Category Archives: Theater

Honors Acting Thesis: THE THREE MUSKETEERS (2/21 – 2/23)

3Musketeers PosterWhen: Opens February 21st at 8PM.
Additional shows February 22nd at 2PM & 8PM and February 23rd at 8PM.

Where: LPAC Frear Ensemble Theatre

This spring’s Honors Acting Thesis promises to be a gender bending, swashbuckling physical comedy overflowing with misaligned adventure. Four Swarthmore students are taking the plunge on the story of the Three Musketeers and creating an entirely original piece from the ground up under the guidance of guest director and playwright Anisa George.

The Ensemble/Creators include Katie Goldman ’14, Madeline Charne ’14, Mark Levine-Weinberg ’14, and Anna Russell (HC) ’14. Stage Management by Annalise Lowery ’17. Costume Design is by Rebecca Kanach. Lighting Design is by Amanda Jensen. Sound Design is by Adriano Shaplin, and Fight Choreography is by Brett Cassidy.

 

Honors Playwriting Thesis reading: THE REAL WORLD WILL NEVER ARRIVE (2/2/14 @ 4PM)

The Real World Will Never ARrive

Please join us for a staged reading of Sam Swift Shuker-Haines ’14 Honors Playwriting Thesis, THE REAL WORLD WILL NEVER ARRIVE.

Sunday 2/2/14

4PM
LPAC Frear Ensemble Theatre

Directed by Adriano Shaplin and featuring some performers from Applied Mechanics, this play deals with an epidemic of suicides at a high school. Come support this new work!

Susan Marshall & Company brings PLAY/PAUSE (2/14 @ 8PM)

Susan Marshall brings one of her new and exciting dance-theater pieces to Swarthmore this February.

Play/Pause

LPAC Pearson-Hall Theater (Mainstage)

8PM, Friday, February 14, 2014
Free and Open to the Public

About
In an electric guitar-fueled evening of postmodern dance-theater, Susan Marshall couples her intimate, structured choreography with the seductiveness of pop culture to explore our complex relationship to the media we consume. This evening-length piece for six dancers features a commissioned score by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang, performed live by members of electric guitar quartet Dither and Mantra Percussion. Play/Pause premiered in Chicago in September 2013.

Here’s a little preview: www.vimeo.com/sumac/stop

The company will offer a Master Class with the dancers on Thursday 2/13 in the Troy Dance Lab at 4:30PM.

SPRING 2014 Classes available!

SaundersSetDesignStill figuring out your schedule for the Spring?  Sign up for Set Design with Matt Saunders: the course will focus on set design and introduce methods that apply to designing for stage. In class, we will take a look at the set designer’s responsibilities as an artist and collaborator and explore the relationship between text, concept, and production in addition to learning the basic skills of drafting and model making. In addition, we will discuss the relationship between scenery, costumes, and light in performance. A lab component of this class will include an introduction to computer drafting and additional information about materials used for stage construction. The course is designed to serve all students regardless of prior experience in theater production.

 

There’s also room in Integrated Media for Performance with Tara WebbWebbMediaDesign

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the application of various visual and audio technologies in live theater and dance performance. 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. 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.  We’ll touch base on a little bit of everything from performance art and the avant-garde to uses of multimedia in studio art.

 

Anna Russell’s Directing Thesis: IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK (Sun., 12/15/13 @ 6PM & 7PM)

AnnaRussell The Department of Theater and the Advanced Directing Workshop (THEA 055)
present

IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK
A Devised Piece By Anna Russell HC’14
Co-Created with Casey Ferrara ’14, Sara Lentricchia ’15, Jameson Lisak ’15, and Alexander Rojavin ’15 with script consulting by Danica Harvey ’15

Sunday, Dec. 15, 6 pm
Sunday, Dec. 15, 7 pm

Frear Ensemble Theatre (Room 1, LPAC)

IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK is a show that explores the relationship between perception and identity.  Who do we think we are, and who are we really?  How do we go about creating these ideas of ourselves and others, and what does a theatrical setting do to these questions?  IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK attempts to play with these inquiries and test the limits of their application, so if you’re in for a crazy ride of identity-bending proportions, this is the show for you.

Free and Open to the Public

Senior Company 2014 presents AMERICAMISFIT

Americamisfit by Dan DietzThe Senior Company 2014 presents AMERICAMISFIT by Dan Dietz in the LPAC Frear Ensemble Theatre.

Thursday, December 5th, 2013 10pm
Friday, December 6th, 2013 7pm
Friday, December 6th, 2013 10pm
Saturday, December 7th, 2013 7pm

It’s the B-side of the American Revolution, the song playing on the other side of the record, while you thought you were listening to what’s on top.

America’s first serial killers, the Harpe Brothers, are fighting a private war in the woods of Tennessee against the doomed democracy of the tyrant George Washington. As Big and Little Harpe, with their murderous and beautiful companions, the Roberts twins, cut a bloody swath across Satan’s hometown of Knoxville, a preacher’s daughter is ready for a little bit more… excitement in her life.

But the record of history is scratched and jumping around and it’s all playing at once, and it’s only held together by the sweet crooning of your host, your MC, a man known only as The Rockabilly Boy, who bears a not-coincidental resemblance to a certain King of rock and roll…

Fast-paced, bloody, scored by a live rockabilly band, Americamisfit is the side of the country you only see out of the corner of your eye. Blink, and it’s gone.

The Senior Company 2014 includes Madeline Charne, Tyler Elliot, Katie Goldman, Allison Hrabar, Mark Levine-Weinberg, Theo Noomah, Anna Russell, Swift Shuker-Haines, and Morgan Williams. With Set Design by Marta Roncada, Costume Design by Tara Webb and Sound Design by Scott Burgess. Music Direction by Ben Diamond and Choreography by Ashley Banks.

OUT AND ABOUT: Murmuration presents Jessie Bear ’09’s MAKESHIFT

If you are out and about in Philly….
Murmuration Theater Company presents MAKESHIFT By Jessie Bear ’09

Murmuration Theater was founded in June of 2013 by a collection of people who identity as actors, playwrights, dramaturgs, designers, and artists. The members of Murmuration Theater began working together in 2010 at Swarthmore College and collaborated on four shows prior to coming together to form Murmuration Theater.

Murmuration Theater Company will premiere their first ever work, Makeshift, upstairs in Plays and Players. A thoughtful and heartfelt new play exploring loss, imagination, and the enduring detritus of our lives, Makeshift is the product of three years of workshops, revisions, and conversation. As directed by M. Craig Getting, Makeshift explores themes of love, loss, connection, and disconnection through both naturalism and magical realism. Makeshift will run for a limited engagement from November 6 – 10.

Featuring Swarthmore College alumni (Nell Bang-Jensen ’11 & Isa St. Clair ’11) and faculty designer, Laila Swanson, this promises to be a great show!

Tickets are available now at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/449687
Preview Tickets are $10
All other performances: $15 general admission, $10 Industry/Student/Under 25

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM in November!

The Department of Theater and the Fall 2013 Production Ensemble present a mid-November wander through the woods with this beautiful, wintery version of William Shakespeare’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.AMND Poster

In one night in the magical Athenian forest, lovers, fairies, and theater kids meet, love, dance, and dream together. Join us to watch their revels. Cozy up in a tent with friends, blankets, and twinkling lights, and watch the story unfold under the moon and stars. Directed by K. Elizabeth Stevens with Set Design by Matt Saunders, Costume Design by Laila Swanson, Lighting Design by James Murphy and Sound Design by Scott Burgess.

Where and When:
November 14th and 15th at 8PM
November 16th at 4:30PM and Midnight

Please wear comfortable shoes and appropriate attire for indoor/outdoor experience. The audience will gather at the gate to Crum Meadow and walk down into the woods along sparkling paths of moonlight.

A map is available here: http://www.strikingly.com/amidsummernightsdream

 

In case of rain, the performances will be held in the Lang Performing Arts Center, Swarthmore College Pearson-Hall Theatre. Please check our Facebook page or website for updates about inclement weather.

Free and open to the public without reservation. More info at: 610.690.6889 or lpacevents@swarthmore.edu.