Category Archives: Theater

Ali Momeni ’97: Animating Resistance

April 19, 2017 @ 5PM: Artist’s Lecture (SCI 101)
Building on Momeni’s Manual for Urban Projection, the lecture will elaborate Momeni’s methodologies including a projection system that enables rapid animation based on still images and drawings as well as a gestural interface for virtual puppeteering of projected animations in real-time.

April 21, 2017 @ 8PM: Outdoor Performance (Lawn at Pearson Hall. Rain location will be LPAC Lobby.)
Momeni and the workshop participants will collaboratively create and perform a live cinema/projection performance that consists of animations depicting and annotating the contents of this database in playful and performative ways. These animations will depict the characters, setting and methods of specific actions from the Global Nonviolent Action Database like an animated graphic novel.

The live cinema performance will consist of several “drawing stations” where performers can draw on transparency with markers on a back-lit surface. A digital camera pointed at the surface then captures the images and brings it into custom video-projection software developed by the artists to create and layer video loops. As new drawings are captured and animated, a visual narrative around each action accumulates.

AliPoster

Acting Capstone presents REVOLT. SHE SAID. REVOLT AGAIN. (2/24 -2/26)

Revolt4WebRevolt. She Said. Revolt Again. by Alice Birch breaks our notions of language and theatrical expectation to explore the ways women in the 21st century are stereotyped by words, labels, and cultural representation. Wildly funny and deeply subversive, Revolt careens between surreality and self-awareness in attempt to understand the glories and difficulties of daily revolution in our complex, contemporary world. This fierce new work takes on gender politics, power dynamics, and societal expectations in an unforgettable forum of dialogues. Directed by Alex Torra with Sarah Branch ’17, Rex Chang ’17, Citlali Pizarro ’20, and Emily Uhlmann ’19. Costume design by Laila Swanson, Lighting Design by Amanda Jensen.

 

Friday, Feb. 24 at 8PM
Saturday, Feb. 25 at 2PM and 8PM
Sunday, Feb. 26 at 2PM
LPAC Frear Ensemble Theater

NIGHT OF SCENES from the Directing I Workshop (12/7 + 12/8)

Directing I Workshop (THEA 035) &nosforweb6
Lighting Design (THEA 004B)
present 
A NIGHT OF SCENES

Directed by
Wesley Han
Oliver Lipton

Yoshifumi Nomura
Emily Uhlmann
John Wojciehowski

with excerpts and one acts from
Annie Baker,
Maria Irene Fornes,
Tony Kushner,
Martin McDonagh,
and Sarah Ruhl

LPAC Frear Ensemble Theater
Wed 12/7 at 8PM
Thurs 12/ 8 at 8PM

Free!

Senior Company 2017 presents THE TOTALITARIANS (12/2-4)

A comic look at hypocrisy and a culture of politictotalitariansposterfinalforwebal infighting, and how we might be on the brink of revolution in Nebraska. Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s play follows Penny, a former roller derby star and compulsively watchable candidate for state office, who enlists the help of silver tongued operative Francine to manage her political ambitions. Penny’s nefarious plans for the Cornhusker State are revealed via Francine’s doctor husband, Jeffrey, who it turns out, is lying to his dying patients.

The Totalitarians is a raucous dark comedy about the state of modern political discourse, modern relationships, and how easy it is to believe truths without facts.

LPAC Frear Ensemble Theater
Dec 2 @ 8PM
Dec 3 @ 2PM and 8PM
Dec 4 @ 2PM

For more updated info, find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/180420805752981/

THE TOTALITARIANS is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York.

Giant Eyeballs and Media Design

If you walked through the Science Center Quad between 7:00 and 9:00pm over Halloween weekend, you may have felt a conspicuous presence. And if you looked skyward, you probably noticed that you were being observed from the water tower – or more accurately by the water tower, which had been transformed into a giant, animated eyeball by members of the Theater Department, LPAC Production Office, and ITS.

That idea, later entitled “Who’s Watching” by Scott Burgess, came about during a conversation between us  at the 2016 Media Architecture Summit (MAS). At MAS, we learned about digital placemaking through large-scale light installations and video projection. The lectures presented by the artists discussed engagement in public spaces, spectacle, ephemeral architecture, and the cross disciplinary aspects of media art. While our eyeball was merely an animation, spliced together with some video of dancing skeletons, ghosts, and a jack-o-lantern, many of the speakers at MAS presented on interactive artworks – pieces that people could influence through their own behavior, or control directly via mobile devices.

Among the works presented was Yong Ju Lee’s “Filament Mind,” a permanent installation in Wyoming’s Teton County Library. It utilizes a data stream from the library’s catalogue system, and a series of over forty projectors attached to a column in the building’s atrium. Aimed upward, with bundles of transparent fiber optic cable attached to their lenses, the array projects brilliant hues of electric blue, yellow and purple. The fiber optic bundles contain this light, twisting around the column as they climb to the ceiling, and then arcing outward to the walls, where each individual cable terminates on a different set of three dimensional words. As library-goers search the catalogue, their queries are illuminated in real time, thus visualizing the thoughts of the library as a whole, and its individual visitors, through fiber optic neurons.

Another talk addressed the issues of mass surveillance and big data. David Rokeby discussed “Taken,” a touring installation created in 2002 which simultaneously shoots and projects live video of people as they walk through a gallery, periodically zooming in on an individual, snapping a freeze frame, and arbitrarily applying an adjective to that person’s image. Visitors might be labeled “complicit,” “unsuspecting” or “hungry,” as the work asks them to consider the question “how does it feel to be judged by a computer?” and the idea that “when an algorithm is attached to a sensor, that algorithm projects behavior back into the space.”

Our own “Who’s Watching” did not seek to provide insight into important issues of the day, nor prompt any profound questions (though I’m sure we’d all like to know just how long the creature with giant blue eye stalks has been living under our parking lot). We simply set out to have a bit of Halloween fun on one of the larger unornamented surfaces on campus. In the process we experimented with projections of climate visualization, images created through electron microscopy and the Hubble telescope, and some interesting deep sea animals. If you have ideas for the future, if you’d like to experience an interactive work, if you want to add media design to your terms of study, or if you want to learn how we created the eyeball, we invite you to get in touch. Send us an email at the addresses below, drop by LPAC, or stop in at the Language and Media Centers. We’d be happy to hear from you. And stay tuned for more pop-up digital events around campus.

Jeremy Polk <jpolk1@swarthmore.edu>
Tara Webb <twebb1@swarthmore.edu>
Scott Burgess <jburges1@swarthmore.edu>

Production Ensemble 2016 presents Shakespeare’s AS YOU LIKE IT

A newly imagined production of AS YOU LIKE IT, Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy of cross-dressing, sheep, and love. This story of exile into the imagined Forest of Arden features the discovery of new identities, the poetry of roughing it, and the pleasures of falling head over heels. This production’s most special aspect – the entire play will be performed in Original Pronunciation, the dialect in which Shakespeare’s plays were originally heard.

Directed by Alex Torra with set by Matt Saunders, costumes by Laila Swanson, and lighting by James Murphy.

LPAC Pearson Hall Theater
November 11 @ 8PM
November 12 @ 2PM and 8PM
November 13 @ 2PM

Seating is limited. No reservations avaialable for general public seating.

FringeArts 2016 features some recent Swat Alums!

There’s still time to get tickets for the FringeArts events happening this week!

Don’t forget to add this latest creation from Patrick Ross ’14: http://www.neighborhood-house.com/calendar/scarlet-letters performed by Michaela Shuchman ’15 and music by Kimaya Diggs ’15. And here’s a recent review of the show – http://dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2016/09/17/2016-philadelphia-fringe-festival-review-scarlet-letters/

Plus keep an eye out for other escapades from other faculty and alums!!

 

LONELINESS AT THE FOUL LINE, a solo performance (5/7 @ 12PM and 4PM)

The Department of Theater presents
A Solo Performance Thesis
by Michaela Shuchman ’16

Saturday, May 7th
12PM and 4PM
Matchbox Kuharski Studio

Before it gets toured to area middle schools, come see Michaela Shuchman perform, Loneliness at the Foul Line. This is the story of a girl named Sarah, the game of basketball, and the warrior within all of us.

RESERVATIONS REQUIRED for seating. Email lpacevents@swarthmore.edu

https://www.facebook.com/events/924780010975031/