Monthly Archives: November 2014

Production Ensemble 2014’s MAD FOREST (11/14 – 11/16)

Mad Forest PosterCaryl Churchill’s remarkable play, MAD FOREST takes place before and after the revolutionary events of December 1989 in Romania that marked the end of a Communist dictatorship. The title, which alludes to a Romania of the past, a Romania populated with forests and horseman warriors, simultaneously evokes the surreal nature, the euphoria, and the devastation of a revolution.. The play puts a human face on the turning point of a people and of a nation – two families under scrutiny from the secret police, one rich, one poor. Blending stark realism and uneasy fantasy, Churchill achieves a look into the belly of the revolutionary beast as the characters succumb to and rebel against the shifting realities of a world in transition.

With a stark and simple set by Matt Saunders, costumes by Laila Swanson and lighting by James P. Murphy, and sound by Liz Atkinson, director Alex Torra takes the ensemble cast of eleven (Sarah Branch, Rex Chang, Avni Fatehpuria, Makayla Portley, Htet Win, Nina Serbedzija, Kate Wiseman, Katy Montoya, Jaime Maseda, Thomas Butler and Oliva Jorgenson) on a supple journey into the tumultuous times of the late 80s in Bucharest.

Alex Torra is a Philadelphia-based director, performer, producer, and educator. He is a Company Member with Pig Iron Theatre Company, where he has worked as a Performer in Twelfth Night, Zero Cost House, Cankerblossom, Welcome to Yuba City, Pay Up, 365 Days/365 Plays, and Anodyne; as Director of Come to my Awesome Fiesta, it’s Going to be Awesome, Okay?; and as Creative Producer for PAY UP 2013 and I Promised Myself to Live Faster. He also serves as Co-Founder and Resident Director for Team Sunshine Performance Corporation, where he has directed Punchkapow and JapanAmerica Wonderwave, and the upcoming production ofThe Sincerity Project in December at FringeArts. Alex has received fellowships from the Independence Foundation, the Philadelphia Live Arts Brewery, the Princess Grace Foundation, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and NY’s Drama League, and last year was a finalist for the F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Theatre Artist. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. in Directing from Brown University.

LPAC Pearson-Hall Theater (Mainstage)

November 14, 2014  – 8PM

November 15, 2014 – 2PM &  8PM

November 16, 2014 – 2PM

“Mad Forest” is presented by special arrangement with SAMUEL FRENCH, INC.

For more information about these and other events in the Theater Department contact lpacevents@swarthmore.edu or call 610-328-8260.

https://www.facebook.com/events/314715605379534/

 

Honors Dramaturgy Thesis: THE IMPERIAL HOUSE (11/8 & 11/9)

There are two great chances to see this staged reading adapted from interviews at the Imperial SiegelPoster2House apartment building, in Pittsburgh, PA.

Throughout the spring of 2014, Nathan Siegel ’15 conducted interviews with residents of the Imperial House–an apartment building largely, but not entirely, populated by senior citizens, many of them Jewish. The most compelling pieces of these interviews have been adapted, added to, and mixed together to create several characters: sisters, brothers, friends, husbands, wives, rivals, and neighbors. The Imperial House tells their collective and individual stories. What does it mean to grow old in a community like this? What will happen if someone tries to put flowers in the lobby? If a new resident runs for the board? If someone slices the challah instead of ripping it? The Imperial House seeks to create a hilarious and poignant portrait of what it means to live, and grow old, in a communal space.

Dramaturgical adaptation by Nathan Siegel
Advising and direction by Rebecca Dizzy Wright

LPAC Frear Ensemble Theater
November 8, 2014
1PM

Church of the Crucifixion
(620 S 8th Street, Philadelphia, PA)
November 9, 2014
1PM

https://www.facebook.com/events/762351120479884

Lecture: THE ART OF THE TAWAIF with Prof. Rita Ganguly (11/6 @ 6PM)

Rita Ganguly LectureTawaifs’ were a elite female community of dancers and musicians in pre-colonial, India. In the process of creating an official ‘classical’ culture in post-independence India, several art forms fell into neglect, forcing many Tawaifs, their teachers, and their accompanists underground. Tawaifs became popularly perceived as prostitutes, a perception legitimized by the ultimate new music patron, All India Radio, who banned their performance. This confluence of puritanical Hindu state, Victorian morality, and colluding ‘Ustads’ annulled Tawaifs’ creative expression and economic freedom, negating that their accomplishment benefited the entire dance and music community.

Professor Rita Ganguly is an authority in the field of semi-classical Indian music, with particular reference to the romantic repertoire of Kathak dance and music performed by female courtesans or Tawaif. She is the foremost disciple of the legendary Ghazal singer Begum Akhtar. She has contributed richly to several fields – music, theatre and literature. Trained at the Martha Graham School, New York, she joined the faculty at the National School of Drama, Delhi (NSD) and set up a pioneering course in mime and movement. As a Fellow of the Ford Foundation, she did pioneering work on professional singing women, which gave her a PhD degree. Her project brought about a revival of interest in the practitioners of this art. Over the years Rita has developed her own distinctive style of performing music. Her interest in poetry led to a preference for`Nazms` sung in her unique style.

Lecture: LPAC 2 (Troy Dance Studio)

6PM

November 6, 2014

Lecture: THE ART OF THE TAWAIF with Prof. Rita Ganguly (11/6 @ 6PM)

Rita Ganguly LectureTawaifs’ were a elite female community of dancers and musicians in pre-colonial, India. In the process of creating an official ‘classical’ culture in post-independence India, several art forms fell into neglect, forcing many Tawaifs, their teachers, and their accompanists underground. Tawaifs became popularly perceived as prostitutes, a perception legitimized by the ultimate new music patron, All India Radio, who banned their performance. This confluence of puritanical Hindu state, Victorian morality, and colluding ‘Ustads’ annulled Tawaifs’ creative expression and economic freedom, negating that their accomplishment benefited the entire dance and music community.

Professor Rita Ganguly is an authority in the field of semi-classical Indian music, with particular reference to the romantic repertoire of Kathak dance and music performed by female courtesans or Tawaif. She is the foremost disciple of the legendary Ghazal singer Begum Akhtar. She has contributed richly to several fields – music, theatre and literature. Trained at the Martha Graham School, New York, she joined the faculty at the National School of Drama, Delhi (NSD) and set up a pioneering course in mime and movement. As a Fellow of the Ford Foundation, she did pioneering work on professional singing women, which gave her a PhD degree. Her project brought about a revival of interest in the practitioners of this art. Over the years Rita has developed her own distinctive style of performing music. Her interest in poetry led to a preference for`Nazms` sung in her unique style.

Lecture: LPAC 2 (Troy Dance Studio)

6PM

November 6, 2014

Peace drama performed 100 years ago on campus

This story in The Phoenix, Swarthmore College’s student newspaper, from October 27, 1914, only three months after the start of World War I, was brought to our attention this week.

The clipping below reports on the performance of a Founders’ Day “peace drama” about one soldiers’ struggle with the horrors of war, his return home, and a vision for “an era of peace, unsullied by the sword.”

Swarthmore is celebrating its sesquicentennial this year.

article part 1

article part 2

John W. Thompson

Science and Compassion: John W. Thompson’s Trajectory From Swarthmore to the Nuremberg Trials

Science and Compassion: John W. Thompson’s Trajectory From Swarthmore to the Nuremberg Trials

A lecture by Paul Weindling
Wednesday, November 12, 2014 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM
Kohlberg Hall, Scheuer Room
Swarthmore College (directions)
John W. Thompson

John W. Thompson taught as professor of Physiology and Anatomy from 1929 to 1932.

Paul Weindling’s lecture will focus on his research contained in his new book, John W. Thompson: Psychiatrist in the Shadow of the Holocaust (University of Rochester Press) is the biography of a doctor whose revulsion at Nazi human experiments prompted him to seek a humane basis for physician-patient relations. As a military-scientific intelligence officer in 1945, Thompson was the first to name “medical war crimes” as a category for prosecution. His investigations laid the groundwork for the Nuremberg medical trials and for the novel idea of “informed consent.” Yet, Thompson has remained a little-known figure, despite his many scientific, literary, and religious connections. Thompson has a connection to Swarthmore College having taught as professor of Physiology and Anatomy from 1929 to 1932.

Paul Weindling is Wellcome Trust Research Professor for the History of Medicine at the Centre for Medical Humanities at Oxford Brookes University, UK. He has served on historical commissions on Nazi science including the Max Planck Society’s Presidential Commission for the Kaiser Wilhelm Society under National Socialism, and is a Trustee of the Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA) which originally rescued many scientists from Nazi persecution.

book cover

Sponsors: Sesquicentennial Events, Peace and Conflict Studies, Department of Biology