Airing Sunday, August 31 at 12 noon, this edition of the weekly arts showcase marks the return of the SundayArts/Great Performances pairing. After a brief summer hiatus, the latter program returns to Sunday afternoons with this acclaimed February 2007 staging of the Kurt Weill-Bertolt Brecht operatic piece.

This "savage and lyrical satire told in a highly entertaining blend of opera and raucous music hall songs" is conducted by LA Opera Music Director James Conlon and stars three of the top names in musical theatre and opera: Tony Award-winning living theatrical legends Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald, and acclaimed American tenor Anthony Dean Griffey. The production is directed by John Doyle, reuniting with LuPone, who starred in his Tony-winning revival of Sweeney Todd.

Prior to ...Mahagonny, SundayArts News will cover the fields of photography, visual art and theatre. Featured segments will include:

*Outdoor Event: A visit to the Deitch Project's The 4th Annual Art Parade. The annual event, marking the beginning of the Art season and New York Fashion Week, invites artists, performers and designers to create floats, placards, spectacles and street performances. The parade will take place on Saturday, September 6th at 4pm. The route follows West Broadway from Houston to Grand Street.

*Photography: The New York Public Library's Focus on the 70s: The Fabulous Photography of Kenn Duncan is a comprehensive exhibition featuring materials from the archive of renowned portrait and fashion photographer Kenn Duncan. Spanning Duncan's 20-year career, the exhibit features approximately 400 photographs and is on display in the Donald and Mary Oenslager Gallery of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, located at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza.

*Off-Broadway Theatre: A look at Performance Space 122, which recently announced its Fall 2008 schedule. The season opens with the world premiere of Thomas Bradshaw's Southern Promises in the Downstairs Theater.

*Museums: The New Museum's After Nature brings together an international and multi-generational group of contemporary artists, filmmakers, writers, and outsiders, many of whom are showing in a New York museum for the first time. The show, which depicts a future landscape of wilderness and ruins, spans three floors and includes over ninety works.

At the center of the SundayArts Profile is Brooklyn chalk artist Ellis Gallagher. Creating etchings of shadows of everyday urban street objects, the former graffiti writer's work can be found all across New York City and beyond. An additional segment will feature an interview with Greg Wyatt, the sculptor-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

Finally SundayArts "Choice" takes audiences once more to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, where Curator Terry Carbone discusses Francis Guy's Winter Scene.

For more information visit www.thirteen.org/sundayarts/

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SundayArts is Thirteen/WNET's on-air/online series through which arts enthusiasts everywhere can access the Big Apple's cultural best. New York's public television station has long partnered with the city's most celebrated cultural institutions, capturing and broadcasting their work on PBS.

Every Sunday at noon on Thirteen, SundayArts wraps insightful interviews, on-location features, profiles, and introductions around a showcased presentation. SundayArts News segments cover current cultural highlights while Curator's Choice briefs offer first-hand, insider reviews of highlights from shows and events around town. Profiles of cultural figures reflect the eclectic New York arts scene.

For those outside of Thirteen's tri-state viewing area, www.thirteen.org/sundayarts makes New York's cultural bounty accessible anytime, from anywhere. The video-rich new site features the latest arts news, interviews, and previews of SundayArts broadcasts. Contributing bloggers Elizabeth Vincentelli (Time Out New York), Adam Wasserman (Opera News) and cultural journalist Jennifer Melick add knowledgeable, lively dialogue to the site. Users are encouraged to email questions and comments to the host, artists and organizations.

Funding for SundayArts has been provided by The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation. Additional funding has been provided by The Lemberg Foundation.

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Thirteen/WNET New York is one of the key program providers for public television, bringing such acclaimed series as Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, Charlie Rose, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, Wide Angle, Secrets of the Dead, NOW With David Brancaccio, Expos_, Bill Moyers Journal, and Cyberchase to audiences nationwide. As the flagship public broadcaster in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut metro area, Thirteen reaches millions of viewers each week, airing the best of American public television along with its own local productions such as New York Voices, Reel 13 and SundayArts.