Mr. Bieito, a celebrated and controversial director best known for his radical opera productions (most famously a "Masked Ball" featuring a chorus on toilets), turns the play into a seamy nightmare taking place in the disoriented mind of Williams himself, who is depicted in the prologue playing the role of Don Quixote, after a fashion.
This year's events begin with an opening ceremony at the Alamo, above, and include a masked ball featuring Caribbean and South American music (April 21), a Latin American art exhibit, tours of local homes, fashion shows, a mariachi festival and even a dog parade.
As well as a marathon Waters screening session (including an Odorama version of Polyester), expect cabaret and live music performances, a Hairspray-like ball (featuring Corny Collins dance lessons), bizarre competitions, trampolining, an "eat your makeup" stall and a "tea bagging booth" (we're not sure either).
Along with booths filled with explanations and flyers, some supporters will roll around inside a giant transparent ball featuring different types of swastikas.
Indonesians and Americans in Jakarta watched the inauguration at a free midnight ball featuring performances by students from State Elementary School Menteng 01, the school that Obama attended as a child.
Was at 12th century Cardiff Castle, with its wall-busting rugby ball – featuring a fibreglass shell and pretend foam bricks.
NATIONAL NEWARK BUILDING The New Jersey State Opera's "Millennium Aida Ball," featuring a costume fashion show, dancing, dining, and performances from the ten greatest operas of the last millennium as selected by Alfredo Silipigni, artistic director and conductor.
What brings Mr. N'Dour to Manhattan is the GREAT AFRICAN BALL, featuring his exceptional working band, Le Super ?oile.
From 8 to 9 comes dance instruction from Steppin' Out Dance Studio, which may prove handy from 9 to 11 at the Winter Ball, featuring the Vienna Festival Orchestra.
And in the adjacent Halls C and D: the junior cotillion's Winter Ball, featuring boys in blazers, girls in long evening gloves and demonstrations of a more proper form of footwork.
Some of it, like the two albums he recorded for the Reprise label in the 1970s, Of Rivers and Religion and After the Ball, feature a Dixieland orchestra, and are very much an acquired taste.
