Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
T H E A T R E & D A N C E Alumni Newsletter Newsletter Issue No 9, Fall 2016 Faculty Notes 2016 Graduates Page 6 Faculty and staff want to keep up with majors, alumni, and friends of the department on current and past events. off the stage. Therefore, we spent time last year thinking about necessary adjustments to who we say we are and what we do. The result is a revised mission statement, which is as follows: A Message from our Chair Hello Alumni! It’s that time of year again to share our comings and goings in the Department of Theatre and Dance. As the following pages will show, we’ve had another busy and productive year. Each of my colleagues and some of our students will share their successes about their work on and off the stage, so I’ll just mention a couple of changes in the coming year that you may be interested in knowing. But first I want to say thanks to all of our Theatre and Dance alumni who shared a clip for our Department video (https://youtu.be/ O7dmyzTBY7k). Guided and designed by Dale Seeds, the video highlights the best aspects of our program as seen through your successes, and there are a number of departments and programs that hope to follow our lead in creating their own videos with our style in mind. Now for the changes. As the needs of our students, faculty and staff change over time and in relationship to the world in which we live, so too should the mission of the work we do both on and Theatre and Dance, as studied at The College of Wooster, emphasizes the relationship between scholarship, artistry, and advocacy through an investigation of the range and depth of the human experience in our coursework and stage productions. In this world, the artist/scholar must be an advocate for the arts, as well as contribute to a movement for social justice and activism through artistic expression. Similarly, the department's productions reflect a commitment to sustainability. The Theatre and Dance Major and Minor curricula offer a broad range of knowledge designed to examine acting, directing, dance, design and technology, history, literature, playwriting, theory, and artistic activism and social justice focusing in each area on the importance of analyzing texts in their various modes: written, visual, and physical. While the Theatre and Dance student may choose to specialize in one of these particular areas of the discipline for their Senior Independent Study, the departmental philosophy remains dedicated to the liberal arts belief in developing, through its interdisciplinary curricular structure, a combination of historical and critical analysis in relationship to the study of various performance texts, resulting in the creation of the artist/ scholar/advocate. Festival of New Works Follow%us%on%Facebook!% Alumni Newsletter We would love to hear from you. Please email [email protected] And did you know we’re on Facebook? Like us for the latest news in the Theatre and Dance Department. We hope you find this newsletter a reliable source of alumni news and events. Page 2 Featured Alum - Maggie Popadiak ’05, page 3 Alumni Updates Page 7 As should be clear, our addition of advocacy as central to our pursuits comes at a time when the necessity for a liberal education, and the arts more specifically, are being challenged. Advocating for the arts has and always will be a part of our charge. Perhaps more importantly, however, is the need for each of us to communicate clearly the role that theatre and dance play in advocating for justice, ethics, and morality in a world full of increasing change and growing fears. Finally, on a more personal note, change has come into my life as I have accepted a one-year Chair position for the Department of Music in addition to providing leadership in Theatre and Dance. I am excited by this new challenge, and I look forward to finishing up my administrative duties before going on leave in the spring of 2017-18 and back to India!!!! So as always, we have an exciting year ahead of us! We hope you’ll stop by for coffee or a meal whenever you’re in Wooster, or let us know if you would like to see a show. We’ve always got a ticket or two set aside just for you! Peace, Shirley Festival of New Works Festival of New Works Fes/val%of%New%Plays%(2016)% 1 A L Faculty Notes Kim Tritt, Professor 2015-16 was another exciting year of fabulous students and dance events at Wooster. During the fall semester and independent from our annual Fall Dance Concert, we were pleased to host fabulous guest master class teachers Pam Pribisco and Nelson Carson. Ms. Pribisco, in addition to teaching at U M N I N E W S L E T T E R I have also been fortunate this year to work on all new productions, having served as lighting designer for Latins in La La Land, and The Fall Dance Concert directed by Theatre and Dance faulty members Jimmy Noriega and Kim Tritt respectively. I also continue to serve as a visual artist for the Dallas based performance group, Dead White Zombies. I’d like to share the following thoughts and experiences with all of you. This past November, I worked on the production of DP92, sort of an immersive philosophical/spiritual journey, set in a 50’s Sci Fi sensibility. DP92 was produced in the aforementioned abandoned ice house from the 1940’s. On opening night, I took my place among the first 20 audience members and recorded these impressions (Note: each performance admits 20 people at a time, each taking different guided paths through the space. At the conclusion, all 60 audience members are brought into a single large space. Jacob’s Pillow and Steps On Broadway, was a company teacher for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and served as ballet mistress for Les Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo. Capoerista Nelson Carson, an instructor for T.A.B.C.A.T. in Columbus, Ohio, returned for the spring semester to teach capoeira during my spring semester leave. November, 2015 During my leave I had so many marvelous experiences as I conducted research in the examination of indigenous and/or traditionally focused dance artists and their practices that reveal a rooted cultural placement in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Hawai'i. Furthermore, I interviewed and explored in those regions the work of indigenous artists who also create and/or perform contemporary choreography that is shaped by their current cultural landscape. My travel activities provided valuable sources of research relative to my teaching the course, Dance in World Cultures, in addition to forthcoming artistic endeavors in choreography. Connections made in Hawai'i, in particular, initiated an even wider scope of contacts for future research endeavors there as well as in Aotearoa/New Zealand and other Asia Pacific regions…I look forward to a time when I can return to both islands. Until then, you all know where to find me so that I can hear where your life travels have taken you! Dale Seeds, Professor of Theatre/Designer This spring 2016, I was privileged to have Wooster alum Maggie Odle (Cherokee) return to campus to speak to our Native American Performance class. Maggie was in the first offering of the class in 1995 and subsequently served as a Teaching Assistant. She spoke to a combined audience of the Native American Performance and Native American Religions classes, sharing insights into her journey navigating between an indigenous world view and contemporary society. Students were clearly moved by her personal story. 2 Dead White Zombies emerged from the fertile imagination of writer and director Thomas Riccio, producer Lori McCarty and actor Brad Hennigan in 2011. The Zombies employ site-specific productions in the area of West Dallas known as Trinity Groves. The performances are clearly immersive, perhaps resembling Punchdrunk’s, Sleep No More, with the addition of language. The productions are developed and produced on a shoestring budget, with scripts written by Riccio and developed collaboratively by their respective casts. They have produced in a defunct iron works shop, an empty warehouse, a former crack house, and an industrial icehouse. The transformation of the neighborhood and the repurposing of these urban spaces into performance venues is meant to be temporary. Dead White Zombies avoid altering the performance space and specifically avoid attempting to turn it into a recognizable formal theatre performance space. As a member of the group, we look for ways the found space suggests performativity on its own terms. So, for example a warehouse is still a warehouse, we don’t try to turn it into a black box space with a complete lighting rig. Likewise, any gentrification of the neighborhood by the audience is also hopefully temporary. It’s not clear how long this will be the case; a new apartment complex is currently under construction in area. The Ice House space, sits like an island in a cross current of exit ramps, freeway entrances and urban boulevards The traffic moves quickly, endlessly, punctuated by the occasional police siren, the squeal of tires or the revving of a high performance engine. Behind the building is a steep embankment that composes the flood control plain of what was the Trinity River. Beyond that, the glittering Dallas skyline sits like a misplaced aurora borealis, winking in the night. Entering the empty space, one feels part trespasser, part voyeur, with a touch of archeologist thrown in for good measure. This might have been the way Carter felt when he opened King Tut’s tomb? The space is filled with a detritus of fetishized objects, that somehow take on new and mysterious meanings. A mummified opossum, dog-eared stuffed animals from the basement of a long forgotten taxidermist, nutcracker dolls; obsolete electronic equipment, and suitcases filled with objects that remind one of Marcel Duchamp’s museum pieces. Miscellaneous industrial and machine parts left over from the building’s past life, help complete the post-industrial aesthetic. " " " continued on page 3 Alumni Newsletter A L continued from page 2 - Faculty Updates Each room merges into another, as videos and soundscapes waft in and out of each space. Each of these spaces has a permeable boundary. You can hear some of the dialogue and sounds from the neighboring rooms, until we are all brought together for the ritual climax of the evening. U M N I N E W S L E performed the show in Freedlander Theatre upon our return. In April, we staged the production for two nights at a professional theatre, Intermedia Arts, in Minneapolis. In total, the play has now been I recently returned from Dallas, to, along with DWZ director and creator Tom Riccio, scout a new, more intimate, performance venues for this November’s production of Holy Bone. I’ve been advised to fasten my seatbelt securely; this is going to be another wild ride! Jimmy Noriega, Assistant Professor The 2015-2016 academic year was an extremely memorable and productive one! In the fall I taught The Physical Text and Directing; and in the spring I offered Acting for the Stage and Theatre for Social Change. These classes were full of exciting discussions, collaborations, scene presentations, papers, and final projects. I also had the honor of advising Stephanie Castrejón and Summit J. Starr on their phenomenal I.S. projects. Both women created new shows and presented them to the public during I.S. Weekend and I.S. Symposium. These extraordinary and talented artists made me so proud and I am excited to see all of the great things that they will continue to do!! In the fall I also directed the world-premiere of Migdalia Cruz’s Latins in La-La Land. The cast, design team, and crew worked hard to bring this show to life and we were honored to be chosen as the theatre to present this show to the public for the first time. Cruz even joined us and helped us to celebrate the process. Women of Ciudad Juárez continued to have success in its third year of touring. The production was selected for presentation at a prominent international theatre festival in Belgium in February. It was chosen by juried selection from hundreds of entries and was staged at The Royal University Theatre Festival of Liège, which is one of the oldest and longest-running theatre festivals in the world. We had a fun and exciting trip and were lucky to be joined by the playwright, Cristina Michaus. We also Alumni Newsletter T performed 28 times to over 6,500 people in 17 locations in three countries. We add our fourth one to the list—Colombia—when we take the play to South America for a theatre festival this September. For more information on the company (Teatro Travieso) and the show, please visit: www.facebook.com/teatrotravieso This spring I also debuted another Teatro Travieso production, Joto!: Confessions of a Mexican Outcast. Over the course of two years, I worked with Carlos Manuel Chavarría on the development and direction of the new piece (I as dramaturg/director and he as writer/performer). The show explores what it means to be a queer, undocumented Latino living in the United States. It is based on interviews and the playwright’s autobiography, and touches upon the difficulties of living on the margins of multiple communities, as well as the impact of law and social stigma in the areas of education, family, love, and the arts. It is the first play to explore the intersections of mixed-status (undocumented/ citizen) gay relationships in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality. The production had two performances for its debut in Wooster in April 2016 and will be performed in the San Francisco Bay Area in December. The plan is to continue to tour the show. The semester ended with a trip to Greece, Croatia, and Bosnia & Herzegovina with the Hales Group. Shirley and I had an amazing time, especially as we T E R walked around and performed in the ancient Greek theatres that we teach about in class! Charlene Gross, Costume Designer I just wrapped up my 12th season with Ohio Light Opera this summer. I designed sets and costumes for The Mikado, directed by Ted Christopher and finished the season with my largest ever costume design for The Dancing Years (just shy of 200 costumes!), directed by Steven Daigle. I presented a Lunch and Learn at OLO's Festival Symposium on Production Managing OLO and briefing a room at maximum capacity about the ins and outs of backstage of the opera. During work on presentation, I discovered I completed my 45th design with the company. I was pleased to work with Stefanie Genda '08 (costume designer/ head of crafts), Kent Sprague '14 (Lighting Designer), Zoe Madden '16 (lead stitcher), Shannan Burrows '17 (props artisan), Hannah Smith '19 (stitcher/ wardrobe), Olivia Hall '19 (run crew), Laura Pratt '19 (run crew), Emma Farrenkorph '19 (run crew), Lindsay Fannin '18 (wardrobe), & Libby Nardi '19 (run crew). I am thrilled to continue to bridge OLO/ COW and bring great alum and current students on the wacky wonderful ride known as a summer of lyric musical fun. During the first week of the opera season, I was honored to be part of the Digital Faculty Fellows. Over the course of the week we dove into technology the school has and is acquiring. We explored new technologies we want to be made available to our classes, labs and our students. The most exciting part (after playing with ozbots and Apple Pens) was 3D printing. Oh what fun to build designs, learn the programs and print out our own pieces. Get ready THTD 302-Costume Construction, there's 3D printing heading your way this fall and new printers through education technology to print out ideas. And did I mention the new interactive smart boards in our classrooms? I'm so excited to start incorporating this all into design and construction classes, as well as the shop. Over spring break (2016) I presented at the United Stated Institute of Technical Theatre (USITT) on the el wire costumes from Kim Tritt's Spring '15 piece Luminese. The presentation was the hit of the costume poster session. I was approached by TCG magazine editor to write an article with Kim on our process and use of El Wire. Watch for the article in this coming year. But before all the chaos of this summer and conferences, the long awaited full length production of Peter Mowry's electronic opera Sangreal was produced by the theatre and dance department. Shirley Huston-Findley was at the helm, directing the premier of the two act opera all composed and played digitally by Dr. Mowry himself in the pit. I designed sets & costumes and Kent Sprague '14 flew in from NYC to design lights. And before opera " " " continued on page 9 3 A L U M N I N E W S L E T T E R Featured Alum: Maggie Popadiak ’05 It’s May 2005 and I graduated from The College of Wooster with a degree in Sociology (What?, Not Theatre? Why are you writing this feature?) and I’m working for Albany Park Theater Project in Chicago (Oh.) Albany Park Theater Project or APTP, is a teen theater company whose youth artists devise original multidiscipline performance inspired by real life stories. One of the many beautiful facets of my job includes working with teens to tell important stories from immigrant and working class people often overcoming great odds and obstacles in the face of xenophobia, hate, ignorance; inspiring audiences to envision a more just and beautiful world by having them witness our storyteller’s resilience and humanity; and instilling a sense of power into the lives of young people who often find themselves powerless. Theater is the catalysts that connects all these facets of my job but so does ethnography. Among the many hats I get to claim through my work with APTP, I get to be a youth worker, an ethnographer, and theater maker and my time at Wooster prepared me to do all of this in the world. Let me tell you how. I was one lighting class from minoring in theatre but Freedlander and Wishart were my home. I spent the most amount of my time here surrounded by art, actors, dancers and choreographers, directors, designers, and self directed and driven students crafting their own productions. A a freshman, I performed in Jennifer Boring’s Independent Study performance of The Fisherman and His Wife - a participatory children’s morality play on the evils of greed. I choreographed with my partner in crime, Kate Anderson (she majored in theatre!) and together we created: Tuesday. 5:15pm, Brown Line - a dance that took me back to Chicago and combined modern and hip-hop and several dance pieces then after. I was cast as a female understudy and assistant stage manager in Shirley Huston-Findley’s How I Learned to Drive - a play directed by a powerful woman and theater maker, stage managed 4 by a woman, written by a woman about a time when a young girl was found to be placed in a powerless situation. In my sophomore year, and this time I’m in a class with Shirley for Realism and Beyond. I’m in love with everything we are reading, but I felt like I was reading a lot of outdated plays. Having been an ensemble of APTP myself as a teen, I questioned why we were reading irrelevant plays that had nothing to do with the present. The past was behind us, let’s tell the stories of now. The “DUH” lesson I learned was to appreciate the history and understand the historical contexts in which these plays were written, the language the author used, the metaphors to describe historical situations that challenged people’s psyche and the way they saw the world after wars, traumas, and revolutions. The part of me that loved learning about history fell in love with these plays and made me further understand art as a reflection of those times those authors lived in. That shapes me as an artist and writer now. But the real lesson came in that same class when it was time to write a paper for Shirley. This terrified me. I knew I was unprepared for college. The fear that I was going to fail plagued me daily as a student. Being the daughter of a single Polish immigrant, having attended one of the most deprived schools in the country, being the first person in my family to attend college, I knew I was behind my peers and that hung over me constantly often stifling my writing, creativity, and intellectual curiosities. I entered Wooster not really able to write a decent paper. My college essay was a crash course in writing and I poured my soul into that essay. I went to Wooster knowing I was going to write a thesis at the end of my four years but then I was there and I was petrified. My first paper for Shirley resulted in a meeting where she told me I wasn’t going to pass her class if I continued to write like that. I remember sitting across from Shirley in her office, purging my life story, telling her I wasn’t prepared, that I didn’t know what I was doing, and that it was my high school that failed to prepare me. She looked at me calmly and said, “Well, you’re here now. Let’s move on and work.” She then told me her story, that she too was a first generation college student, that she at some point felt similar and a giant weight was lifted. She knew what I was going through and gently told me to stop using my lack of experience as a crutch. I was at Wooster now and I needed to move forward and work. She proposed a weekly solo tutorial session. She assigned me reading outside of class and we met and reviewed my writing. She observed my writing language and style, made comments on my writing I never realized, like how my sentences often didn’t allow the reader to breathe and that it wasn’t a good thing. The change didn’t happen overnight but I improved and it sparked a fire and a new mentality in the way I approached my work from then on. I was encouraged to use the resources of the college to better myself - that the resources were there and at my disposal, but I needed to stop with the excuses and I needed to get to work. I think of my experience with Shirley when I work with our youth artists now - how I approach them, how I challenge them, and how I prepare them as future college students who grew up in the same neighborhood as these young people, who attended the same schools, and who will be exposed to kinds of privileges they didn’t think they had access to. At the same time as I was taking theatre classes, I was taking classes in sociology and anthropology. Growing up in Chicago in an immigrant community, I wanted to understand the injustices of the world and study the institutions that shaped our humanity. I wanted to know who was responsible for these injustices, how and why did things get so bad, and how we can rid the world of it. As an APTP ensemble member in high school, I was an ethnographer even before I knew what that was. In Alumni Newsletter A L U M N I N E W S L E T continued from page 3 - Popadiak college, I became a confident ethnographer listening to people’s stories as an interviewer, learning about people through qualitative research methods but really, being a social scientist that listened and recorded human experience. In my sophomore and junior years, I became a research assistant to Anne Nurse and listened to the voices of young incarcerated fathers who told stories of how the institution of prison prevented and perpetuated and estranged relationships between them and their children. I wrote my Junior I.S. on youth attempting to attain power and the American Dream through gangs, and how often it was their only choices. By senior year, I brought it back full circle and I conducted ethnography on undocumented Polish domestic workers - an occupation that often brings shame but was the job that provided a roof over our heads and helped my mom be a single mother of two. I know I’m supposed to live my live without regrets but I do have regrets - I’m Eastern European so it’s in my blood. I regret not double majoring in theatre and sociology. The path I created was the path I needed in order to be a successful college student. I learned not to stretch myself so wide, I needed to devote myself to writing my thesis, be a successful researcher, and master a way of telling a story through writing. I got to do that through my I.S. I wish I could’ve told that story in Shoolroy though. I learned vital lessons that shaped me as a youth worker, writer, theater maker, ethnographer, and storyteller. You can’t imagine the joy I felt when I returned last year to witness Wooster and APTP alumna, Stephanie Castrejon, perform in her own devised performance alongside fellow APTP alumni and current Wooster junior, Vincent Meredith. I wish I could’ve devised an original performance that told the stories of the Polish undocumented women I wrote about in my thesis. And yet...I do that now as an adult director at APTP. It’s now the present: July 2016. It’s opening weekend of Albany Park Theater Project’s and Third Rail Project’s, Learning Curve and I’m in a T E R dream state - thrilled, awed, and inspired by what we’ve created and I’m also sleep deprived. I’m staring at the faces of these beautiful and soulful people: one of those people is Stephanie Castrejon. The two of us catch a glance at Gustavo Duran in the circle, an APTP veteran who is about to perform in his last show before he heads to Ohio to be part of the Wooster class of 2020. We’re thrilled and excited about where his journey will take him and we celebrate this latest achievement in Learning Curve. We’re proud and overjoyed at this two-years-in-the-making immersive show that takes 40 audience members through the hallways, classrooms, administrative offices, bathrooms, and closets of fictional high school Ellen Gates Starr High. Audience members become students again as they find themselves in scenes with students being bullied; counselors overwhelmed with their workload; well intentioned first year teachers unprepared for the unpredictable; teachers dealing with brilliant students struggling to communicate in a foreign language. We are telling the stories of Chicago Public High School students as they navigate a volatile world as their school’s fate hangs in the balance, as failures to pass budgets bring on insecurity among the teachers and administrators working to improve standardized test scores, bench markers that can force a school into closure. This is a monumental achievement being the only original immersive production performed by teenagers in America and in a couple weeks I’ll be sharing it with more of the Wooster community for an alumni event. I look forward to sharing with some of the Wooster alumni, board, and new president Sarah Bolton, just how important my Wooster education was at getting me here. race Violence history Scandal evil Crucible Church v State FBI salem HUAC October 27, 28 & 29, 2016 - 7:30 pm terror witch Deception The Benghazi McCarthyism 1692 un-American fear Puritan 9/11 WAR Impeach Christianity deceit Issue No 9 Fall, 2016 Trials gossip Alumni Newsletter bigotry black list Red Scare Watergate by Arthur Miller Directed by Shirley Huston-Findley W 2016 Muslim Almost, democracy Freedlander Theatre Maine DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE & DANCE 2016-2017 Performance Season by John Cariani Directed by Jimmy A. Noriega Stage Door: Directed by Kim Tritt Weekend Spring Freedlanderin-the-Round DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE & DANCE 2016-2017 Performance Season Directed by Kim Tritt Concert By Adrienne Kennedy Directed by Tashiyanah Hutchins February 10 & 11, 2017 - 7:30 pm W FREEDLANDER Theatre Dance Funnyhouse of a Negro March 2, 3 & 4, 2017 7:30 pm 7:30 pm W 7:30 PM Freedlander Theatre Fall Dance Concert November 17, 18 & 19, 2016 Senior APRIL 13, 14 & 15, 2017 W Shoolroy Theatre DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE & DANCE 2016-2017 Performance Season W DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE & DANCE 2016-2017 Performance Season DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE & DANCE 2016-2017 Performance Season For ticket information for the 2016-17 production season please visit: wooster.edu/ academics/areas/theatre-dance Alumni Newsletter 5 A L U M N I N E W S L E T T E R Class of 2016 Emily Baird I will be pursuing my Zumba certification, Labanotation certificate, moving to Chicago and eventually grad school. Stephanie Castrejon I am moving back to Chicago to find theatre internships/jobs and work at Immigration Coalition. Emily Donato This summer I will be working at Ghost Ranch Conference Center in New Mexico as a youth programmer. Zoe Madden This summer I will be working for OLO as a lead stitcher, in the fall I will be entering grad school at UNLV. Emily Baird (above) made us all proud as one of two students chosen to speak at the 2016 Graduation Ceremony. Summit Starr I will be acting at Trumpet in the Land and then auditioning for everything...forever. Public Relation News This past school year, the Public Relations department of (Shirley Huston-Findley, Patrice Smith, Lindsay Fannin, and Nora Nguyen) was very busy finding new ways to increase patronage for the season. From buttons for Latins in La-La Land to tabling for the Fall Dance Concert, and even special invitations for Sangreal: An Electronic Opera the PR department was tirelessly working to put more butts in seats. This idea led to the inception of the campaign “Butts for Bucks” where the department of theatre and dance, partnered with Spoon Market, donated a prize of $1000 for the student group that had the most votes on ticket stubs over the 3 shows and 11 performances of the second semester. The winner of the $1000 and the accompanying trophy was Xi Chi Psi, a fraternity on campus that won with 72 votes. We plan to do this same competition over the entire season this coming school year. The Department also sought to raise awareness for the gender pay gap during March, which is Women’s History Month. Women received reduce priced tickets to the Festival of New Works, candy, and a button and could fill out a card to decorate around the box office that said the name of a woman who inspires them. Make sure to follow COWTheatre on Twitter, cowtheatreanddance on Instagram, and College of Wooster Theatre and Dance on Facebook! Alpha Psi Omega Seniors Raising awareness for Women’s History Month 6 The fraternity Xi Chi Psi was presented a trophy and a check for $1000.00 for winning Butts for Bucks. Alumni Newsletter A L Alumni Updates Jonathan Becker ’86 U M N I N E W S L E T while doing 8 to 12 productions per year. If anyone is in the Houston area please look me up. [email protected] My studio added country 46 to the number of countries I have sent masks to and I continue to travel and teach all over the world. Erica Daun ’15 I am currently at the University of Colorado Boulder completing my MA in Theatre and my MBA! I have been working in the costume shop at CU as a stitcher and as the Costume Stock Coordinator. I have also been a Teaching Assistant for the Intro to Theatre class this past academic year and got to guest lecture a class on Latin@Drama! Over the summer I worked as the Costume Design Assistant for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and had a blast! I’m really enjoying the Colorado mountain life, but definitely miss the Wooster Theatre Department! Looking forward to making my way back to the Midwest soon! Kellee Roston Edusei ’07 Director of Member Services and Board Liaison, Dance/USA Whitney Huss Sherman ’05 In May, I graduated with my Doctorate in Educational Leadership with an emphasis on Education Psychology from the University of Southern California. I also had a baby in November 2015 named Ivy Louise Sherman. It’s been a busy few months! R George Myatt ’11 I just came back from 10 months in China (Beijing and Shanghai), where I was conducting my doctoral fieldwork from University of Hawaii at Manoa. I am now writing my dissertation, while also planning my wedding to fellow Wooster graduate, Andy Moskowitz (’04), for next summer in our home state of California. It’s been an exciting year! Sarah McGraw (Krushinski) ’85 Prester Pickett ’87 I’m proud to report that the Wexford Acting Studio is thriving and actors are taking part in the Pittsburghbased acting studio in two summer camps, and the fall show/10month program starting September. The Pittsburgh area is culturally rich and there is a demand for good training to accommodate your performers, which is a boon to a teacher like myself. Our fall show is already shaping up to be our most exciting production yet: Les Miserables, Student Edition. We have an incredible cast, and the production values are high for such a project. I have done $120,000 shows in the past and most times, it is not about the budget...it is about the talent and the heart of the talent that makes an incredible show. If you are in the Pittsburgh area the weekend of October 9th-30th PLEASE come see Les Miz at the Masonic Theatre. Contact me and I will take care of you, Woo Alumni!! This past year I was busy with my production of Fragmented, which is a play about a drive-by shooting and gang violence that has had a life of 25 years with a production history that spans across the State of Ohio. This work was originally recognized through a play writing competition conducted by the University of Akron and the Ohio Arts Council in 1991. The Fall 2015 production of Fragmented received a CSU Faculty Civic Innovation Grant to enhance my instruction of a Black Studies course on Black Culture that I was teaching through the Department of Criminology, Anthropology, and Sociology. I have also been able to benefit with my career as a Thespian by instructing a course in the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at CSU in addition to serving as the Coordinator of the Howard A. Mims African American Cultural Center at CSU. Additionally, I was fortunate in the Spring of 2016 to be afforded an opportunity to write a new play on the life of Pastor Sal Perez from Tuscan, Arizona-Someone Saved My Life Tonight. This play dealt with his experience of re-directing his life from crime toward a positive lifestyle that includes helping others through his ministry. It was a wonderful experience to have this piece produced by the Cleveland Treatment Center, which was responsible for my play, Seasons to Win: Against All Odds, last year on the life of Ted Ginn, Sr. receiving an audience at the Hanna Theater at Playhouse Square in Cleveland. They received a grant from the Ohio Commission on Minority Health and was supported by the Alcohol Drug Addiction Mental Health Services of Cuyahoga County to produce Someone Saved My Life Tonight, which also was produced in the Juvenile Justice Center and a local church, Community of Faith Assembly. I often think about the investments that Annetta Gomez-Jefferson made in my life and enjoy the fellowship with several Wooster Alumni who knew her and continue to support me by attending my plays. The discipline that Ray McCall encouraged and the experience of having Vincent Dowling, former Artistic Director for the Great Lakes Theater Festival, serve as my I.S. advisor is another reflection that I definitely use to motivate my work as a playwright, director, and actor. As an actor I've Ray Inkel ’88 In 2012 I left the Utah Shakespeare Festival after 12 years to take the Production Manager position at the Alley Theatre in Houston, TX. The Alley just completed in 2015 a $56 million renovation to their 1968 building which included adding a fly tower and automated rigging, a raised thrust stage that is fully trapped, totally redone catwalk system, and upgrades to all lighting and sound systems. During the renovation the Alley performed offsite at The University of Houston. In my short time at the Alley we have managed to clean out our main building, set up in a borrowed theatre, vacate the borrowed theatre and move into our renovated space. All E I have been promoted to Staff - Business Process Analyst at Charles Schwab in Austin, where I continue to provide internal IT support through the model of IT service management. In addition to creating posters and brochures on the side for various organizations, I will be dancing in Dragoween this October to benefit an LGBT charity organization local to Austin. I also recently revamped my website, georgemyatt.com which showcases a preview of my artistic work and my I.S. Yining Lin ’06 Artist/Owner, TheatreMasks.com; Artist Director, the Northern American Laboratory For The Performing Arts; Assistant Professor of Movement and Acting, Ball State University. T I could have never embarked on my current directing career after my long performing career (I am getting up there in age) without the incredible base of education, attention, and brilliance and dedication of my profs and mentors at Wooster. continued on page 8 7 A L continued from page 7 - Alumni Updates Pickett recently appeared in a short that was featured during the Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival 2015 and I've had the privilege through my status as the Coordinator of the Howard A. Mims African American Cultural Center to introduce several films for the Cleveland International Film Festival (2016). Meanwhile, this summer will allow me a chance to try to assemble a webpage to account for the progress that I've made with my career in Theater. However, a Liberal Arts background from the College of Wooster just recently afforded me an opportunity to serve as the moderator for an engagement with Chautauqua-In-Chagrin. Since I also recently served as a panelist for the Cuyahoga County's Fatherhood Initiative Conference at the Wyndham Hotel, I'm thinking about crafting another play about a father who returns home to reunite with his family after a period of incarceration. Obviously, I have reason to try to finish my play that celebrates Cleveland's history, which can now include a scene about our NBA championship. In conclusion, all is well in "Believeland," for a fighting Scot who dared to dream of advancing a life in Cleveland with a career in Theater in a nontraditional way as an "Edutainment" specialist. My motto for my production company, Pickett Line Productions, is "everybody has a story to tell, but everyone doesn't know how to tell it. " I'm glad that I have a story and my story can be told because of the skills that I acquire at the College of Wooster. I'll see what I can do about getting some photos to you, but you can possibly reach out to the Cleveland Treatment Center and explain your interests to see if they have some photos that they can send to you. They can be reached at (216) 861-4246. Ask for U M N I N E W S L E T T E R Pierre Betts or Len Collins. Meanwhile, thanks for staying in touch and wanting to know what I've accomplished over the past year. In my other life, I’m chair of science and physics here: http://utahmilitaryacademy.org/ Kent Sprague ’14 Nora Yawitz ’15 I moved to Brooklyn last fall and have been working as an assistant lighting designer and lighting programmer for a variety of theatrical production in NYC. I have also been working as a lighting designer for corporate events and weddings with Kaynelive Productions. I should probably sign up for frequent flyer miles to Akron/Canton airport, as I seem to be returning every few months. I was very pleased to come back to Wooster to design the lighting for their spring production of Sangreal, in conjunction with Professor Mowrey of the music department. It was something outside the norm for the department and I think it was very well received. I also designed the Ohio Light Opera’s season opener of Kiss Me, Kate. Even though I’ve worked a full summer there before, I’m still amazed they can present seven shows at one time. I’ll be coming back yet again to explore The Crucible with Professor Huston-Findley. That should be a very enjoyable ride, so get your tickets now! http://kentsprague.wix.com/portfolio I have been back home in NYC since graduation last May. Last summer I worked as the assistant stage manager for a play at FringeNYC before starting an internship at the New York Musical Festival (NYMF) in late August. As the producing intern, I helped organize and manage the non-profit’s 12th annual gala auction. It was an extremely rewarding experience, especially seeing the live auction items I put together to be presented by Bob Saget and Tony Award winning actress Beth Leavel in front of members of the Broadway and New York theatre community, and knowing the money raised has funded some of the incredible new shows, concerts, and readings being presented at this summer’s festival. Chris Strompolos ’93 Currently on tour promoting the Drafhouse Films release, RAIDERS! THE STORY OF THE GREATEST FAN FILM EVER MADE! by Jeremy Coon, Tim Skousen and Kyle Newman. It is my life story growing up remaking Raiders of the Lost Ark. Trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=ZvtCpE7j0RY&list=PL5YJj_i9xLh4OnedGN6CV1 PNLGgST_3ZG Tour info here: www.raidersbuys.com Justin Vann ’97 Since April, I have been working as the assistant to the general manager at the Circle in the Square Theatre on Broadway, where the 2015 Best Musical winner FUN HOME is playing until September 10th (FUN HOME starts its national tour in Cleveland this October! Try to see it - it is such a poignant piece of theatre). This fall, a new musical with an A Cappella score, IN TRANSIT, will open at Circle. It will be fascinating to be in the midst of one show closing and another one opening. (IN TRANSIT was actually a show at the 1st New York Musical Festival, in 2004- it all comes full Circle, mind the pun.) I don’t think I could have gotten this job without the independent research I worked on at Wooster with the amazing guidance of the Department of Theatre and Dance. Knowing I completed I.S. gives me confidence to go after my goals, career or otherwise. I cannot wait to see what comes next! This is what I’m up to right now: http:// www.mnbeethovenfestival.org/ Visit our website wooster.edu/academics/areas/ theatre-dance for updated news & events. AND Email: [email protected] 2015-2016 Theatre and Dance Majors 8 to send your updates for the 2017 Alumni Newsletter Alumni Newsletter A L continued from page 3 - Faculty Updates entered the Freedlander stage, I was thrilled to mentor the costume design student designers through the third New Works Festival. During these productions, Hannah Smith '19 & Maria Senoo '17 both designed and realized costumes for the first time with great success. Zoe Madden '16 finished her IS on costume technology techniques and accepted a graduate assistantship in Las Vegas. This past January, I escorted (only!) design and technology students to KCACTF in Milwaukee, WI. Presentations were extremely well received and once again Wooster students realized their faculty and staff do know what we're doing. We saw terrific shows, ate some good food and made new friends- without getting buried in the snow. December (2015) brought winter break and while everyone was snug and thinking of festive thoughts, I was off in Fort Myers, Fl at Florida Repertory Theatre trying not "to shoot my eye out" designing costumes for A Christmas Story directed by Jason Parrish. I must admit dressing for Floridian children in winter gear and explaining that "yes you do need gloves and a hat and a scarf and a jacket" was more humorous than frustrating. And to kickstart this year of premiers and firsts, Latins in La-La Land took Freedlander stage directed Alpha Psi Omega Seniors L-R: Madeline Lipkin, Emi Donato, Emily Baird, Caroline Breul Abigail Helvering 9 U M N I N E W S L E T by Jimmy Noriega. Cross dressing, famous starlets, the Mendez brothers all mean a good time for us down in the costume shop. I had a makeup team of Emily Altop '16 and Zoe Madden '16 who designed the Bondo prosthetics (dimensional temporary tattoos) that were applied in the 10 second onstage blackout for the double murder, 4 person quick change. On the family front, gardening, sailing and chasing Max are still going on in the Spoonamore clan. Max takes great pride when he gets to help with shopping or crafts for the Theatre & Dance Department. Mike Schafer, Technical Director I thoroughly enjoyed my first year at Wooster. The students, faculty and staff here all treated me as one of their own and I already feel at home. Before talking about my time here at Wooster, I figured I’d start by introducing myself to all of you. I consider Iowa my “home” and that is where my parents and siblings still live. My venture into theatre began late in high school after I decided it was more fun than running distance running and hurdles on the track. I dabbled a bit in acting but the technical theatre side always had my heart. I ended up receiving my BA degree at St. Ambrose University and took the liberal arts approach to my degree May, 2016 the fourth class of the National Theatre Honorary Society, Alpha Psi Omega, was inducted in Freedlander Theatre. T E R experience. After graduating, I spent a few months being a teacher’s aide in a special education preschool until I entered graduate school at Northern Illinois University. I was part of the second set of graduates in a newly created Technical Direction program and was able to adapt the study to include some focus in teaching, management and design. While there, I did some work in rigging & learned a bit about flying people. After obtaining my MFA, I moved down south to Alabama and spent eight years at Troy University teaching, running their shop and TDing many shows, designing and stage managing a few. During my time there, the program grew from 30 to 90 majors, added a BFA in dance and received many awards both regionally & nationally. Here at Wooster this Fall, I designed the scenery for Latins in La-La Land. This was a unique experience for me due to my lack of experience in Latin American theatre or history. The Fall Dance Concert in-the-round was also unique to me as my experience with dance was always standard proscenium set up. Working under Dale’s plot, I ended up designing lights for a couple of the pieces. In the Spring – my focus turned towards being technical director for Sangreal while providing some mentoring to the students working on Senior Weekend & Festival of New Works. My year ahead will include a heavy focus on technical directing & stage management while attempting to bring more students backstage. I’ll be working on the scenic design for Almost, Maine & helping to mentor design students both semesters. I have already created a long to-do list of things to look at, learn and teach with my shop employees and anyone else who decides technical theatre is cool. Finally, the hope is also to get myself back into the classroom by offering a stage management course in the Spring. 2016-2017 Alpha Psi Omega Officers L-R: Maira Senoo, Maria Witt, Lindsay Fannin Alumni Newsletter A L U M N I N E W S L E T T E R Fall Dance Concert 2015-2016 Theatre and Dance Majors 10 Alumni Newsletter A L U M N I N E W S L E T T E R Latins in La-La Land Alumni Newsletter 11 A L U M N I N E W S L E T T E R Sangreal: An Electronic Opera 12 Alumni Newsletter