PERFORMANCES A PUBLICATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE AND DANCE
THE CONNECTION ISSUE HOW WE’RE REACHING BEYOND THE UNIVERSITY TO INTEGRATE LEARNING AND EXPERIENCE
WINTER/SPRING 2012
From the Department Chair Last night I attended the first rehearsal of Noel Coward’s Present Laughter. As with most first rehearsal sessions, the director, staff, cast and design team met, sitting around a large table for introductions, director’s comments, a production design presentation and then a reading of the script. These first rehearsals are fun, informative, and full of the promise of the upcoming weeks. The group present at this first reading is an excellent example of our department’s commitment to connecting students with the experiences and opportunities they need in order to grow while here at Carolina, and then, importantly, bridge to their careers. Central to our strategy is immersing students in study and in the practice of the performing arts with expert, professional faculty and guest artists. Jim Hunter
Rob Clare rehe arses “Present Laug hter”
Heading the Present Laughter team is guest director Rob Clare. Rob trained as an actor in London and has various degrees from Oxford University, including a doctorate in the practical interpretation of Shakespeare. He acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company for several years and, with the RSC, toured Europe and the USA. He was a Staff Director at the National Theatre in London and directed at the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester, as well as with the Compass Theatre. Recent credits on this side of the Atlantic include work with Steppenwolf Theatre and direction of a recent production of The Tempest at Julliard. Also on the team for Present Laughter is film, television and stage actress Reiko Aylesworth. Reiko is best known for her role as Michelle Dessler on the television series 24, with Kiefer Sutherland. Always working, she is currently portraying Dr. Malia Waincroft in CBS’ new Hawaii Five-0 in addition to other projects. An experienced stage actress, Reiko is working with the Present Laughter cast as an acting coach. As I write this, just down the hill from the Present Laughter rehearsals, guest choreographer Helen Pickett is setting a new contemporary piece on our dance students in our beautiful new dance building. Helen has choreographed for the Boston Ballet, Washington Ballet, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, Louisville Ballet and Ballet X. In 2007, Dance magazine named Helen one of 25 to Watch. From 2009 through 2011, Helen created new ballets for Royal Ballet of Flanders, Ballet West, Boston Ballet (two premieres), Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, and Dance Theater of Harlem. In 2012/13, her commissions include Atlanta Ballet, Dresden Ballet, Vienna State Opera, Milwaukee Ballet, and a new venture with sound architect, Christopher Janney. In 2009, Helen was one of the first choreographers to receive the Jerome Robbins Foundation’s New Essential Works Grant.
Hele n stud Picke ent tt wo s on rk an s with orig d inal ance pie ce.
It is our excellent, hardworking faculty which allows our program to attract guest artists of this level. If students are to contribute meaningfully to our future, we owe them the quality experiences necessary to bring the needed creativity, depth of understanding, skills, and entrepreneurial spirit required to establish meaningful careers and make a positive impact on our culture. This issue of Performances highlights our commitment to connecting our students with the experiences and opportunities they need for a successful life in the arts. Jim Hunter Chair, Department of Theatre and Dance
From the Dean As an academic administrator, I am always mindful of the fact that today’s college students are tomorrow’s leaders. A liberal arts degree serves them well. Through their broad-based approach and their focus on interconnectedness of various fields of study, the liberal arts invite ongoing engagement with the world. This issue of the Department of Theatre and Dance’s Performances illustrates some of the ways our programs strive to build bridges between learning and application of what is studied in the world.
Mary Anne
Fitzpatrick Being a witness to such student transformation is one of the most rewarding parts of my job, and I am deeply proud of the fact that the college has such an impact on so many lives. Mary Anne Fitzpatrick Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
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Associate Professor Robert Richmond has gone bi-coastal for his most recent directorial endeavors, and has reaped major critical praise in the process. Over the last year, Richmond has directed three highly-regarded productions in both Washington, DC and Los Angeles, which span the creative gamut from clever Shakespearean adaptations to satyr-inRobert Richmond spired rock opera. In the process, he has given several alumni the chance to take part in these professional opportunities. In October, 2010, Richmond’s production of the rarelyperformed Shakespeare play Henry VIII kicked off the Folger Theatre’s 2010/11 season and garnered ten DC-based Helen Hayes Award nominations, including nods for Outstanding Director and Outstanding Resident Play. Richmond brought in theatre alumni Abbie Issac (BA, 2007) as Assistant Director and Nathan Bennett (MFA, 2009) as part of the cast. Necessity bred invention as Richmond attempted to tackle one of Shakespeare’s most challenging works. “It’s a very
DC Production Receives Ten Award Nominations
complicated play and it’s not the history of Henry VIII that we remember,” he says. “It felt like a tangled up antique necklace that you would find in your grandma’s jewelry box, and unthreading it was painstaking; but, eventually, when it was all pulled out, there was something satisfying to be able to say ‘we just made something satisfying out of something that was a bit of a mess structurally.’”
DEPARTMENT NEWS
Richmond Has Directorial Successes in DC, LA
Richmond put his focus on making sure the story was clear for his audiences and in creating an original character, the aptly-named Will S., to serve as a storytelling guide for the production. Actor Louis Butelli won the Helen Hayes Award for his performance. Calling the creative process at the Folger “very positive,” Richmond is genuinely proud of the production. “It’s the only time I’ve been back to a show at the end of the run and thought it was better than when I’d left it,” he says. Richmond’s version of the Shakespeare classic lives on, postFolger, with a production at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in April 2012. After Henry VIII, Richmond ventured west to assume directorial duties for a brand new work, Cyclops: A Rock Opera, produced through LA-based Psittacus Productions. Founded by Richmond’s frequent collaborator, Louis Continued on page 5
Instructors’ New Work Helps Revive Dance Theatre of Harlem Two dance instructors are playing an important part in the rebuilding of a legendary dance company, and are inspiring their students in the process. Dance instructors Thaddeus Davis, who heads the dance program’s contemporary dance track, and Tanya Wideman-Davis spent nearly four weeks in the spring of 2011 at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, creating a new work for a program designed to engender renewed interest in the next phase of the DTH professional company. Started in 1969 by dancer Arthur Mitchell and teacher Karel Shook to challenge the stereotype that African-Americans had no place in the world of ballet, the Dance Theatre of Harlem has become an important ambassador for the art, inspiring dance enthusiasts throughout the world, regardless of race or culture. Though financial pressures forced a hiatus of the professional company in 2004, its smaller Dance Theatre of Harlem Ensemble still maintains an extensive performance schedule, and the studio has continued its legacy as a school and educational outreach organization for neoclassical and modern dance. In 2009, Artistic Director Virginia Johnson, who was a principal dancer for DTH for 28 years, announced a plan to bring back the professional company by 2013. Soon after, she launched “Harlem Dance Works 2.0,” described on the DTH website as “a dance laboratory to develop new work
and engage audiences both in person and online in the creative process.” Thaddeus and Tanya, both former dancers with DTH, were brought in to choreograph new work for the emerging company. The two have a special connection to Johnson, who often profiled their work in the pages of Pointe magazine, which she helmed as editor-inchief from 2000-2009. “She’s been watching my work and our company [Wideman/Davis Dance] since we’ve been in existence,” says Thaddeus.
Thaddeus Davis (right) with dancers Laura Feig and Jamal Story at the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Photo by Judy Tyrus, Dance Theatre of Harlem.
“Thaddeus understands that ballet is something that is broader, deeper, stronger than the currently understood notion of it,” Johnson told the NY Times in 2010. “It’s a good time to be an African-American-based company talking about our role in this country beyond, O.K., jazz. There’s so much more material to explore.... we aren’t one subject, Continued on next page
PERFORMANCES | WINTER/SPRING 2012
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DEPARTMENT NEWS
Wideman-Davis at Dance Theatre of Harlem (continued) one story, but so many stories.” Tanya says they choreographed about 27 minutes of work, in total, across their 3-1/2 weeks of residency. DTH hired professional dancers on whom the new work was set. “Each Thursday they had a showing of the work, which they called ‘Thursdays at DTH’,” she reports. “The first Thursday we showed 7 or 8 minutes, then had a talk about our process. The next Thursday we showed more, and so on. So we choreographed these sketches, and then from that had to narrow it down and create an cohesive piece.” The resulting work premiered at the Spring to Dance Festival in St. Louis in May, 2011. The pair brought this laboratory experience back to their students in South Carolina, via documentary footage of the creation and rehearsal process, in hopes of opening students’ eyes to the professional environment. “Each dancer was interviewed in the studio talking about the work and the process,” says Thaddeus. “Our students were able to see that we’re the same people with [the professional dancers] as with them -- that we were acting and behaving the same way with the professionals as we do with our students here.” Tanya adds, “I think there’s a misconception of what an actual professional dancer is because students don’t always get to see a good model of that. The professional dancers we’ve worked with have done Broadway, concert dance, ballet companies, pick up companies... one guy works with Madonna and Cher. Everything is as valid as ballet is.” “It was very interesting to show the video and show the integrity that those dancers have with the choreography, how it wasn’t just given to them,” says Tanya. “They took it and they made it themselves, and that’s what makes an artist. We’re not interested in our students being us; we’re interested in them taking the information we give them, processing it and coming out with a product.” Olivia Anderson, a Junior Dance Performance major, says that by sharing their experiences, the two teachers took dance education to a new realm. “They really took us to the experience. They brought back what was an extremely exciting step in their careers and warmly shared it with all of their students so that we could see the professional process, one they consistently use with us. That is what makes a real teacher.” Since 2009, Thaddeus and Tanya’s company, Wideman/ Davis Dance, has bee’n the Resident Professional Dance Company for the dance program. Four new works have been created at the University since that time, involving students from their inceptions. “Our students get a lot of information from that process,” says Thaddeus. “For me, the best way to learn to choreograph is to be in a choreographing situation. I went to work with a choreographer because I wanted to be in an apprenticeship with someone doing it every day and find out what the skills are behind making dances. Being in a classroom gives us the opportunity to hash out some skills and then
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show the students what they can do with them. We’ve seen students start to choreograph in very interesting kinds of ways, to take the blinders off and not just do what’s been done, but see what is possible.” Dance students are finding themselves presented with professional opportunities through Wideman/Davis and through their connections, as well. Bonnie Boiter-Jolley (BA, 2010) began dancing with the company during her senior year. Through her experience with Thaddeus and Tanya, Bonnie was introduced to Donald Byrd, Thaddeus’ choreography mentor and Artistic Director of the Spectrum Dance Theatre in Seattle. Boiter-Jolley is currently dancing full-time for Spectrum. Junior Dance Performance major Jacquelyn Ball is another shining example, according to the instructors. “Jackie’s been an apprentice since her freshman year,” says Thaddeus. “She’s had the biggest arc of this experience because she’s been in this process with us. She’s gone to NY with us three times in the last two years, she’s gone to Portugal with us, and she’s performed with us off-campus, here in Columbia. We say she’s an Jacquelyn Ball performs with Thaddeus Davis apprentice because she’s in Wideman/Davis Dance’s “Fragmentation” at the University of SC, December 2011 still a student, but she’s really become a part of the company. When we think about what we’re going to do, it’s not without her.” “The idea of being a resident professional dance company here is not just to be an example for the students,” he says, “but also...to have them know that our company is a place to consider working.” “And, you know what?” Tanya adds. “I don’t mean to be arrogant, but if you can work with our company, you can work with any high end contemporary ballet company. We’ve worked with them all and we know what the expectations are.”
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Wideman/Davis Dance is excited to be bringing more original work to the University dance company in the coming academic year. Two new pieces will be created during the fall and spring semesters for our dancers, who both instructors say they see more as fellow artists than simply students. “We want our students to realize that we are no different in the professional environment than in the classroom,” says Thaddeus. “I’m still the instructor and come with more information, but we’re still coming together as artists. I’m trying to stimulate intellectual ideas in them to give them fuel and thoughts and inspiration to do their own thing.”
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MFA Design Graduate April Brown (MFA, 2011) found her "in" to the world of film and television costuming by interning on the set of Army Wives in Spring, 2011, and has parlayed that experience into a full-fledged, and now award-winning, film costuming career. Army Wives has filmed in Charleston, SC since its beginning, utilizing the Navy base which shut down in 1996, among other locations. The show, which chronicles the lives and trials of spouses and families of military personnel, has clearly struck a chord with viewers, who have kept it going strong for five seasons. Production for a sixth season is planned to begin in September, 2011. April Brown
April's connection to the production was made initially through her work as Costume Designer on a short film, Saying Goodbye, which was filmed in Columbia, SC in the fall of 2009. Saying Goodbye was the recipient of a SC Film Commission Production Grant, which funds independent film-making in the state, producing the films through a collaboration with professional film-makers and students from Trident Technical College and the University of SC Department of Theatre and Dance and Media Arts program. (In the spring of 2011, April again worked as Costume Designer for a Production Grant winner, Associate Professor Robert Richmond's film Dreadful Sorry.)
DEPARTMENT NEWS
A Stint In the Costume Army Leads Alum to Career Success
Matt Sefick, the Second Assistant Director for Saying Goodbye also worked in casting for Army Wives. April kept in touch with Sefick, and approached the show's costume deContinued on page 15
Richmond Goes Bi-Coastal (continued) Butelli, and business partner, Chas LiBretto, in early 2010 Psittacus began with Richmond very much in the creative mix. Even the name gave a nod to Richmond’s and Butelli’s shared past with the Aquila Shakespeare Company. (Aquila is Latin for “eagle”; Psittacus is Latin for “Parrot.”) The company has quickly become one of LA’s most exciting theatrical forces, even finding support from luminaries like Oscar®-winner Olympia Dukakis. Psittacus’ first project was a remounting of a piece conceived by Richmond, A Tale Told by an Idiot. First developed at the University of SC Lab Theatre in April, 2008, A Tale... used graphic-novel-inspired visuals and Shakespeare’s language to juxtapose the historical figure Guy Fawkes with Macbeth. A Tale... premiered in LA as part of the first annual Hollywood Fringe Festival, and quickly moved on to an extended run at the Son of Semele Theatre in Los Angeles’ Silverlake district, in the process earning positive notices from LA Weekly, the LA Times and Backstage, which called the show “more than smart -- and completely gripping.” Psittacus’ next (and latest) project, Cyclops: A Rock Opera, was inspired by a symposium on the Satyr Plays of classic Greek theatre at LA’s Getty Museum in the fall of 2010. When Richmond remembers being pitched the idea Louis Butelli and ensemble from “Cyclops” of staging Euripides’ Cyclops, the only surviving Satyr Play, he recalls his reaction as, “It’s never been done... and almost impossible to do on stage... I like it!” The company immediately went about creating the piece, recruiting a band of musicians and a composer to create a musical theatre experience that mixes a translation of Cy-
clops, by Percy Bysshe Shelley with the crunch of a rock music, score. The result, as described by Backstage, is “a blood-pumping, full-volume, free-for-all.” It was equally praised by the LA Times, whose reviewer said, “[it is] such a thrilling freak show that you just give into its luscious chaos.”
Artwork for Cyclops: A Rock Opera
Cyclops opened in January, 2011 at the Son of Semele, then moved to the Carrie Hamilton Theatre at the Pasadena Playhouse, where it wrapped up in May. The production is scheduled to be part of The New York Musical Theatre Festival in September-October, 2011. Richmond sees his involvement with Psittacus as a great opportunity for growth for students and alumni of the department. “All of our graduates who move {to LA} are definitely high on my radar when we’re looking for people to be a part of the shows,” he says. Past alumni participating in Psittacus productions include Darin Dahms (MFA, 2003; A Tale Told by an Idiot) and Madeleine Hamer (BA, 2008, A Tale Told by an Idiot and Cyclops). Richmond says that wherever his outside projects take him, he will remain focused on his work here at the University. “I think one very much serves the other,” he says. “I think that {the University} is a great incubator for me to have ideas and try them out to see if they have legs, and {working outside of the university} stops me from being stale.” “I’ve always got something new to introduce my students to. I’m the better teacher for doing it, and the better director for having the ability to take a breather and go back to the classroom.” In October, Richmond’s production of Othello opened to rave reviews at the Folger. It ran through December 4. PERFORMANCES |WINTER/SPRING 2012
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DEPARTMENT NEWS
The Third Year Experience
MFA Actors Take On A Year of Professional Internships
MFA Students (from left) Lin Ying, LaToya Codner, Todd Zimbelman, Daniel Hill, Ryan Krause, Sonya Thompson, Brian Clowdus and Katie Krueger. Photo courtesy of Katie Krueger.
The first two years of the three-year MFA Acting track can be a dizzying journey, packed to capacity with classes, studio work, teaching duties, rehearsals and productions. Students find themselves in a rigorous, somewhat insulated world where the singular focus is on developing themselves as theatre artists. The third year, however, requires the students to step outside of the academic environment and into the wider world of professional theatre. Whether through internships or independent projects, this final year of the program is an intensive experience which puts what the students have learned to the test in the “real world.” For our most recent group of third-year MFA actors, that challenge was met head-on with confidence, resulting in across-the-board successes. Thanks to long-standing relationships with such reputable organizations as The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC and Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, internships at professional theatres across the country have, for decades, been a core component of the third-year experience. Students in the acting track must audition for placement, and once accepted are thrust into the life of being working actors. Ryan Krause, says typical responsibilities at Milwaukee Rep. included understudying principle roles for the 2010/2011 season, making scenery transitions, and fulfilling minor roles for productions, adding that he was also given the opportunity to audition for regional theatres throughout the season. “It was a great opportunity to get to know the Rep’s acting company,” he recalls. “Watching professional actors working in their niche was very enlightening. It has helped my growth by the mere fact that it has mortalized professional artists. They are people. They can have bad rehearsals, they can get frustrated when they don’t remember lines or blocking, etc. It was fascinating to see how they responded to stressful situations.”
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LaToya Codner, who was also accepted into Milwaukee Rep., agrees. “Between events and hanging out in the green room, I have picked up some great advice about the business and things I should do next. I have also gotten to audition for multiple theaters, which has lent the opportunity to strike up conversations with artistic directors, casting directors, etc. Most of all, I have made some great new friends among the fellow interns who I will be entering the professional world with, and it’s nice to have a helping hand available if I ever need one.” Both Ryan and Latoya had significant stage time, including roles in such plays as Death of a Salesman and Cabaret. Ryan, however, also got the rare opportunity to take over a principal role, playing the title character in My Name is Asher Lev, an experience which was covered by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “My heart sank into my legs,” Ryan told the paper when asked about hearing he would get to perform the role. “Suddenly I realized, this is the moment I’ve been preparing for all along!” Compounding the difficulty of the role, which never leaves the stage for the show’s continuous 90-minute length, was the fact that Ryan had to race to another stage after the show was over to perform in the ensemble of Cabaret. For his third-year, Brian Clowdus combined a half-year internship at The Shakespeare Theatre with work for his own professional theatre company, Atlanta’s Serenbe Playhouse, which he founded in 2010. At the Shakespeare Theatre, Brian performed in Cymbeline and was Oberon in Dream a Little Dream, an adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Daniel Hill contacted Kathleen Conlin, Artistic Director of the Tony® award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival, whom he had gotten to know when Conlin directed Theatre South Carolina’s 2010 production of The Winter’s Tale. “I emailed her to let her know that I was available for work
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Sharing the stage in Macbeth at USF was Todd Zimbelman, who started his third year working on an independent film, The Summer Before, in Nebraska. After filming wrapped, he came back to the University to perform in the Pacific Performance Project/east’s production of Shogo Ohta’s The Water Station, then went on to work with the Utah Shakespeare Festival. “[My] ‘internship experiences’ were jobs that I sought out on my own,” he says, “and [I] was of course compensated for my time.”
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Daniel Hill in Utah Shakes’ “The Diary of Anne Frank”
“So I didn’t actually do an ‘internship,’” Daniel says. “I basically did three professional shows at a Tony® award-winning theatre, got paid and gained more equity points.”
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so much from all the graduate professors...and with all the different tools and techniques I have acquired, I feel the most prepared I’ve ever been. Most importantly, they have fed my desire to learn more.”
Katie Krueger as Beatrice in “The Servant of Two Masters.”
Katie Kreuger got plenty of chances to showcase her abilities, with roles in the comedy Cats and Dogs in LA and the Oregon Shakespeare production of The Servant of Two Masters, in which she played the plum role of Beatrice. Katie also performed in The Water Station and Our Country’s Good here at the University, as well as the independent film Dirty Silverware, which won the Local Grit Award at Columbia’s Indie Grits Film Festival.
“I feel like I can bear the brunt of the difficulty that auditioning presents,” says Ryan. “Robyn Hunt and Steve Pearson have taught me a strong sense of practical thinking related to acting. There is a lot of mysticism involved in this culture. I think that’s bogus. I think it’s important to look at how I book a role, create a role, etc. with a lens of cause and effect (‘this happened because I did this,’ as opposed to ‘I got this role because I wore my lucky shoes today and listened to Aerosmith’s ‘Love in an Elevator’ before my audition’). In my opinion, cause-and-effect thinking is a much more effective approach to the work and the business aspect.”
DEPARTMENT NEWS
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in the future and would enjoy working with her again someday. About a week later, she emailed me and asked if I’d like to come out to Utah and work as an actor in the Fall. She called the next day and offered me two very substantial roles in The Diary of Anne Frank (Mr. Dussel) and Pericles (Simonides/Boult).” In the spring, Daniel was offered a four-month contract in USF’s touring production of Macbeth, playing Duncan/Porter.
That sense of practicality has influenced Todd as well. “Robyn and Steve are doing amazing things that instill a calm and confidence in their actors that I find refreshing. As Robyn refers to it, ‘unpanicked emptiness’. The confidence to know, that even if something does go wrong, you as the actor will grow stronger and overcome whatever may be in front of you. Perhaps Katie sums up the experience for everyone: “It’s definitely challenging to be an actor, but I feel I am the best at what I do because of the education I received. Through bumpy twists and turns, as well as triumphant successes, I learned so much at USC, and I will never forget my graduate school experience there.”
SO THAT’S WHERE THEY’VE BEEN... WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Brian Clowdus is gearing up for the 3rd Summer Season of the Serenbe Playhouse, near Atlanta, of which he is the founding Artistic Director. He will direct two shows, Alice in Wonderland and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and will appear in the musical Time Between Us, making its regional premiere. LaToya Codner is living in Chicago, working on getting an agent and auditioning. Daniel Hill performed in Summer 2011 at the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, where he performed roles in As You Like It and The Orphan of Chao, a new play. He is now a visiting theatre professor at Indiana University Southeast.
Katie is one of several MFA students who also worked on original material during their third year. Katie performed her original piece, Thinking Long Distance, at the University in the fall. Sonya Thompson did extensive research for her performance piece, Eating Marigolds, while working with the artistic director of a performance art company called Red Egg Theatre in Santa Cruz. Lin Ying performed an original theatre-dance piece, Magpies Bridge Across the Milky Way, at New York City’s Richmond Shepard Theatre.
Ryan Krause is taking classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade in NY and auditioning. He recently appeared in Nic Ularu’s Hieronymus at La MaMa.
“I feel very prepared for the next chapter in life,” says Latoya about her entire MFA experience. “I have learned and taken
Todd Zimbelman is spending time with his new wife and plans to follow the film The Summer Before to the Sundance Film Festival in January, 2012.
Katie Krueger performed last summer in San Francisco as Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Woman’s Will, an allfemale Shakespeare troupe. She began an acting apprenticeship in October with B Street Theatre in Sacramento. Lin Ying performed in The Empress of China, produced by NY’s Yangtze Repertory Theatre. She was also a production assistant for the show.
PERFORMANCES | WINTER/SPRING 2012
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ALUMNI NEWS
Theatre Alum Helms Hit Off-Broadway Play A theatre alumnus can now add "OffBroadway smash" to his already-impressive resume. Tyler Marchant (MFA, 1999) directed the critically-acclaimed play Freud's Last Session, recent recipient of Best Play honors at the Off-Broadway Alliance Awards and the longest-running Off-Broadway show of the season. In 2009, Marchant was also at the helm for the world-premiere of playwright Mark St. Germain's play imagining a fictional tête-à-tête between two heavyweight thinkers, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and writer C.S. Lewis. Taking place over a single meeting, the play pits Freud's atheist beliefs against Lewis' Christian faith, depicting how the two opposing beliefs can find common ground. St. Germain based the play on the book The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life by Armand M. Nicholi, Jr. Tyler Marchant
The show premiered at Massachusetts' Barrington Stage Company, which has nurtured several other big Broadway and Off-Broadway successes, including the Tony® Award winning musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Freud's Last Session holds the distinction of being the longest-running play in Barrington's 15-year history. It premiered Off-Broadway at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater in July, 2010. Marchant worked closely with the playwright in the development of the production for BSC, completely changing the play's original ending in the process. He has had great experience working directly with playwrights -- his role as Associate Artistic Director of the Off-Broadway theatre Primary Stages from 2000-2006 put him in direct communication with such notable writers as Terrence McNally, Horton and Daisy Foote and A.R. Gurney. Marchant describes St. Germain as "wonderfully giving and generous," adding that "his presence in the room was invaluable for allowing the actors and myself to find the play." Marchant says his initial connection to the play came
through a meeting with BSC's artistic director Julie Boyd, which was set up by his agent. That meeting resulted in his directing the theatre's 2007 production of A Picasso by Jeffrey Hatcher. "That show was received really well and was extended a couple of times," he says. "I think we worked together well, and because Julie knew I spent much of my career working on new plays, she then asked me to take a look at Freud's Last Session." In addition to its Best Play accolade, the Off-Broadway production of the show also earned Marchant a nomination for the Joe A. Callaway Outstanding Direction Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. "All of this is helping open doors and making new connections," he says. Marchant credits his time at the University of SC with helping to prepare him for his thriving theatre career, giving specific mention to Professor Jim O'Connor "and his pushing me to think like an artist." Marchant was O'Connor's first MFA Directing student at the University of SC, and came to SC specifically because of O'Connor's reputation heading the MFA Directing program at Purdue University. "Jim was able to teach as much through conversations in his office, or on his sailboat, as he was in the classroom," he says. "I also appreciated how he would always give me notes about my work, but then gave me room to still make decisions. This balance was incredibly important." O'Connor remembers Marchant as "a very, very easy and fun student. He was an interesting student to teach because he helped me be a good teacher. He listened to me very carefully. I was always very careful to tell him, 'You don't have to take my advice, but you do have to think about my advice.'" Since 2007, Marchant has himself been a teacher of directing and acting at the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point, where he encourages students to "be the CEO of your own company. You have work to understand what drives you as an artist, but you also have to have some savvy about how to translate that work. As theatre artists we need a whole community to gather for the work. You have to be someone who others want to gather around, time and time again." "I've always told my students that one of the privileges of being a director is that you get to visit with your audience," says O'Connor. "They come to find out what's important to you. What you have to decide is what you would like them to do after the production. That's your contract with the audience. They're nice enough to find out what you want to talk about; it's your job to help them get to that place. It's a real privilege." For his fellow University of SC alums, Marchant offers one of his favorite quotes from his time in graduate school: "Don't be afraid to be wrong, or you'll lose your creativity."
Martin Rayner as Freud (left) and Mark Dold as C.S. Lewis in “Freud’s Last Session.”
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At press time, the play had recently moved to NYC’s New World Stages, with plans to open at Chicago’s Mercury Theatre in March, 2012.
Scott Bellot (MFA, 2003) is living in Denver, working as an associate professor at Red Rocks Community College, and working in the professional theatre scene in Denver. Scott acted in four shows this year: ART, Speed-the-Plow, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and Getting Married by GBS. Alex Bergeron (BA, 2008) is currently finishing his first year in Yale’s Technical Design and Production MFA program. Bill Boland (BA, 2004) finished his Masters in Library and Information Science degree in August, 2010. He is recently divorced and currently working at the Thomas Cooper Library on the USC campus. Bill lives in Cayce with his three dogs and girlfriend, and plans on staying in the Columbia area, getting back into theatre sometime in the near future. Lisa Carlson (BA, 2006) is living in Oregon, working in Foodservice Sales for a specialty foods distributor. Stephen Cone (BA, 2002) has seen his original film The Wise Kids lauded at festivals across the country, garnering Grand Jury awards at Outfest (LA) and the Audience Award at NewFest (NY), among several other awards. Roger Ebert gave the movie three stars, calling it “honest, observant and subtle.” The film received it’s SC premiere in Charleston (where it was also filmed) in November. Darin Dahms (MFA, 2003) directed the world premiere of the play Alceste, an adaptation of Euripides by B. Walker Sampson, at the Theatre of Note in Hollywood, CA in February/March, 2011. The show received great notices from the LA Times, LA Weekly and Backstage, in which Amy Lyons writes, “Director Darin Dahms masterfully mines the comedy of the mostly dark piece, bringing modern flair and stylish symbolism to the ancient text.” Isabel Marie Dickey (BA, 2006) recently marked her threeyear anniversary with the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle as the evening & weekend ticketing manager. The 5th Avenue is famous for producing many Broadway-bound shows like Hairspray, Memphis, & Catch Me If You Can. Best moment at her job, she reports: “Getting to hold our Tony Award for Memphis when it won Best Musical. We are currently working with Disney to produce Aladdin: A New Stage Musical.” Isabel also sings and plays keyboards & tambourine with her band Black Nite Crash, and performs with a troupe of 1960’s style Go-Go dancers. Karen Eterovich (MFA, 1989) is headed to Bath, England to perform her one woman play, Cheer from Chawton: A Jane Austen Family Theatrical as the finale program at the 10th Anniversary of the Jane Austen Festival. Even bigger news is that Karen had a baby girl in January 2009 – her biggest and most challenging production ever! Jennifer Fine (MFA 2007) lives in Los Angeles and is finishing up a three year Alexander Technique training program. She is also assisting the Alexander Teacher at USC (the other one!), working with their BFA freshman class, and is teaching TV/Film and commercial classes for young adults at a place called The Playground. Ursula Finley (BA, 2006) says, “I’m making babies. When
I can, I work over at The Warehouse Theatre and with The Distracted Globe / The Distracted Globe - Beyond Greenville (SC) doing some lighting. I plan on a comeback in a few years. Watch out for that!” Kristen Gilmore (BA, 2006) lives in London with her boyfriend, where she earned her MA in Advanced Theatre Practice (Scenography) from the Central School of Speech and Drama in December, 2010. She gained a 2-year work visa in early March and has been looking for a day job ever since, but has been designing lighting for small projects at theatres and festivals around the city regularly since last summer-“some even for money,” she adds. She will qualify for a defacto visa in November and plans to stay in England.
ALUMNI NEWS
The latest from alumni around the world...
Zach Hanks (MFA, 2004) lives in Los Angeles, working as a voice director, casting director, voice acting coach, and lecturer in the interactive games industry, and continues to also work as a voice actor. Recently, he cast and directed Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Retribution, and spent a couple of days at Norco College lecturing, running workshops, and developing curricula for voice acting and game dialogue recording. He also voiced characters for “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” “Squidbillies,” Call of Duty: Black Ops, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, and Dragon Age II. He is currently on the Screen Actors Guild National Voice-Over Committee and Norco College’s Commercial Music Department Advisory Committee. Angelina Herin (MFA 2007) is finishing up her third year teaching at Ashland University in Ohio and is the resident costume designer. She just accepted an offer to teach at Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH) this fall, and will soon head off to her sixth season with American Folklore Theatre in Door County, WI, where she is the resident costume designer. Tracy Herzog (BA, 2006) spent 3 years teaching English in South Korea, and is currently volunteering in Central America. At the moment, she is in Panama, but has recently spent time in Costa Rica as well. Daniel R. Hill (MFA, 2011) moved to NY after his second year at USC trying to find an internship, and ended up with professional gigs instead. He recently finished two seasons at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, appearing in The Diary of Anne Frank (Mr. Dussel), Pericles, directed by Kathleen Conlin (Simonides/Boult), and Macbeth (Duncan/Porter/Doctor). This summer, he will perform at the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival in As You Like It and The Orphan of Chao. He plans to relocate to LA and continue the grind... Beth Bensinger Hitesman (BA, 2004) is a commercial producer/writer with WSPA News Channel 7 (CBS) in Greenville, SC, where she writes, produces, directs and serves as voice talent for television commercials. She is also having a blast staying involved with the local theater, usually acting in a production or two a year. Joseph Holmes (BA, 2005) lives in San Francisco, CA with his partner, where he reports, “We’re still waiting for the whole Prop. 8 debacle to clear up so that, maybe, we can PERFORMANCES | WINTER/SPRING 2012
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ALUMNI NEWS
get married!” He has worked in local theatre for a little over two years as an actor, primarily with New Conservatory Theatre Company, performing in two mainstage shows and one touring show, but has also worked with The Hypnodrome (the only full-time Grand Guignole theatre in the US) and the SF Fringe festival. In addition, he has performed with SF Lyric Opera in three operas as a chorister and as a flutist with SF Civic Orchestra. He went back to school and recently completed an MA in Comparative Literature (Japanese, Persian, English) at San Francisco State University. Joseph currently works in Sales Operations for Premier Retail Networks and is working on improving his Persian skills, as well as working on a few translation projects on his ownwith hopes of publishing and helping introduce the world to the exciting realm of Persian/Iranian literature. Abbie Isaac (BA, 2007) is a freelance director and the Associate Artistic Director of The Hub Theatre in Fairfax, Virginia. Recently, she directed the world premiere one-man show, Basra Boy, at Keegan Theatre. Currently, she is producing The Clockmaker with The Hub Theatre. Up next she will be returning to The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey to direct one of their summer touring productions. Earlier this year, she assisted Robert Richmond at Folger Theatre, where he directed the acclaimed production of Henry VIII. In the fall she will be starting the full time MBA program at George Mason University, which she says is “not a career change!” Marcella Kearns (MFA, 2003) is based in Milwaukee and acting, coaching, and teaching theatre on independent gigs as well as for First Stage Children’s Theater and the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. A recent adventure was originating a Christopher Durang monologue written for Forward Theater Company’s Monologue Festival. She is looking forward to the season ahead: Twelfth Night with Optimist Theatre (Maria), Gorgons with Renaissance Theaterworks (Mildred), Scrooge In Rouge with In Tandem Theatre (Scrooge), and A Wrinkle In Time with First Stage (Foley Artist/Aunt Beast). Patrick Kelly (BA, 2006) moved to Chicago in 2007 and worked with Lookingglass Theatre Company, About Face Theatre, Serendipity Theatre Collective/2nd Story, and WNEP Theater. In August, he moved to NYC to pursue his MFA in acting at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts. Steven Kopp (BA, 2010) is currently living in Winston-Salem, NC getting his residency. In Fall 2011, he will attend UNCSA and be working toward a BFA in directing (2 year program). This year, he directed a cutting of Miss Julie for Intensive Arts. He will AD a production of Confessions of Women from East LA, by Josefina Lopez, with Theatre on Common Ground. He has also joined a local up-and-coming children’s theatre (Peppercorn Children’s Theatre) and will direct/act in A Midsummer Nights Dream Abridged: With Lots of Puppets! and a production of The BFG by Roald Dahl. Tyler Marchant (MFA, 1999) is currently represented by a commercial run of Freud’s Last Session Off-Broadway (www.FreudsLastSession.com), where he was nominated for a Joe A. Callaway Outstanding Direction Award. (See related article, page 8.) Last summer, he directed Going to St. Ives by Lee Blessing at Barrington Stage Company (www.barringtonstageco.org) as well as at the Gem Theatre in Detroit. Tyler is currently teaching at the Univ. of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. Catherine Arnold Marhenke (BA, 2005) spent 5 years
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PERFORMANCES | WINTER/SPRING 2012
working in the development offices of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. In November of 2010, she accepted the position of Director of Marketing and Development for the College of Fine Arts and Communication at the University of Central Arkansas. She finished her Master of Sciences in Community and Economic Development (University of Central Arkansas) last summer. Catherine got married in April, 2008 (Tom Marhenke) and had a daughter in August, 2009 (Lydia Marhenke). Joel Mason (Houck) (BA, 91-92) is premiering his new musical Mary of the High Seas in the form of a concert reading at the Church Hill Theatre in Edinburgh and has been named lyricist on the new project with Titus Theatricals in Boise, Idaho. Visit http://www.sponsume.com/project/ mary-high-seas and http://www.titustheatricals.com/. He is keen to reconnect with his old friends from the good old days of USC Theater. Jeni Miller (BA, 2010) is wrapping up her first year of graduate school for an MA in Theatre at the University of Kentucky. She performed in a musical revue this year and took part in a World Theatre Festival Here in Lexington. This summer, she will intern in the education department for Lexington Children’s Theatre and work on her thesis. Patrick Mullins (MFA, 2005) is Associate Artistic Director at Virginia Stage Company where he directs main stage and touring productions, oversees the development of new work, writes the occasional piece, and runs the PORT program, a collaborative theatre training program in conjunction with Old Dominion University where he also teaches. Highlights of last season: Won the Minette Cooper Arts Educator Alli Award from the Hampton Roads Cultural Alliance, assisted John Rando on the new musical SCKBSTD, by Bruce Hornsby and Clay McLeod Chapman; directed Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years; spat out yet another rendition of A Christmas Carol, and still hopes to relax at the beach sometime before summer is over. Patrick lives happily on the Hague with his partner, Avery Shaffer, a warm glass artist, and their dog, Brick, a spoiled English Setter. Kelvin O’Bryant (BA, 2005) is living in L.A., working in film and television. “Still love what we do.” Jillian Owens (BA, 2006) lives in Columbia, SC. She is the Grants and Contracts Manager at the South Carolina Arts Commission, where she helps schools, artists, and arts organizations get money. Jillian is recently engaged to “a very sweet fella” who performs with the Art Bar Players Improv group, and she has a nifty refashioning blog, where she remakes all sorts of thrift store castoffs: ReFashionista.net. Katie Page (BA, 2007) just finished her Masters in Teaching at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, VA. She says working at a dinner theatre has gotten her through the program, and she currently works a front of house position at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton. She hopes to find something in education at a theatre. Katie reports she is getting married in a month! DeRante Parker (MFA, 2007) recently moved to Los Angeles from Chicago, IL in August of 2010, and is pursuing film and television work. He currently works with Catharsis Productions, touring a play titled Sex Signals. He travels to different colleges and universities, as well as military installations, performing this play, and absolutely loves it. Jillian Tabay Peltzman (BA, 2009) is the Project and Events Coordinator for the University of SC Child Development Re-
Mindi (Blackburn) Penn (MFA, 1997) lives in Myrtle Beach, SC, where she runs Atlantic Stage with Thom Penn (BA, 1997) and teaches theatre at North Myrtle Beach High School. Thom teaches theatre at Coastal Carolina University. They both have two “beautiful, smart, articulate kiddos,” Maddi (11) and Jack (5). Fabio Pires (MFA,2005) says he is “living in Manhattan with my lovely lady and living the dream.” As an actor, he has performed in a couple of Off-Broadway shows, films and “what not,” and has been auditioning like crazy. Voice Over clients include Intel, Microsoft, Visa, UPS, HBO, NBA, HSBC, Exxonmobil, Canon, Colgate, Dove, Berlitz, Bank of New York, Mellon, and many more. As a fight choreographer, he has worked on a few features, shorts and music videos. He just worked on a major mocap project. He adds, “PS: For those who haven’t met Bonnie, she’s amazing. Her film was just accepted at Cannes, and she went on something like 43 auditions during pilot season.” Melissa Bishop Redd (BA, 2004) is currently in her 5th year of teaching Kindergarten in Lexington School District 4 in Swansea, SC. She received her MAT from Liberty University and just completed her Montessori certification (her 2nd MAT) through Lander University. She lives in Columbia SC with her husband, Jack, and 5 yr old son, Sawyer. Dan Roach (BA, 1999) was most recently in a production of Next Fall at the Speakeasy Stage Company, in Boston.
Brian Rooney (MFA, 2009) has been working as an actor with no other day job since last April (knock wood), joined Equity, is an Ensemble member of Pride Films and Plays, and has worked with Milwaukee Rep, New Leaf Theatre, Point of Contention, Strange Tree, Drury Lane, ShawChicago, and Illinois Shakespeare Festival. He most recently performed in Madness Of George III with Chicago Shakespeare Theatre on the Navy Pier to great reviews, then headed to the Outer Banks for an Equity guest appearance at The Lost Colony. He has also been doing film work, and is awaiting the release of Knife Thrower’s Apprentice, The Mystique, Devil And The Deep Blue Sea, and Blood On The Plain. His last release, Marilyn’s Dress, was shown at Sundance Film Festival and in a special on PBS. Brian’s demo reel can be viewed at http://vimeo.com/17655215. Jerrold Scott (MFA, 1993) is associate professor of theater at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where he also serves as artistic director of the Eldred Theater, the university’s producing arm. He recently directed Present Laughter for the Cleveland Play House as the final production in the Play House’s original space of the Brooks Theatre, which was built in 1929, and had fond memories of appearing in the the play as Roland in the USC Summer Repertory in 1992. Last summer, Jerrold directed The Importance of Being Earnest at the Distracted Globe in Greenville, SC, which is led by his USC classmate, Artistic Director Jayce Tromsness. He is thrilled that Jayce will be coming to Cleveland in the fall to helm Animal Farm for Eldred. Jerrold continues to maintain an active professional career, mostly in directing and voice-over work. Will Shuler (BA, 2010) is based out of Atlanta working fulltime as an actor/music director. He is the artistic associate/ resident music director for Serenbe Playhouse, founded by USC MFA alum Brian Clowdus. Last spring, he was in the
NYC premiere of Flight with USC professors Robyn Hunt and Steve Pearson and USC alumni Jen Burry, Eric Bultman, and Brian Hanscom. Last summer, he was music director for the Southeast Premiere of Ordinary Days and performed in a new production of The Ugly Duckling and the Atlanta premiere of Shipwrecked! Amy Thomson (MFA, 2011) recently completed work on the set of the major film from Lionsgate, The Hunger Games, on which she worked as a costumer and assistant milliner.
ALUMNI NEWS
search Center and is currently working on an M.Ed. in Early Childhood. She says she is focusing more on her career than theatre these days.
Susan Tooker (BA, 2003) lives in Oregon, where she has spent 8 years at Michael Curry Design making puppets for Disney, Cirque du Soleil, Universal Studios, etc. Her final project with MCD was Michael Jackson’s This is It. She segued into the film business with Extraordinary Measures” & the soon to be released Gus Van Sant film, Restless. She also worked on the 3rd season of the TV show Leverage. Currently, she is building her own business: http://www. etsy.com/shop/SpinningCastle. Don Upton (BA, 1981) is the President of Fairfield Index, Inc., based in Sabal Park in Tampa, Florida, a firm dedicated to economic development and regional collaboration, education and talent, and public affairs. He also moderates think tanks and summits on issues critical to regional, state and national competitiveness. Don is married to a USC alum, with whom he has three daughters, two in college and one in high school. Celeste Mersenski Walton (BA, 2007) is currently working at the Child Development Center in England and is soon to return back to the states in September. She requests, “Let me know if there are any openings in the theatre world near Montgomery, Alabama, because I am looking to get back in!” Monica Wyche (MFA, 1999) lives in NYC with her husband, playwright Dean Poynor, where they founded The Salvage Company in 2010. In one year, The Salvage Company has produced plays in Key West, Florida, Charleston, SC, and Cairns, Queensland, Australia. This fall, she travelled back to the Cairns Festival in Australia to perform a one-woman show called Whales and Souls by Andrew Kramer, which she also performed at The Flea Theater in NYC. She also recently shot Chris White’s new film, Get Better, and is working with Upright Citizens Brigade in NYC. Read her blog at www.monicawyche.com, and email her at mawyche@gmail. com. Bahiyyih Young (Theatre Minor, 2004) is working on an Ed.S. in Marriage & Family Therapy at USC., which she says is “an interesting combination of acting and directing... and it’s pretty much all improv. I look like I know what I’m doing even when I don’t, and I can spot a faker a mile away.”
Let us hear from you! Email your latest news and photos to bushk@mailbox.sc.edu. Let us know your email address so we can add you to our monthly electronic newsletter, Ovations! On Facebook? “Like” our Fan Page! Just search for University of SC Department of Theatre and Dance. PERFORMANCES | WINTER/SPRING 2012
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FACULTY NEWS
Professor Susan Anderson was named 2011 SC Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation in November, 2011, one of just fifty professors nationwide to receive this honor. Over the summer, she traveled to Athens, Greece to give a presentation at the second annual ATINER (Athens Institute for Education and Research) Conference for the Visual and Performing Arts on an article she co-authored with Dr. David Shields of the English Department here at the University. The article and presentation, “Historical Dance Photography and Dance Pedagogy”, was published in the Dance Critics Association Journal in Spring, 2010. Associate Professor Sarah Barker travelled to the Far East in November/December to teach Alexander Technique to educators in Japan. In Fall 2011, Associate Professor Sarah Barker presented a workshop at the Alexander Technique International Annual Meeting. Barker is currently a director on the ATI board. Assistant Professor Walter Clissen created the sound design for a new Steven Schwartz musical My Fairy Tale, which will have its American premiere at the PCPA Theatrefest in August, 2011. Clissen also designed the sound for P3/east’s NY production of Flight, and was Sound Mixer for Robert Richmond’s film Dreadful Sorry. Assistant Professor Thaddeus Davis and Instructor Tanya Wideman-Davis participated in the Dance Theatre of Harlem’s “Harlem Dance Works 2.0” series, where they created new work for a planned regeneration of the legendary ballet company. (see related article, page 3). Their performance group, Wideman/Davis Dance, staged The Bosket Affair, a social commentary piece about convicted murderer Willie Bosket, along with a new work, Fragmentation, at the University in December, 2010. Assistant Professor Peter Duffy helmed a workshop on cognition and theatre at the American Alliance for Theatre and Education in July, 2011. In November, 2010, he gave the presentation, “Cognition and Theatre Performance,” at the American Society of Theatre Research (ASTR) Conference in Seattle. Instructor Spencer Henderson once again served as Costume Shop Manager for the Williamstown Theatre Festival during Summer 2011 for his third season. Theatre major Elizabeth Coffin accompanied him, serving as assistant to Susan Hilferty, costumer for Wicked on Broadway. Assistant Professor Victor Holtcamp’s article “Capitalism and A Chorus Line” was recently published in The Journal of American Drama and Theatre. He was awarded a grant to adapt The Rediscovery of North America by Barry Lopez into a stage piece, which was performed at the Lab Theatre in April. In March, he presented on T.S. Eliot’s influence on Beckett at the Comparative Drama Conference in LA, and in November presented on Ophelia in the Shakespearean Performance Research Group at Seattle’s ASTR conference. Victor is the recipient of a Provost’s Grant for the Humanities, through which he will travel to LA in July to research his project, Tinseltown Bootcamp: Hollywood Studios and Actor Training.
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Professor Jim Hunter designed the set for the March, 2011 production of August, Osage County at Florida Rep. Other recent design projects include scenic design for Rumours in October 2011 at Florida Rep, and scenic design for A ChristPERFORMANCES | WINTER/SPRING 2012
mas Story at The Phoenix Theatre in November 2011. Jim served as team chair for the NAST reaccreditation of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in NY and LA, and was recently re-elected to his second term on the NAST Commission on Accreditation. Professors Robyn Hunt and Steven Pearson (through their production company Pacific Performance Project/east) took their original play, Flight, an aerial theatrical work about the female pioneers of aviation, to NYC for a March-April run at The Connelly Theatre. P3/east presented Shogo Ohta’s slow tempo work The Water Station at USC’s Center for Performance Experiment in November, 2010. Amy Lehman was recently promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Associate Professor Mila Parrish has been granted tenure. She was recently awarded the 2011 Advocacy Award from the South Carolina Dance Association. Professor Jim O’Connor recently finished a two-year run as president of the National Theatre Conference and has been inducted in the inaugural Legacy Class at Purdue University, honoring his strong influence on Purdue’s theatre program. (See article, page 13.) This fall, O’Connor directed a production of Tartuffe at the Clarence Brown Theatre; Associate Professor Erica Tobolski was voice and text coach. O’Connor directed Love Song at the Aspen Fringe Festival last summer. Associate Professor Erica Tobolski presented a workshop based on her project “The Portrait Project,” about expanding vocal range and creating character, at the recent Southeastern Theatre Conference and was part of two panels, including one on Erica Tobolski on the set of “The Wise Kids” with theatre Alum Stephen Cone the U/RTA Audition process. Last summer, she was the dialogue consultant for Shining City at the Aspen Fringe Festival, and served as dialect coach for the film The Wise Kids, directed by USC theatre alumnus Stephen Cone. Associate Professor Robert Richmond’s short film Dreadful Sorry, for which he received a SC $100,000 SC Film Commission Film Production grant, was filmed at several locations in SC, including Longstreet Theatre, over Spring Break 2011. Richmond’s wife Dionne O’Dell wrote the screenplay; he directed the production. USC Faculty involved in the production include Andy Mills (Technical Director), Walter Clissen (Sound Mixer) and Valerie Pruett (Hair/Make-Up Artist). MFA Design Candidate April Brown designed the costumes; MFA Alum Madeleine Hamer was an actor in the production. For more on Richmond, see article on page 3. In June, 2011 Professor Nic Ularu conducted the international workshop “From Image to Text” with students from 20 different countries at the Prague Quadrennial. Also in June, he conducted the international costume workshop “The Influence of Asian Traditional Costume in Theatre” and directed a street parade at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival. Ularu was a visiting professor at the Academy of Performing Arts of Hong Kong in Fall, 2010. (See story, pg. 16.) His original play, Hieronumus, premiered at NYC’s La MaMa E.T.C. theatre space in January, 2012.
FACULTY NEWS
O’Connor’s Legacy Celebrated Jim O’Connor, Professor of Theatre at the University of SC and former Chair and Artistic Director of the Department of Theatre and Dance, has been inducted into the inaugural Legacy Class at Purdue University. This program recognizes former faculty and students who had a particularly strong impact on the Theatre Program at Purdue. Jim served as Chair, Artistic Director and Head of the MFA Directing program at Purdue before coming to South Carolina. Jim oversaw the creation of the Master of Fine Art programs in Acting and Directing, and headed these programs, at Purdue. He taught in both those areas as well as in the MFA design programs. He created the Purdue Professional Summer Theatre serving as Artistic Director in addition to directing numerous productions with the professional company as well as in the academic program He oversaw the early phases of the creation of a new Fine Arts center that includes two theatres, shops and offices. That building is now finished and Jim had his first opportunity to see it while in West Lafayette for the Legacy Award ceremonies. Other recipients of the Legacy Award included Tom Moore, multiple Emmy award recipient for his work in television. He directed the original Grease as well as Over There, Moon Over Buffalo and ‘Night Mother, among others on Broadway, where he was twice nominated for Tony Awards in directing. He also directed the film of ‘Night Mother with Lauren Bacall and Sissy Spacek. Recently Tony-nominated Stephen Henderson, who appeared in the recent revival of Fences with Denzel Washington also was a member of the first Legacy Class. Jim is particularly proud of Steve’s receiving this award along with the multiple other awards since he studied with Jim in the graduate acting program at Purdue. Since that time they
Jim O’Connor with Tom Moore (on left) and Stephen Henderson (on right)
have done numerous productions together in the U.S. and in Ireland. Other recipients were Peter Schneider, the producer of The Lion King on Broadway; he is the former President of Disney Animated and Disney Live Productions and was also a student of Jim’s at Purdue. Awards were also granted to David Potts, a Los Angeles film and stage designer and Rick Thomas, the acclaimed sound designer and international leader in the field of sound design and reinforcement. Jim says he is particularly proud of this award since it was granted by a program that he was instrumental in building. He previously received a Joseph Jefferson Award nomination for his direction of The Island in Chicago, an Outstanding Directing Award from the Cleveland Critic Circle and was recognized as an Outstanding Graduate Alum by Penn State University, where he received his Master of Fine Arts degree. He continues to direct professionally at regional theatres around the country and spent the 2008-09 year as a Distinguished Professor in Malaysia.
Entrances and Exits Leigh Cowart joined the Department in January, 2011 as Administrative Assistant to the Chair. An Alabama Girl, Leigh holds a BA in Sociology from Auburn University. She came to us from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, GA, where she worked as an administrative assistant in Enrollment Services. Leigh and her husband, Kevin, who works for Shaw Industries, live in Aiken, SC. Charlotte Denniston came aboard in September, 2010 as the department’s new Human Resource Coordinator. Charlotte previously worked for seven years in the University Payroll office.
Christine Jacky was hired in March, 2011 as the department’s new Assistant Technical Director for Lighting and Sound. Christine received an MFA in Theatre with emphasis in lighting design and theatrical management from Southern Illinois University in 2010.
Kerri Lambert came to us in the fall of 2011 to be the Administrative Director of the USC Dance Conservatory and an adjunct faculty member of the dance program. Kerri graduated summa cum laude from the University of Oklahoma, where she was a Foundation Fellow, in 2011 with an M.F.A. in Dance. She studied the art of teaching ballet at the Gainesville School of Ballet under the artistic direction of Diane Callahan. PERFORMANCES | WINTER/SPRING 2012
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DEPARTMENT NEWS
MFA Designers Awarded Dean’s Fellowship Third-year MFA Design candidates Heather Abraham (Scenic Design) and Brad Cozby (Lighting Design) have been selected as joint recipients Brad Cozby and Heather Abraham in Hong Kong of the first-ever College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Master of Fine Arts Fellowship for the 2011-12 academic year. The award, made available to the Departments of Theatre & Dance, Art and English, was created to provide support for students in the “final project” phase of their graduate studies. A nomination from the department chair was required. The shared award, worth several thousand dollars, funded the two designers’ exciting Fall 2011 project -- a residency at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, during which they created scenic and lighting design for a fully-mounted dance production at the prestigious school. Founded in 1984, the HKAPA is one of Asia’s leading institutions for higher education in the performing arts, offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in Dance, Drama, Film/TV, Technical Arts and Chinese Traditional Theatre. The dance production will feature dancers and choreographers of the Hong Kong Academy as well as international guest choreographers. The connection to the school came through Professor Nic
Award Enables Special Project in Hong Kong
Ularu, who was an Artist-in-Residence at the Academy in the fall of 2010. It’s an international link that seems primed to continue, as Ularu’s time at the school resulted in a student/faculty exchange program between HKAPA and USC. Our university is hosting one of the HKAPA graduate students in stage management during the 2011-12 academic year to stage manage a Theatre South Carolina production. Brad and Heather’s Hong Kong project will surely be the cap on their already-outstanding graduate careers. Praised for his professionalism and expressive abilities, Brad has created emotive lighting designs for the Theatre South Carolina productions of The Arabian Nights, Our Country’s Good and The Suicide; outside of the University, he has worked as Assistant Master Electrician for The Lost Colony and assisted Jim Hunter in lighting design for a Florida Repertory and Orlando Shakespeare Theatre coproduction of The 39 Steps. Heather has created exquisite scenic designs for the Theatre South Carolina productions Our Country’s Good, The Comedy of Errors and The Arabian Nights, which was selected among a handful of other designs from around the country as “Best In Show” at the 2010 United States Institute for Theatre Technology’s (USITT) national design exhibition. Her design for The Arabian Nights was also published in the summer issue of Theatre Design and Technology magazine and was on display alongside the work of professionals from around the world at the 2011 Prague Quadrennial in June, 2011.
We welcomed a brand new designer from China into the MFA Scenic Design track in Fall, 2011, as Xuemei Cao arrived to study in the program. Xuemei, who comes to us from the Peking University Institute of World Theatre and Film in Beijing, received the distinguished Presidential MFA Fellowship to attend our university. The Presidential Fellowship is given only to the most accomplished of students, who show “exemplary progress as measured by national and international recognition related to the specific field of study and/or other measures of significant scholarly accomplishment.”
Raves for Our Scholarship Recipients! MAGELLAN SCHOLARS (2011-12)
Taylor Smith, Dance Performance Traditional Polish Dancing: An Investigation into National and Culturally-Specific Dances that Exist in Poland Today. Jennifer Coffey and Amanda Nelson, Dance Education Intergenerational Dance: Reaching, Connecting and Building Community Lauren Koch, Theatre Bringing Stage Combat to South Carolina Schools Mary Tilden, Theatre Community-Based Theatre: Bringing a Latin Voice to Theatre in SC HELEN HAYES UNDERGRADUATE THEATRE OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION SCHOLARSHIP
Adam Bintz, Colleen Dobson, Rebecca Doran, Jeffrey Earl, Emily Gonzalez, Jane Hearn, Mary Tilden, William Vaughan 14
PERFORMANCES | WINTER/SPRING 2012
DANCE SCHOLARSHIPS Current Dance Students: Alyson Amato, Jacquelyn Ball, Hannah Brown, Liza Cardinal, Jana Cartee, Mindy Chester, Carmen Dent, Taylor Ferguson, Joanna Hardy, Amanda Hurst, Marilynn Joyner, Tricia Koch, Rebecca Krumel, Meredith Madden, Paige Maxwell, Sabrina McClure, Caitlin McCormack, Kathryn Miles, Katie Owerbach, Hannah Parrish, Hannah Patten,, Caroline Poe, Margaret Rambo, Raven Rutherford, Camille Sellers, Leslie Smith, Taylor Smith, Charlotte Stewart, Kayla Szolek, Ryan Thomas, Maeve Tierney, Rebecca Wilkins, Emily Wilson Incoming and Transfer Students: Matthew Agudello, Emily Anzalone, Victoria Black, Krista Burwell, Mary Clements, Thomas Collins, Sarah Crouch, Daniel Gayman, Sarah Gledhill, Melissa Gundling, Morgan Hancock, Ashlyn Hawk, Dallas King, Addi Limehouse, Kalela Massey, Amanda Melrose-Smith, Chelsea Morgan, Neely Moss, Hanna Murrell, Eleanor Sarfert, Elizabeth Sharpe, Mary Sigward, Jessica Smith, Caroline Steed, Mackenzie Surbey, Taylor Stewart, Stephanie Urbanski, Erica Williams
Juliana Jordan, a recent Dance and Russian double major graduate, was among many dance program students awarded research and grant scholarships this past year. In April, 2011 she received the Fulbright Scholarship for an English teaching assistantship grant. Jordan will not, however, spend her ten months in Belgorod, Russia just teaching English; she will also teach dance in the community. She explains what excited her most when applying for this particular program. Juliana Jordan
“I loved that in this program, grantees were not only allowed, but expected, to find ways to be integrated into the community,” said Jordan. “I've always appreciated community involvement and international exchange and I had hoped I’d be able to use my love and knowledge of dance in this way.” When she applied for the Fulbright grant, she detailed her goal to teach dance in an orphanage while there. Jordan said she was inspired by a similar project that dance instructors Thaddeus Davis and Tanya Wideman-Davis took on in the Columbia area. In a project and performance entitled “Balance,” the husband and wife duo looked to
their creative dance classes at the women and children’s homeless shelter for insight into homelessness in Columbia. Davis guided her through the process of taking a similar project to Russia. Jordan said her mentorship with Davis not only shaped her application process for the Fulbright but also her outlook on the importance of dance in the community. Davis emphasized that the dance they brought to the Columbia women and children’s shelter did more than provide an outlet; it gave them an opportunity to create and explore, forgetting their current hardships. Something Jordan hopes to provide in an orphanage setting.
DEPARTMENT NEWS
Dance Major Receives Fulbright Scholarship
“Something very valuable that Thaddeus has taught me is that dance is life and that everything can be applied and displayed through dance,” said Jordan. “No matter the obstacles I may face in learning how best to use dance in my new setting, dance is a form of communication that will both provide perspective as well as material for me to express.” -- Article by Olivia Anderson
Costuming for TV Wives (continued) signer, Emmie Holmes, once she found out the show would be filming a fifth season. After a positive interview with Emmie, April was offered the chance to intern on the show. Throughout the internship, April shadowed people in different areas of the costume department, with duties ranging from picking out costumes to assisting the show's wardrobe shopper to the decidedly non-glamorous job of doing laundry. She also served as a PA for the last two weeks of the internship. The experience netted her a piece of valuable advice. She credits Shawna Foley, the show's Background Costumer, with telling her to " never miss out on the important things in life, for work, if someone is there to help you." In addition to her work with Foley, she holds assistant costume designer Brad Watson in particularly high esteem. "Between these two people I learned that I want to work with all my might to make each project as special and as perfect as I can, but life and loved ones are the most important thing. You can work hard, but at the end of the day you are working because this is your passion, and you have to learn to relax in the midst of organized chaos," she says. Besides gaining new insights into the craft, she says her internship experience changed her perception of the availability of costuming jobs in the industry. "This experience
showed me that there are more jobs available in film/television costumes than I had thought; each person has a specific job, yet they all work together. Where one person needs help, another person assists. It is not about each person, but about the group." April credits her training in the MFA Costume Design track with helping her prepare for the professional level, but acknowledges that many of her most important lessons have been learned on the job. "Many people in film do not have a degree in their area of work, but they have been able to steadily rise to the top because of hard work and love of the business," she explains. "I am thankful for my degree because I have been able to get a small head start and learn a few lessons before being thrown into the fire." After graduating from the MFA program in May, April spent the summer networking in Atlanta and Charlotte. She recently worked as a costume production assistant on the upcoming Ben Stiller film Neighborhood Watch, filming in Atlanta. April’s costume work on the narrative short Civil, shot in South Carolina, received the 2012 Best Costume Design Award at the Los Angeles Film Awards in January, 2012. PERFORMANCES | WINTER/SPRING 2012
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DEPARTMENT NEWS
Designing an International Education For Scenic Design professor Nic Ularu, artistic excellence (for himself and his students) is truly an international pursuit. In June, Nic once again played a significant role in the Prague Quadrennial, a multinational exposition of the theatrical design. Nic led the workshop “From Image to Text” during Scenofest, a branch of the Quadrennial devoted to giving student designers the opportunity to benefit from the symposium’s incredible assembly of the world’s leading theatre designers. With “From Image to Text,” Nic reversed the notion that design should always follow after the written word; instead, the workshop encouraged students to take photographs of striking images around Prague, which they then turned into stories. Also in June, Nic led a costume workshop on Traditional Asian Costume Design and it’s influence in theatre, and directed street parades, as part of the Sibiu International Theatre Festival in Sibiu, Romania. Nic reports that during the four intense days of the workshop, he and his students created 24 traditional Asian-inspired costumes, and he directed a performance of ancient Chinese stories, all for display during the festival’s daily street parades.
A Musical Maymester
Nic Ularu takes students and their work beyond traditional boundaries
Nic’s involvement in both the Prague Quadrennial and the Sibiu International Theatre Festival has benefitted our own students, as well. Since 2003, Nic has encouraged his MFA design students to participate in Scenofest, and several, including Kimi Maeda, Selena Kong, Carl Hamilton and Heather Abraham, have seen their designs exhibited alongside the work of professional designers at the Quadrennial. Students have also been involved in the production of his play, The System, and the creation of the costume parades at the Sibiu festival. In January, 2012, Nic’s directed the premiere of his original play, Hieronymus, centered on the fantastical art and life of 15th-century painter Hieronymus Bosch, at the world-renowned La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. The production, described in a review on TheatreOfOneWorld.org as “sumptuously image-rich,” included a creative team made up largely of theatre alumni, faculty and current students, including Heather Abraham (scenic design), Lisa MartinStuart (costume design), Walter Clissen (sound design), Aaron Pelzek (lighting design), K. Dale White (production management) and Christine Jacky (stage management). Included in the cast were alums Paul Kaufmann, Ryan Krause and Jen Burry, alongside professors Richard Jennings and, from USC Sumter, Park Bucker. Students Learn What it Takes to be ‘One Singular Sensation’
Gillian Albrecht appeared in the original A Chorus Line on Broadway and on stages across Europe in West Side Story and Jesus Christ Superstar. She sang with Marvin Hamlisch and Leonard Bernstein and toured the world with Sammy Davis, Jr. But for two-and-a -half weeks during MayMester, she appeared in a different role at USC: instructor. Albrecht directed an interdisciplinary musical theater workshop with intense training in voice, acting, and dance taught by USC faculty from the Department of Theatre and Dance and the School of Music. John Baer, who worked alongside Albrecht on Jesus Christ Superstar, and has arranged and conducted other major shows across Europe, was musical director. “There is no musical theater without the three disciplines: acting, music, and dance,” Albrecht said. “Our workshop is just the tip of the iceberg in the intense, interdisciplinary training these kids will need if they want to go on to musical theater.” Students started each day with a dance class at 9 a.m., working on two completely different styles. USC dance faculty member Cindy Flach taught traditional musical dance, and guest instructor Karina Williams introduced the students to a funkier jazz style. After dancing came acting with scene work, acting exercises, and improvisation with USC theater professor Victor Holtcamp. Then, the students met for a group vocal class with Carolina alumna and USC adjunct voice professor Serena Hill with exercises working on placement, support and enunciation. 16
PERFORMANCES | WINTER/SPRING 2012
John Baer (at piano) and Gillian Albrecht (2nd from right) teach Broadway vocal technique to Musical Theatre Workshop students.
After dancing, singing and acting classes, Albrecht and Baer worked with the students on getting the meaning behind the words in their songs. “They’re learning to use the song text as dialogue, why we speak, what is the meaning behind the words, what is the intention behind the words,” Albrecht said. Albrecht also brought in two guest artists, friends from her career as a performer. Stephen Gross, who was on his way to New York to conduct The Phantom of the Opera, gave a master class, and Columbia native Donna Drake, with whom Albrecht shared a dressing room during A Chorus Line, spoke and answered questions about her successful career on Broadway. “It’s been an eye-opening experience,” Albrecht said of the workshop. “These kids are terrific. They are fantastic, dynamic, excited, and they worked very, very hard.” -- Article by Larry Wood. Reprinted with permission from USC Times.
Your tax-deductible contribution to the Department of Theatre and Dance is crucial to our ongoing success, especially in this time of economic hardship. It is through the gifts of supporters like you that we can continue fulfilling our mission of academic and performance excellence which has been key to our growth over the last 35 years. Your donation provides much-needed funding for scholarships that help us recruit and keep the best and brightest in our programs, research and travel grants that give our students enhanced real-world experience and facilities improvement funding which helps us provide and maintain the tools and performance venues that bring our students face-to-face with the state-of-theart.
DONATION FORM
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Please remit to: University of South Carolina Office of Gift Processing 1600 Hampton Street, Suite 736 Columbia, SC 29208 I am proud to make a gift to the USC Department of Theatre and Dance in the amount of:
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Below, you’ll meet just a few of the students and alumni who have reached new heights thanks, in large part, to the generosity of our donors.
Please ensure the continuation of a high-level educational experience for these and all of our students by returning your tax-deductible donation along with the form on the opposite side today!
Undesignated
Recipient, 2012 Magellan Scholarship
To research her Spring, 2012 directorial project, a Latin culture-influenced take on Shakespeare’s “12th Night,” Mary will travel to Bogota, Columbia to attend the IberoAmerican Theatre Festival. Funds received through the Magellan scholarship are crucial for this type of research. Olivia Anderson, Dance Performance Major
Recipient, 2011-12 USC Dance Scholarship “Our performance opportunities are the envy of even professional dance companies with works by such celebrated choreographers as George Balanchine, Twyla Tharp, and Lila York. It was my scholarship to the University that unlocked these competitive tools for me as a dancer and student, and have made my dream of being a professional dancer possible.”
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Mary Tilden, Theatre Major
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Heather Abraham and Brad Cozby MFA Design Students Recipients, Dean’s Master of Fine Arts Fellowship, 2011 Heather and Brad completed a residency at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in Fall, 2011. See related story, page 14.
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NAME_______________________________________ EMAIL_______________________________________ ADDRESS____________________________________ _____________________________________________ PHONE______________________________________ CAROLINA ALUMNUS, CLASS OF______________ AF 668 PERFORMANCES | WINTER/SPRING 2012
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DEPARTMENT NEWS
Saying Goodbye to a Dear Friend Along with the rest of the university, our department received the tragic news in April that former University President Andrew Sorensen had passed away. Sorenson was 72 and living in Ohio, where he was Senior Development Officer at Ohio State University. Dr. Sorenson was President of the University of SC from 2002-2008, and was a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the School of Medicine. Prior to coming to Carolina, Dr. Sorenson served as president of the University of Alabama, and had developed a noted career as a public health scholar. At Carolina, Dr. Sorenson’s legacy is in plain sight with the development of the Innovista Research campus, which he brought to fruition. The Department of Theatre and Dance owes special debt to Dr. Sorenson, who helped to realize the dream of opening the dance program’s new, state-of-the-art studio and classroom space. Dance Program Director Susan Anderson remembers, “When he first arrived on campus, I asked him if I could take him to lunch and show him our dance facilities. Not only did he say ‘yes’ but stayed to watch our South Carolina Summer Dance Conservatory students in class. When I returned him to the Administration building he said, “Susan, the
dance program is a cathedral of excellence at USC. The visibility for our dance recruitment and future growth must include a new home for dance at USC.” Dr. Sorenson played the role of the newscaster in The-
In remarks at a atre South Carolina’s 2009 production of “The Skin of Our Teeth.” memorial service for Sorenson, current University president Harris Pastides remarked, “Every one of us here was part of Andrew Sorensen’s community circle. Whether family, friend, colleague or distant admirer, we were embraced, we were challenged and we were made better by his touch.” Dr. Sorenson is survived by his wife Donna, two sons, Aaron and Benjamin, and their grandson, Art.
Photo courtesy of The State
Around the Department
Clockwise, from top left: Actress Monique Coleman of “High School Musical” fame (3rd from left) talks to students about acting for the screen; Dance Education students at the South Carolina Association of Health Physical Education Recreation and Dance Conference in Myrtle Beach; Broadway choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett sets “Great Galloping Gottschalk” on the USC Dance Company; Gary Logan of the Shakespeare Theatre gives a master class on Shakespearean imagery; MFA Scenic/Lighting students work with Lighting Designer Jim Hunter at the brand new worldclass Rinker Playhouse, home of Florida Stage, for the world premiere of “Goldie, Max and Milk;” Guest choreographer Nathan Trice creates an original piece for the USC Dance Company.
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PERFORMANCES | WINTER/SPRING 2012
Some of our favorite images from the 2010-11 performance season.
On Our Stages
“Our Country’s Good” by Timberlake Wertenbaker,
“Raymonda Variations” by George Balanchine,
Drayton Hall Theatre.
October, 2010. Koger Center for the Arts.
directed by Amy Boyce HOltcamp. October, 2010.
performed during “Classics to Contemporary.”
Photo by Jason Ayer.
“Great Galloping Gottschalk” by Lynne Taylor Cor-
bett, performed during “Classics to Contemporary.” October, 2010.
Photo by Jason Ayer.
“The Suicide” by Nikolai Erdman,
directed by Steven Pearson. February, 2011. Longstreet Theatre
Photo by Jason Ayer.
Photo by Jason Ayer.
“Big Love” by Charles Mee,
directed by Chris Clavelli. November, 2010. Longstreet Theatre. Photo by Jason Ayer.
“Bent” by Martin Sherman,
“Back Door Parole” by Tanya Wideman-Davis.
November, 2010. Lab Theatre
Boundaries.” February, 2011. Drayton Hall.
directed by Robert Richmond.
Photo by Katie Foshee.
“Allegro Brillante” by George Balanchine. Performed
during “Ballet Stars of NY.” (NYC Ballet Principal Dancer Jared Angle at right.) March, 2011. Koger Center.
Photo by Jason Ayer.
Performed during “Innovative Works Without
Photo by Jason Ayer.
“The Last Days of Judas Iscariot” by Stephen Adly Guirgis, directed by Daniel Bumgardner. February, 2011. Lab Theatre.
Photo by Katie Foshee.
PERFORMANCES | SUMMER 2011 PERFORMANCES | WINTER/SPRING 2012
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PERFORMANCES
NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U.S. POSTAGE PAID COLUMBIA, SC PERMIT #766
University of South Carolina Department of Theatre and Dance Longstreet Theatre Columbia, SC 29208 803.777.4288 theatre@sc.edu dance@sc.edu www.cas.sc.edu/thea www.cas.sc.edu/dance
On o u r s ta g e s i n 2 0 1 1 - 1 2 Tennessee Williams Festival Including A Streetcar named desire and an evening of williams one-acts Longstreet theatre/ drayton hall theatre September 30 - october 8, 2011
Polaroid Stories
By Naomi Iizuka Longstreet Theatre November 11-19, 2011
Present Laughter By NoĂŤL Coward Longstreet Theatre February 17-25, 2012
Macbeth
By William Shakespeare Drayton Hall Theatre April 14-22, 2012
Oleanna
By David Mamet September 15-18, 2011
Broken Glass
By Arthur Miller October 13-16, 2011
Romeo and Juliet
By William Shakespeare November 16-20, 2011
Undergraduate Original Works
Three Original Plays by Jake Mesches, Brittany price Anderson and Jeffrey Earl February 15-26, 2012
Twelfth Night, or What You Will
by William Shakespeare April 19-22, 2012
SC Festival of Dance Koger Center October 7-9, 2011
USC Dance Conservatory Fall Concert Drayton Hall Theatre October 14-15, 2011
Architects of Dance Koger center November 10-11, 2011
Student Choreography Showcase
Drayton Hall Theatre November 29 - December 2, 2011
Breaking Ground
Drayton Hall Theatre February 8-11, 2012
7th Annual Ballet Stars of NY Koger Center March 23, 2012
dates subject to change.
Visit our websites for more info on these and other exciting events! www.cas.sc.edu/thea or www.cas.sc.edu/dance