Category Archives: Theater

Theater

Jane Comfort and Company 2/14-16/2013

The Department of Music and Dance at Swarthmore College and the William J. Cooper Foundation will present JANE COMFORT AND COMPANY on Friday, February 15th, 2013 at 8PM in the Swarthmore College Lang Performing Arts Center Pearson Hall Theatre. Here at Swarthmore her company presents two works:  Beauty and Underground River.  Beauty is a provocative dance theater piece that explores the American notion of female beauty through the lens of Barbie. The performance includes a Barbie beauty contest and an intimate encounter between Barbie and Ken. Underground River, described as a “risk-taking and profound theatrical tour de force,” is an exploration of the rich fantasy life of a girl who appears to be unconscious. Singing a cappella songs by Toshi Reagon and interacting with the magical visual creations of master puppeteer Basil Twist, the dancers dwell in a world of magic realism and eccentric beauty unseen by those who wish to make her “well.”

For the last 25 years, JANE COMFORT has created critically acclaimed, socially conscious dance theater. She has been on the front lines of dissent against the loss of gains for social justice since the Reagan revolution. JANE COMFORT is a choreographer, writer, and director based in New York City. She began creating her own interdisciplinary work in 1978, and has since created more than 45 original dance theatre works for Jane Comfort and Company. She has been produced throughout the United States, and in Europe and Latin America, and has been cited as “one of the most original choreographers on the downtown scene” by The Village Voice. Noted for her use of language, Comfort has been described as “far ahead of the curve” in experimenting with the intersection of text and movement.

JANE COMFORT AND COMPANY creates dance theater works that push the intersection of movement and language to a new form of theater. Called by the New York Times “a postmodernist pioneer in the use of verbal material in dance,” artistic director Jane Comfort addresses contemporary social and cultural issues with compassion and wit. The company is an extraordinary group of dancers, actors and singers whose multiple talents allow Jane Comfort to create deeply layered works utilizing a wide range of theatrical elements, from pure dance to chanted texts, a capella singing, film, lip-syncing, cross dressing, acted scenes and puppetry. The company creates theater in which transformation occurs through many voices.

JANE COMFORT AND COMPANY will also host a Master Class in the LPAC Troy Dance Studio (LPAC 002) on Thursday, February 14th from 4:30 – 6:00PM and a Workshop on Saturday, February 16th from 1:00 – 4:00 PM in the LPAC Troy Dance Studio (LPAC 002). These events are free and open to interested students, but please contact Professor Kim Arrow (karrow1@swarthmore.edu) at x8670 or email our administrative office at dance@swarthmore.edu.

Directing I Workshop’s Night of Scenes 12/12 & 13

The Department of Theater presents the final projects of directors Swift Shuker-Haines ’14, Anna Russell ’14, Katie Goldman ’14, Josh McLucas ’15,  and Marta Roncada ’14 t (in collaboration with Lighting Design) for the Directing I Workshop Night of Scenes.

Scenes include excerpts from playwrights David Ives, Jan Fosse, Maria Irene Fornes, Jeanette Farr, and David Auburn.
LPAC Frear Ensemble Theater
8PM

Senior Company 2013 presents THE COSMONAUT’S LAST MESSAGE…

The Department of Theater’s Senior Company 2013 presents David Greig’s The cosmonaut’s last message to the woman he once loved in the former Soviet Union on December 7th and 8th at 8PM and December 8th and 9th at 2PM in the LPAC Frear Ensemble Theatre.

A forgotten cosmonaut and the daughter he left behind.
A polite stranger in a suit.
A failing marriage.

Cosmonaut is an epic journey littered with televisions, airports, tape recorders, strip clubs, and a visit to Norway. Scottish Playwright David Greig presents us with individuals desperately attempting to communicate as their efforts amount to nothing but static. Cosmonaut takes us through that attempt, moving to assemble these “orbiting fragments of life” into, as Greig puts it, “a story that makes sense.”

Directed by Meryl Sands and Sebastian Bravo Montenegro. Senior Company ensemble includes: Jeannette Leopold, Kari Olmon, Vianca Masucci, Sophia Naylor, Sebastian Bravo Montenegro, and Meryl Sands. Stage Managing by Emily Melnick, Scenic Design by Eric Verhasselt, Media Design by Fernando Maldonado, Props Design by Katie Goldman, Costume Design by Laila Swanson, Lighting Design by James Murphy, and Sound Design by Adam Riggar. An amateur production, free and open to the public.

Auditions for Production Ensemble 2013! 11/17 2-6PM Kohlberg 115

This year’s play for Production Ensemble will be THREE SISTERS by Anton Chekhov in a new adaptation by Benedict Andrews. It recently premiered in London, where it received stellar reviews. THREE SISTERS will be directed by Richard Hamburger, with a set designed by Assistant Professor Matthew Saunders, costumes designed by Assistant Professor Laila Swanson, and lights designed by James Murphy.

Born and raised amid the culture and excitement of Moscow, the three sisters chafe at the constraints of life in the small provincial backwater town, where they moved with their late father, an army General. Chekhov creates vibrant portraits of a family struggling to fulfill individual dreams through work and love, while facing painful new economic and social realities. Benedict Andrews’ uninhibited new version transposes Chekhov’s nineteenth century classic to contemporary Russia, drawing out the play’s pointed humor and restlessness. This is Chekhov for the 21st century.

All levels of experience are welcome to audition. Freshmen are especially encouraged.

Auditions: Saturday November 17, 2-6pm in Kohlberg 115
Callbacks and further auditions: Sunday November 18, 2-6pm in Kohlberg 115
Additional Audition time and callbacks will be on Monday, November 19 9:30-11:30pm in Kohlberg 115

Sign up for an audition slot on the sign up sheet outside the Department of Theater’s office (LPAC 13)

Please come dressed in shoes and clothing that you can move freely in, and be ready to read one or two scenes from the play. You may pick up the scenes in advance on the shelf outside the Department of Theater’s office (LPAC 13). Feel free to take a look at any translation of THREE SISTERS in the library.

Practical information about the production:
Three Sisters will be performed in Pearson Hall Theater in LPAC on April 5-7, 2013.
Production Ensemble is a one-credit course (Thea 22) and fulfills one of the requirements for the major and minor.

BIOS
Anton Chekhov (1860 –1904) was a major Russian playwright and master of the modern short story. His four final plays, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard are considered pinnacles in modern drama.

Benedict Andrews is an Australian author, adaptor and director. He was Resident Director of the Sidney Theatre Company and has directed at the English National Opera, the Barbican and the Young Vic in London.

Richard Hamburger served fifteen years as Artistic Director at Dallas Theater Center and is now DTC’s first Artistic Director Emeritus. He has directed a wide range of classic and contemporary plays, including new work by Octavio Solis, Lynn Siefert, Erik Ehn, Eric Overmyer, and Chay Yew, among others. Mr. Hamburger served for five years as Artistic Director of Portland Stage Company. He has directed at Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, Portland Center Stage, The Acting Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Yale Repertory Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, California Shakespeare Festival, American Place Theatre, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, and Great Lakes Theater Festival, where he served as Associate Director. Mr. Hamburger has written two plays: Memory of Whiteness, produced at the American Place Theatre and Family Face, mounted at the O’Neill Center’s National Playwrights Conference. He was awarded a Rockefeller Grant in playwriting and has held fellowships at the Albee Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Arts. He served on the faculties of the Juilliard Theatre Center and Circle in the Square Theatre School, on numerous panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, and as a panelist for the Whiting Foundation. Mr. Hamburger also directed the critically acclaimed version of THE SOUND OF MUSIC for The Salzburg Marionette Theater which is currently on a world wide tour. Most recently he directed Alan Ayckbourn’s MY WONDERFUL DAY and Sam Shepard’s CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS for Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater.

Katie Van Winkle ’07 in DIONYSUS IN 69 (revisited with the Rude Mechanicals)

Katie van Winkle ’07 will be touring to NYC’s Live Arts with Austin theater company, the Rude Mechanicals.

From Katie: “In 2009, we re-created The Performance Group’s production of Dionysus in 69 , a long-running cult classic from 1968 based on Euripides’ The Bacchae. We trained with environmental/experimental theater exercises from Grotowski and Schechner, and worked with the Brian de Palma D69 film, and the original script published in a casebook–looking at both in great detail, trying to recreate both the exact mise-en-scene and the ever-changing, risky, truly-conditional experience of performers and audience/participators.”

November 6-10 at 8 pm
and November 9 at 10:30 pm

http://www.newyorklivearts.org/event/dionysus_in_69

http://www.austinchronicle.com/arts/2009-12-18/930112/

http://www.austinchronicle.com/arts/2009-11-27/921516/