ran at NYC's Flea Theatre in December 1999, and then again at La MaMa's Annex Theatre this past September, will begin a three-month engagement on Jan. 5, 2001, at the Flamboyan Theatre, a space in the Soto Velez Cultural Center on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The fantasia of music and colored light will officially open Jan. 11.

With the likes of Timothy Leary, The Doors, Igor Stravinsky and Joseph Chaikin, Stern created works of light for concerts, dance, theatre and opera. Theater of Light is his first theatrical venture in thirty years.

Theater of Light utilizes hand-painted 2'' by 2'' glass slides projected on to multiple screens to the music of Peter Gabriel, Enya, Tangerine Dream, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Ali Farka Toure, Donovan and others. A work of detail (one seven-minute piece requires some 1,500 projection cues), Theater of Light uses no computer-generated images during the 72 minute piece, something of which Stern is proud.

In a released statement, Stern described the piece as "painting with light. Light here is not a backdrop. It is the performance."

Tickets are $20. The Flamboyan Theatre is located at 107 Suffolk St. In Manhattan. For more information, call (212) 279-4200. — By Robert Simonson