Santino Fontana, an alum from the U of M/Guthrie Theater Actor Training Program, recently received a Drama Desk Award for his role in Brighton Beach Memoirs.
For more information about the production:
Neil Simon's Jermones, at Home at the Nederlander
Lisa Channer's company Theatre Novi Most will be performing their latest work M2: Mayakovsky and Marinetti, at the Open Eye Figure Theatre May 14-23. Channer is an associate professor in the Theatre BA program.
For more information about the upcoming production:
Luverne Seifert appears as Alfred P. Doolittle in Ten Thousand Things' latest production of My Fair Lady. Ten Thousand Things targets its work at audiences who rarely see theater -- at prisons, chemical-dependency homes, shelters and other nontraditional locales. The company's stripped-down style has a distinct and lean simplicity that more often than not rediscovers the essence of drama.
For more information:
The 'Lady' stripped bare
Ten Thousand Things strips down Eliza and Henry
THEATER | Ten Thousand Things present a "My Fair Lady" with loverly acting, but plain singing
Joanie Smith, associate professor in the Dance Program, received a 2010 NEA Access to Artistic Excellence Grant and a Grant-in-Aid of Research, Artistry and Scholarship Award. The Access to Artistic Excellence Grant will support the creation of a new multimedia, evening-length work choreographed by artistic director Joanie Smith, and performed by Shapiro & Smith Dance. Ophelia will include text by playwright David Greenspan, music by composer Scott Killian, and a cast of dancers including Smith.
Information about the grant from the Theatre Communications Group:
More than $37,000 was recently awarded to three individuals and four theatre companies to participate in the 2010 Summer/Fall round of the New Generations - Future Collaborations Travel Grant Program. Now in its tenth round, this program is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group (TCG).
The New Generations - Future Collaborations Travel Grant Program is designed to build bridges between U.S. theatre professionals and their counterparts abroad. US-based theatres and theatre professionals may request up to $6,000 to facilitate international collaboration by way of hosting or traveling abroad.
"Since 1961, TCG has been the national service organization for the professional not-for-profit American theatre field," said Teresa Eyring, executive director, TCG. "Today, TCG fosters conditions for the emergence of a new level of international and intercultural awareness and cooperation through theatre. These grants have been an important part of our international exchange and growth."
The New Generations - Future Collaborations Travel Grant Program has no geographic limitations and the program is open to all key leadership members of theatre organizations and individual theatre practitioners. At its core, the program encourages cultural exchange and artistic partnerships between theatre professionals in the United States and their counterparts abroad at all stages of their proposed collaborations.
Among the recipients is Assistant Professor Michael Sommers who will travel to Indonesia to begin collaborations with director and shadow puppet master Koes Yulinadi, whose work pushes his country's tradition of puppetry, mask, music, movement and gesture to a contemporary voice and context.
David Ivers and Brian Vaughn have been named as joint artistic directors of the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespearean Festival. Ivers has worked at the Festival as an actor and director for 15 seasons. He has a bachelor of fine arts degree in theatre from Southern Oregon University, and a master of fine arts degree in acting from the University of Minnesota. Ivers has worked at the Oregon, Alabama, and Idaho Shakespeare festivals, as well as the Portland Center Stage, Artists Repertory Theatre, Tacoma Actors Guild, Portland Repertory Theatre, and Seattle Repertory Theatre.
For more information:
BREAKING NEWS: Utah Shakespearean Festival announces new artistic directors
M.F.A. Design/Tech student Annie Katsura Rollins received a Fulbright Award for an extensive period in China.
TU Dance, led by Dance faculty member Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands, will present an evening-length version of their work Sense(ability) at the Southern Theater May 6-16. This piece explores the delicate yet dynamic relationship between the elements and the sensual experiences they invoke.
For more information:
TU Dance to present Uri Sands' first evening-length work
Santino Fontana, an alum of the U of M/Guthrie Theater Actor Training Program, was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for 'Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play.'
For more information about the award, visit 55th ANNUAL DRAMA DESK AWARDS NOMINATIONS.
Associate Professor Margaret Werry received a Council of Graduate Students' Outstanding Faculty Award. This award, organized by graduate students, recognizes faculty members for their exceptional contributions to graduate education.
For more information about the award visit http://www.cogs.umn.edu/.
The American Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) Outstanding Book Award Committee has selected Professor Michal Kobialka's study, Further On, Nothing: Tadeusz Kantor's Theatre, to receive an Honorable Mention. The review committee, which included Stacy Wolf, Jim Peck, and Jonathan Chambers, found his nuanced consideration of Kantor's theatre thoughtful and moving. They were duly impressed with the ways in which Professor Kobialka study gets right at the heart of what theatre is and how it means. In the end, the committee is certain that his study will find a wide and welcoming audience.
Additionally, the committee reviewed well over forty titles this year. Also, Professor Kobialka's This is My Body: Representational Practices in the Early Middle Ages, was a recipient of 2000 ATHE Outstanding Book Award.
For more information:
The American Theatre in Higher Education Website: http://www.athe.org
University of Minnesota Press listing for Further On, Nothing: Tadeusz Kantor's Theatre: http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/K/kobialka_further.html