Faculty Members Granted Institute for Advanced Study Collaborative Awards

Three Theatre Arts and Dance faculty members have been granted the highly competitive Institute for Advanced Study Collaborative Awards for next year. Director of Dance and Associate Professor Ananya Chatterjea received an award for her project Intersecting Performance and Social Justice. Lisa Channer, Associate Professor in Directing, received one for her project Embodying Gilgamesh: New Physical Language for Staging Epic Texts. Department Chair and Associate Professor Carl Flink will be working with Microbiology Professor David Odde on their project Choreography of the Moving Cell: Self-Organization and Catastrope.

BFA Grads Finding Success on the New York Stage

BFA Actor Training Program grads are getting rave reviews in the NYC-based Acting Company's production of Henry V, which tour started at the Guthrie Theater. It features Matt Amendt (BFA Class 2004) as the title character, with 11 other performers, including graduates Will Sturdivant (BFA Class of 2005) and Sam Taylor (BFA Class of 2006), playing more than 55 other roles.

Below are the list of reviews for more detailed information:

A Bang-Up Take on the Bard
By Frank Scheck, New York Post

Henry V
By David Finkle, TheaterMania.com

Henry V
by Sam Thielman, Variety

The King, All Grown Up and Ready to Wage Battle
By Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

PhD Student Rachel Chaves Awarded Prestigious Fellowship

Congratulations to PhD student Rachel Chaves for winning the Norman Johnston DeWitt Fellowship. Rachel is the sole recipient of this University-wide fellowship for research in the Humanities. This is the first time a graduate student in Theatre Arts and Dance has won the fellowship.

Sonja Kuftinec named Scholar of the College

The following is an e-mail from Theatre Arts & Dance Department Chair Carl Flink:

Dear All:

It is my pleasure to let you know that TAD's very own interim Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor Sonja Kuftinec was just named one of only two new Scholars of the College by the College of Liberal Arts! While this is no surprise to all of us who know Sonja, it is wonderful to see the College acknowledge her excellence at a time when I am certain competition for these awards was particularly high given our current economic climate.

Congratulations, Professor Kuftinec! A truly well deserved honor.

Sincerely,
Carl

Faculty member wins Emmy!

Emmy® Award Winner:
Affliate Theatre Faculty member, T. Mychael Rambo, narrated a series of one minute video spots honoring Minnesotans who have worked to protect and restore our natural landscape called "Minnesota Minute". Produced by TPT/KTCA - Twin Cities Public Televison and the University of Minnesota Bell Museum, the thirteen PSAs received an Emmy® from the National Television Academy's Upper Midwest Chapter in the Community/Public Service Campaign category.

Peace Crimes Documentary Nominated for Emmy Award

"Peace Crimes - The Minnesota 8," a program produced in partnership among Twin Cities Public Television, the U of M Department of Theatre Arts and Dance and The History Theatre of Saint Paul, has been nominated for a prestigious regional Emmy Award™.

"It's a testimony to the talents of TPT staffers as producer, as well as to the quality of the story being told, and the importance of the contributions of all the partners involved," said Sherry Wagner-Henry, Managing Director of University Theatre. University Theatre is the production arm of the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance, and one of the collaborators on the "Peace Crimes" play and documentary project. Many folks may recall the co-production University Theatre hosted this spring on campus with the History Theatre of St. Paul on a "real story" play about the Minnesota 8, which centered around former U students who were sent to prison for their protest of the Vietnam War. Seven of the eight men were on hand for the construction of the play and documentary of the process of the play. The play titled "Peace Crimes--The Minnesota 8 vs. the War" premiered on Feb. 21, 2008 at the Rarig Center on the West Bank campus, and the documentary aired on TPT the following evening. A grant from the U of M McKnight Arts and Humanities Fund sponsored the documentary project.

The Emmy Awards™ ceremony will be held at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis where the final award winners will be announced October 25th.

The program continues to be broadcast and is being aired statewide in September on the digital Minnesota Channel, over the air or on cable:

Saturday, 9/27, 7pm
Sunday, 9/28, 1am
Sunday, 9/28, 7am
Sunday, 9/28, 1pm

Upcoming Season Auditions

AUDITIONS FOR THE UNIVERSITY THEATRE SUBSCRIBER SERIES
FALL & SPRING SEMESTERS
(sent out August 28, 2008 on TheatreList with updates September 4, 2008)

Please read the following carefully:

FALL SEMESTER PRODUCTIONS:

WOYZECK PROJECT AUDITIONS
WOYZECK will audition Wednesday and Thursday, September 3 and 4, from 7-10 in Norris Gym on the East Bank where the production will be performed. From 7:00-8:00 there will be group movement auditions with Carl Flink. At 8:00 there will be interview and exercises with Luverne Seifert and Michael Sommers. Sign-up sheets for each night are posted.

Using Buchner's play WOYZECK as a springboard for themes, images, and gesture and per formative events, participants will propose, construct, and perform in a world in which the audience becomes the voyeurs. The forms of peep show, diorama, tableau vivant, The Fun House, installation, shadow, the museum and site-specific all become possibilities. The work will culminate in movement/dance created by the cast and Carl Flink. The participants will create their own event from the initial idea, the construction of all elements, space, object, scenography, sound and light, through the performance. These events may range from 30 seconds to three hours in duration. Rehearsals will be structured according to participation.

Performance dates: October 10-18. 3100 credit is available. Rehearsals
Monday-Thursday 7-10.

TWO COWARDS IN REP: HAY FEVER AND PRESENT LAUGHTER AUDITIONS
Although HAY FEVER and PRESENT LAUGHTER are designated as Senior BFA shows in rep, there are additional casting opportunities. All roles to be cast are speaking roles. All current students as welcome and encouraged to audition on Saturday afternoon, September 6 from noon to 3:00 p.m. in the Thrust. Sign-up sheets for these auditions will be posted on the Production Notices Bulletin Boards in the basement of Rarig.

Performances: November 14-23.

Students should prepare a short comic monologue with heightened language. Please bring a resume with you. The roles available in PRESENT LAUGHTER are Fred, Miss Erickson, and Lady Saltburn. The sides for these roles in will be posted near the signup sheet. You should pick the role for which you would like to read. HAY FEVER will have two female roles available to be determined during the Saturday audition process. You may be asked to read one of those sides at the audition. Please plan to stay after your audition.

As a reminder, in professional auditions in the US it is advisable to use an RP or other basic British dialect when the script is in those dialects (Shaw, Coward, Wilde, A Christmas Carol, Pinter, etc.).

XPERIMENTAL THEATRE SEASON AUDITIONS
The Xperimental season will audition its fall productions Monday and Tuesday, September 8 and 9, with Callbacks Wednesday September 10 for fall productions only. DIVERSE VOICES will audition during these dates also. See separate postings.

Two opportunities to participate in 4380 creative collaboration projects are available this semester. Section (1) will be production of BACCHAE working with Assistant Professor Dominic Taylor. Auditions will be held September 9 in Studio A. Section (2) will be a production of GILGAMESH working with Assistant Professor Lisa Channer. A group audition will be held Thursday, September 11. Further information on both these projects will be posted separately.

SPRING SEMESTER PRODUCTIONS:

The University Theatre will be auditioning both NIGHT TRAIN TO BOLINA and A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY on Wednesday through Friday evenings, November 5-7. Individual production callbacks for A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY will be held Saturday, November November 8; individual production callbacks for NIGHT TRAIN will be held Saturday, November November 15. Casting for both productions will be posted November 17.

NIGHT TRAIN TO BOLINA by Nilo Cruz will be directed by Dominic Taylor, Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts and Dance, in the Arena. Rehearsals will start January 20 though there may be some read-through rehearsals in late fall semester. Performance dates are Feb 27-March 7. Clara and Mateo, young, poor and powerless in an adult world, confront life with intelligence, passion and eloquence in a lyrical portrayal by Nilo Cruz in Night Train to Bolina -- a haunting tale of the dispossessed of the earth in which two poor Latin American children's spirits soar like kites as they run away to an invented place called Bolina. Roles for 5 actors (typically 3 women and 2 men, which could change depending on talent pool).

A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY by Tony Kushner will be directed by Lisa Channer, Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts and Dance, in the Thrust. Rehearsals will start February 23. Performance dates are April 17-25.

Set in two opposing viewpoints of early 1930s Berlin and Long Island in the 1980s, Kushner relates the concerns of Agnes Eggling, a middle-aged actress in pre-Nazi Berlin, to those of Zillah, a young woman frustrated with the governing Republican Party led by Ronald Regan and determined to move to Berlin. Based on Bertolt Brecht's The Private Life of the Master Race, Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright Tony Kushner examines the rise of two political parties to power in two different eras. A Bright Room Called Day is produced as a part of the 2009 Kushner Celebration presented by the Guthrie Theater. Roles for between 5 and 6 women and between 5 and 6 men.

Sign-up sheets for the general auditions will be posted on the Production Notices Bulletin Boards in the basement of Rarig. For these auditions, please prepare two contrasting pieces: one dramatic and one comic, one of which should be non-realistic. Time limit of 3 minutes or less per audition will be strictly enforced. It is strongly suggested that you read the plays before auditioning.

NOTE the following spring conflicts:
- NIGHT Train conflicts with UDT, the X production of SHADOWS/WILL TALKING in spring semester and possibly THE ODYESSY.
- BRIGHT ROOM conflicts with the X production of THE ODYESSY in spring, and possibly SHADOWS/WILL TALKING.
- Neither production conflicts with the Minnesota Centennial Showboat.