Get ready for 20 nights.

Four nights of show-stopping Broadway musicals, four nights of cutting-edge dance innovation, three nights of family entertainment, two nights of cool, swingin’ jazz sounds, two nights of culturally focused world groups, two nights of internationally touring symphony orchestras, two nights of prodigious chamber artists and one night of a timeless Rossini opera. It all adds up to create 20 nights of the 1999-2000 Stephens Auditorium season.

“The emphasis really is diversity,” said Paul Ferrone, director of performing arts programming at Stephens. “We don’t preference one category over another, so students can come and gain a wide experience of performing arts. All [students] have to do is look around at other universities to realize they’re pretty fortunate to be at Iowa State and have these kinds of offerings.”

Among this season’s offerings are the percussive extravaganza of “Stomp,” the Grammy and Tony award-winning musical, “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” Washington D.C.’s National Symphony Orchestra, a return performance from Irish playing crowd-pleasers The Chieftains and a New York City Opera performance of Rossini’s popular work, “The Barber of Seville.”

Because of the high quality of the events planned for the upcoming season, Ferrone said he predicts that at least a few events will be sold out. Last year, “Fiddler on the Roof,” the Russian National Ballet’s rendition of “Sleeping Beauty” and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra attracted a full crowd to the auditorium, leaving no room for late-comers.

“The Russian National Ballet was on Superbowl Sunday, but you could not get a ticket if you walked up that day,” Ferrone remembered.

Since ticket sales are 26 percent higher than they were a year ago, Ferrone said he urges anyone who is interested in buying tickets for a particular show to buy them ahead of time, to be assured a seat.

“Because we had three sold-out shows last year, there is more of an urgency to buy your tickets sooner than later,” he said. “You don’t want to be left outside, standing in the hall.”

For more information about ticket information, call the box office at 294-3347.