The Department of Theater at Swarthmore College will present Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses in the Lang Performing Arts Center’s Frear Ensemble Theatre on Friday, December 3rd at 4:30pm and 9:00pm and Saturday, December 4th at 3:00pm and 8:00pm. The Senior Company includes Eva Amessé ‘11, Nell Bang-Jensen ‘11, Emily Letts ‘11, Joshua Lipman ‘11, Isa St. Clair ‘11, and Brian Willis ‘11, with guest performers Ben Hattem ‘12, Thomas Powers ‘13 and Brian Ratcliffe ’11.  The production also includes set design by Professor Laila Swanson, lighting design by Jessie Bear ’09, sound design by Louis Jargow ’10, costume consultation by Tara Webb ’94 and props design by Vianca Masucci ’13 and Logan Tiberi-Warner ‘11.  The event will be free and open to the public without reservations.

Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses is a non-naturalistic play that uses mythic elements to tell stories about human transformation.  The play is based on the myths of Ovid as translated by David Slavitt, along with several other fables as interpreted by the playwright, and includes words from a poem by Rainer Marie Rilke.  After initially premiering in 1996 at Northwestern University, it was picked up in 1998 by the Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago and then premiered off-Broadway in October 2001 at the Second Stage Theater in New York.  Metamorphoses opened on Broadway at the Circle in the Square Theater in 2002, was nominated for Best Play and won a Tony Award for Best Direction.

The play builds a foundation of striking images that examines human behavior and emotions from different viewpoints. Senior Company has staged the production as a series of fantastical, Greek vignettes in an abstract and thought-provoking environment.   Senior Company’s collective design and collaborative process focuses this production on the storytelling, explores the relationships of the multitude of characters present in its world, and showcases the central idea of the play. The characters are not the actors themselves, but various storytelling personas that the actors manifest using props, physicality, and costumes.  The goal is to offer tales to ponder and wonder about, not to make the audience choose sides between story and storyteller.  As Mary Zimmerman states, “the Greek gods, I believe, are twelve different names for feelings inside ourselves….”

For further information about these events, contact Tara Webb at 610-328-8260 or twebb1@swarthmore.edu

AUDITIONS FOR PRODUCTION ENSEMBLE (THEA 022; Spring 2011):

SATURDAY, NOV. 20

ROOM 115 KOHLBERG

Script: George Bernard Shaw’s FARFETCHED FABLES (1950)

Concept: This adaptation of FARFETCHED FABLES is the rehearsal of several censored television broadcasts that were produced back in the days when television was almost always live.  Created in the era spanning I LOVE LUCY and Joseph McCarthy, this production of FABLES will draw on these and other sources to create a framework around George Bernard Shaw’s off-kilter text.  Acting for both the camera and stage space will be emphasized, and characters comprising the television production crew in the 50’s (not in the original script) will be developed by the acting team through improvisation.

Director/Professor: Lars Jan ‘00

SCHEDULE
12:30-3:00 pm: Individual auditions

(sign up sheet outside Theater Department Office, 13 LPAC)

3:00-4:00 pm: Break

4:00-6:00 pm: Group Callback Session

(will be done in 1-2 groups for at least an hour each)

Everyone auditioning should come prepared to perform two monologues totaling no more than 4 minutes in length.

Audition material can include non-text-based movement, physical theater pieces, and/or text from any genre.

ADDITIONAL CALLBACKS ON SUNDAY ONLY IF NEEDED

CAST LIST WILL BE POSTED ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, OUTSIDE 13  LPAC

THOSE ON THE LIST SHOULD PRE-ENROLL FOR THEA 022, 042, or 062

Auditions are open to all students that have taken Acting I (THEA 002A)

THEA 022 fulfills a requirement for all Theater majors and minors

Students that have previously done Production Ensemble may audition and be cast again for academic credit, registering for THEA 042 or THEA 06.

Copies of the script for the production will be made available through the Theater Department Office (15 LPAC) starting Monday, Nov. 15

REHEARSAL SCHEDULE:

Production Ensemble rehearses weekly on the following schedule:

Thursdays: 4:10-6:40 pm & 7:30-10:30 pm

Fridays: 1:00-5:00 pm

Sundays: 12 noon-6:00 pm

This schedule will be expanded for tech/dress rehearsals and performances March 20-27, 2011.  Performances will take place the weekend of March 25-27.

Other than for a post-mortem meeting for the students and faculty involved, the work for the production will be finished by March 27.

The production team includes Laila Swanson as set and costume designer, Jim Murphy as lighting designer, Lars Jan as digital media designer, and Louis Jargow ’10 as sound designer.

Questions: contact Allen Kuharski (akuhars1@swarthmore.edu)

INTEGRATED MEDIA FOR PERFORMANCE: MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY DESIGN (THEA 004D)

PROF. LARS JAN ‘00

SPRING SEMESTER 2011

MONDAYS 1:15-4:00 PM & 4:15-6:15 PM

OPEN TO ALL STUDENTS WITHOUT PREREQUISITE

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the application of various visual and audio technologies in live theater and dance performance.  The course also will explore the emerging phenomenon of hybrid creative practices that utilize technology to further expand 21^st-century storytelling, design, and genre.  Discussion of the historical and theoretical context of contemporary mixed-media performance will be combined with an orientation to the available technologies found at Swarthmore and beyond, with an emphasis on video. The class will include the conceptualization and preparation of a series of individual studio projects. The course is designed to serve all students regardless of prior experience in theater production.

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LARS JAN is a director, designer, writer, and media artist.  He will be teaching INTEGRATED MEDIA as well as directing PRODUCTION ENSEMBLE (THEA 022) in Spring 2011.

The son of first-generation émigrés from Afghanistan and Poland, Lars is committed to international artistic research and exchange.   He has studied and worked extensively in Japan (Tondo Ningyo Joruri Theatre, 2003-04), Afghanistan (2005), and Ukraine.  Lars is a 2000 graduate of Swarthmore College and completed his MFA in Directing and Integrated Media at CalArts with the support of a Jack Kent Cooke Fellowship.  Lars is the recipient of the 2008 Sherwood Award, granted by Center Theatre Group to an innovative theatre artist in Los Angeles.  He has created new work and taught in residence at Princeton University’s Atelier Program as well as at Mount Holyoke, Swarthmore, and Amherst Colleges.

In 2009 and 2010, Lars Jan researched and created new works while a resident fellow at The MacDowell Colony (Peterborough, NH), EMPAC (Troy, NY), Brookfield Properties Arts Program (Los Angeles, CA) and The Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC; Tallahassee, FL). His work has been supported several times by the Swarthmore Project in Theater.  His original performance, film, and installation works have been seen at The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, 2005/2010), Symphony Space (New York, 2005), REDCAT (Los Angeles, 2006/2009), PianoSpheres (Los Angeles, 2010), The Kirk Douglas Theatre (Los Angeles, 2010), The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival (2004-2010), and The Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at RPI (Troy, NY, 2010).

He is the founding artistic director of Early Morning Opera, a multi-disciplinary art lab based in Los Angeles that specializes in live performance. He will premiere selections of a new opera, Makandal, at Art Basel (Miami) in December 2010.

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE’S DEPARTMENT OF THEATER AND THE WILLIAM J. COOPER FOUNDATION PRESENT A PERFORMANCE-LECTURE WITH THE YES MEN

September 15, 2010—The Department of Theater at Swarthmore College and the William J. Cooper Foundation will present THE YES MEN in a performance-lecture on Thursday October 7^th at 4:15PM in the Lang Performing Arts Center’s Cinema.  The event will be free and open to the public without reservations.  Live presentations by THE YES MEN are hilarious, insightful, disturbing, and thoroughly entertaining. The prolific pranksters discuss their legendary hoaxes and identity corrections through storytelling and multimedia – featuring props used in the pranks and unreleased footage from their recent and classic exploits.

THE YES MEN are a group of activist performers started by two notorious pranksters who organize events in order to bring attention to corporate, government, and institutional policy contradictions. The two founding artists, Mike Bonnano and Andy Bichelbaum bring their backgrounds in the fine and performing arts to raise awareness about issues of social concern. THE YES MEN have gained international acclaim and notoriety for exposing dehumanizing business practices and helping to keep critical issues in the international spotlight. They do this through impersonating representatives of powerful corporations and government organizations such as ExxonMobil, McDonald’s, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. THE YES MEN’s famed hoaxes include a collaboratively produced fake New York Times announcing the end of the Iraq War, inserting queer soldiers as characters in a video game, and the false announcement of the World Trade Organization’s dissolution in order to shift focus to helping the poor.  One of their earliest interventions was commissioned by the artists’ collective RTmark and involved switching the voice boxes of Barbie and GI Joe dolls in stores at Christmastime.  Their recent activities have involved posing as members of particular corporations and policy organizations to affect potential outcomes. For example, Andrew Bichelbaum appeared on CNN as a spokesman for Dow Chemical, taking full responsibility for the Bhopal disaster and promising to use $12 billion to compensate victims. In this sense, his appearance as a corporate spokesmen announced the position the company should have taken. They call this “pranking for progress,” which involves telling “little lies to get at big truths – the idea is to reveal the real hoaxsters.” These “culture jammers” try to bring attention to inequities or hypocrisies through performance practices that model alternative behaviors and possible outcomes. The faculty advisors for the project are Assistant Professor Erin B. Mee in the Department of Theater and Associate Professor Janine Mileaf in the Department of Art.

THE YES MEN will also host a Workshop in the LPAC Frear Ensemble Theatre titled “Developing Performance Pranks for Social Activism” on Friday October 8^th from 2:00 – 5:00PM. This event is free and open to students, but please contact Professor Erin Mee (emee1@swarthmore.edu) to reserve a space.  THE YES MEN will also be organizing an on-campus action with Workshop participants.  Please contact Blaine O’Neill (boneil1@swarthmore.edu) for more information.

For further information about these events, contact Tara Webb at 610-328-8260 or twebb1@swarthmore.edu.

Telephone Bronco Theater Company is comprised of Theater Department alums and current students Nell Bang-Jensen ’11, Isa St. Clair ’11, Emma Ferguson ’10, Eric Holzhauer ’10, McFeely Sam Goodman ’10, Louis Jargow ’10, and Jessie Bear ’09. Take this once-in-a-lifetime chance to see Cartogoraphasia right on campus!

Please note the CLASS TIMES have changed for Prof. Swanson’s class Fundamentals in Design.

The NEW schedule is Tuesday/Thursday

Class: 2:40PM – 3:55PM in LPAC 310

Lab 4:10PM – 6:25PM in LPAC Scene Shop

For more information, please see Jean Tierno in the Theater Department office or check the Theater Department Website at http://www.swarthmore.edu/x30504.xml.

A record number of Swarthmore College alums have been nominated for the 2010 Barrymore Awards, the winners of which will be announced in Philadelphia on October 4, 2010 at a ceremony inside the Walnut Street Theatre.

Pig Iron Theatre Company’s Fringe show from 2009, WELCOME TO YUBA CITY, received a total of six nominations–a record for any production to date in the group’s history.  The acting ensemble and creative team for YUBA CITY included Dito van Reigersberg ’94 (actor), Sarah Sanford ’99 (actor), Kim Comer ’09 (master electrician), and Lang Performing Arts Center staff member Dave Todaro (assistant lighting designer).  WELCOME TO YUBA CITY enjoyed the largest audiences of any Pig Iron production at the Philadelphia Live Arts/Fringe Festival since 1997, and was also the best-attended show of the entire festival last September.  It was reviewed by Jason Zinoman in the NEW YORK TIMES, and the company hopes to revive the production for tours in the near future.

The nominations for YUBA CITY are:
Outstanding Overall Production of a Play, Outstanding Direction of a Play by Quinn Bauriedel ’94 (Quinn is also a part-time faculty in the Swarthmore Department of Theater), Outstanding Set Design by Mimi Lien, Outstanding Ensemble in a Play, Independence Foundation Award for Outstanding New Play (for the ensemble and playwright Deborah Stein ’99), and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Play by Charlotte Ford (a Bryn Mawr alum and recent participant in Swarthmore Project in Theater).

Sarah Sanford ’99 has also been nominated for Best Supporting Actress in THE HUNTER GATHERERS at Theatre Exile and The F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Theatre Artist.

You can read a full list of nominees on the Theatre Alliance website.

Also in the news, Pig Iron will also premiere a new work at Christ Church Neighborhood House as part of this year’s Philadelphia Live Arts Festival: CANKERBLOSSOM, very freely inspired by Shakespeare’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.  For CANKERBLOSSOM, director Dan Rothenberg ’95 has teamed up with cartoonist and pioneering puppeteer artist Beth Nixon, whose fantastical cardboard creations work alongside stop motion animation, video projection, live music, and Pig Iron’s signature physical style to create this shadowy fairytale land.  For more information about the company and the show, check out their website http://www.pigiron.org/.