Summer Newsletter 2012: Theater and Dance

Theater: Our year begins with Aquila Theatre Company in residence Sept. 27-29.

Renowned for theater that reveals anew the elemental power of stage classics, Aquila performs  Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand and Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew on campus. Members of the company will teach a master class at mid-morning Saturday, Sept 29. — details to follow.

Auditions for the play Big Love by Charles Mee take place during the evenings of Sept. 5 and 6.  Big Love is a contemporary adaptation of Aeschylus’s The Suppliant Maidens and has been produced numerous times around the country. It will be directed by New York-based director and actor Peter Richards, who was a guest at one of our “Bubble Dinners” last year (see below). Big Love performances take place Nov. 1-5 in Gannett Theater.

Thomas Holmberg ’13 performs 1000 Airplanes on the Roof by David Henry Hwang Oct. 25-27 in Schaeffer, directed by Kati Vecsey as part of an independent study in performance.

Elizabeth Danello ’14 performs in Collected Stories by Donald Margulies as part of an independent study. She will be joined on stage by campus registrar Mary Meserve and will be directed by Kati Vecsey, Dec. 7-9 in the Black Box Theater.

Dana Professor of Theater Martin Andrucki will direct Shakespeare’s Two Gentleman of Verona in the winter semester, playing in Schaeffer Theatre March 7-10.

Matteo Pangallo ’03 returns to Bates to teach English. He is a scholar in Elizabethan drama, and will direct a play from this period. More news to follow.

AA/TH 226, Minority Images in Hollywood Film, returns to our course list for the fall after a long hiatus. It will be taught by Wayne Beach of Maine Media Workshops.

Josh Vink is back this winter to teach DN/TH 270V, Movement for Actors. He will also teach THEA 362, Advanced Acting in the winter.

Theater students will once again have the opportunity to see contemporary European theater by taking THEA s33, Central European Theater and Film, a Short Term course taught in Hungary by Andrucki and Vecsey.

Those staying on campus in Short Term 2013 can take THEA s26C, Puppet Construction Workshop, with John Farrell and Carol Farrell of Figures of Speech Theater.

Dance

Dance introduces a new course, DANC 151, Introduction to Dance Composition. This course is definitely open to people who have already taken DANC 251. It’s an opportunity to explore your choreographic voice, discover how you work best and develop choreographic ideas without the crushing pressure of making a spectacular final project for the Schaeffer stage.

We will have an informal studio showing at the end of the semester and you will be well-prepared to move right into Dance Composition in the following semester with both new ideas and new tools for making a fully developed group piece.

This year we begin to offer Dance Repertory Performance every fall instead of every other fall. Rachel Boggia will be in charge of the class and will be making a piece in between guest artists. The other artists are Robin Sanders (Short Term ’12 hip hop artist) in September; Tito Del Saz, who will teach the historic and amazing Tensile Involvement (look it up on YouTube); and finally Tiffany Rhynard of Big Action Performance Ensemble.

If you’re not ready for 15 hours a week of rehearsals, sign up for just DANC 270D, Studio Dance: Repertory Styles, and have the opportunity to take classes with all of the guest artists and have the possibility of joining the cast of one of the pieces in the fall repertory. ALL dancers in Rep must also sign up for 270D. Any dancer hoping to perform in the Fall concert must be registered for 270D Rep Styles, 253 Rep or 270F Jazz Repertory Styles. The Fall Concert is Nov. 10-12.

We will be looking for dancers to perform in the Theater production of Big Love (see above), choreographed by Carol Dilley. The r ehearsal schedule will be posted in the first week of classes.

If you’re interested in presenting choreography during Parents & Family Weekend, talk to Carol Dilley as early as possible. We will have a showing (and feedback) for ALL non-course-based pieces on Saturday, Sept. 29, at 4 p.m., so there’s no time to waste if you would like to make a piece. The Parents & Family Weekend concerts are Oct. 5-6 at noon.

Keep your eyes open for Tales from Beyond the Bubble — a series of dinners for Theater and Dance students, faculty and visiting guests in all aspects of the creative process. We have a whole semester of exciting guests who will have many Tales of their lives in theater and dance.

Last but not least: Rachel Boggia officially joins us as an assistant professor after her two-year stint as a visiting assistant professor. We are thrilled to have her as a long-term member of our faculty.

Learn more about Theater and Dance at Bates.

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