Amazing People, Amazing School - Highlights 2015

Highlights of the Faculty, staff and students in the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies 

Dance faculty member Adriane Fang received a grant from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County to build a dance with Clancyworks dance company. A portion of her summer included a trip to Malaysia where she taught dance and led workshops. Adriane looks forward to developing more opportunities in Malaysia.

This summer, Gillett Gillett, Production Manager, was invited to teach at the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts (NACTA) along with Clarice staff member, Mark Rapach, which led to a commission to help with a brand new stage management program at NACTA. To read more about Cary in The Clarice blog, click here.

Head of costume design, Professor Helen Huang traveled to Russia, Berlin and Prague, presenting at and attending the opening ceremony of Costume Design at the Turn of the Century, 1990-2015 in Moscow. Along with Helen, other American costume designers included Ana Kuzmanic, Anna Hould-Ward, Carrie Robbins,Gregg Barnes,Jane Greenwood, Martin Pakledinaz, Susan Hilferty, Susan Tsu, and William Ivey Long.

 

PhD candidate, Khalid Yaya Long's article “Mourning, Orature, and Memory: Cultural Performativity as Historiography in Pearl Cleage’s A Song for Coretta” was published in the inaugural issue of the peer-reviewed online journal "Continuum: The Journal of African Diaspora Drama, Theatre and Performance". Khalid also served as production dramaturg for Rep Stage’s (Howard County) premiere of Dominique Morisseau’s “Sunset Baby,” spring 2015, directed by Joseph Ritsch.

Jared Mezzocchi, Assistant Professor of Multimedia Design, was appointed Artistic Director at Andy's Summer Theatre - Click here to read announcement

 

in the news:

New York Times Reviews:

June 2, 2014 - The imposing yet airy three-tiered set, by Daniel Conway, combines the grandeur of an old seafaring galleon with the rumpled beauty of a traveling circus. Daniel Conway –Professor in Theatre Design – set designer for The Tempest.

Washington Post:

June 2015 – Celia Wren reviews production of Rosencranta and Guildenstern Are Dead at Folger Theatre, highlighting the set design by Paige Hathaway, ’14 MFA Scenic design graduate. The boldness of the look belies the fact that, a little more than a year ago, Hathaway was still an MFA student at the University of Maryland.

June 2015 – Nelson Pressley reviews Tartuffe at the Shakespeare Theatre Company, for which Max Doolittle, MFA candidate in lighting design, was the assistant lighting designer. Mr. Pressley grants a full paragraph to Max’s interview and quotes.

March 2015 – Going Out Guide, which highlights “The weekend’s best in nightlife, music, movies and art around the Washington area” includes the Second Season production of Wake Up!, conceived by MFA dance candidate Meghan Bowden and Theatre alum Vaughn Midder.

February 2015 - Lisa Grace Lednicer’s article titled “Teaching Ferguson: How colleges are incorporating race cases in the classroom” highlights actor and TDPS alum Vaughn Midder, who portrayed Trayvon Martin in Ping Chong’s world premiere of Collidescope: Adventures in Pre- and Post- Racial America, which was part of TDPS 2014-15 main season.

November 2014 - That the handiwork of creators Ping Chong and Talvin Wilks is making its debut at the University of Maryland seems extremely apt…. “Collidescope” is, however, beautifully designed and conceptually intriguing…review by Peter Marks.

September 2014: Nelson Pressley of the Washington Post reviews the recent production of Marie Antoinette in which "The century-hopping costumes and wigs are by Helen Huang" and "the imagery concocted by Urnov and set designer Misha Kachman, both Russian-born and trained, is often fantastic."

April 2014 - In the meantime, these Maryland kids are setting an impressive standard. Because, you see, everything on this Pointless evening is delightfully en pointe. Review by Mark Lanks on the Pointless Theatre Co.’s production of Sleeping Beauty.

USA Today:

March 2014 – Photo gallery of Spring Awakening printed in “Capture your campus” section of online paper.

theatreWashington

April 2015 – Helen Hayes award ceremony. Winners from the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies include:

• Outstanding Set Design - Helen Production: Dan Conway and Lydia Francis, Associate designer, for "Tiny Tim's Christmas Carol," Adventure Theatre MTC
• Outstanding Set Design - Hayes Production: Eric J. Van Wyk, "The BFG," Imagination Stage
• Outstanding Play or Musical Adaptation: Patrick McDonnell, Aaron Posner and Erin Weaver; Andy Mitton, "The Gift of Nothing," Kennedy Center
• Outstanding Musical-Hayes Production (TIE): "Side Show," Kennedy Center AND "Sunday in the Park With George," Signature Theatre (featuring Mitchell Hébert and set design by Dan Conway)
• Outstanding Lighting Design – Hayes Production: Philip S. Rosenberg and Max Doolittle,  Associate designer, for “Private Lives,” Shakespeare Theatre Company
• John Aniello Award for Emerging Theater Company: Flying V Theatre (producing artistic director – Jason Schlafstein)

BroadwayWorld.com

August 2014 - The Dance Gallery Festival is the platform to present works by both national and international up and coming choreographers. Adriane Fang invited by curators to perform her work titled Stupid is a Bad Word at the Ailey Citigroup Theatre, New York, NY

American Theatre Magazine, A Publication of Theatre Communications Group:

In response to the seemingly perpetual killings of young black men in America, internationally acclaimed auteur Ping Chong and noted director and dramaturg Talvin Wilks created Collidescope: Adventures in Pre- and Post-Racial America in collaboration with University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies’ graduate and undergraduate designers and performers. Quote from Jacqueline Lawton’s Diversity & Inclusion blog salon

December 2014 – This is clearly a teaching moment about race and justice in the U.S. Here’s a list of plays – new and old, all of them eerily timely – that speak to this essential American struggle” Article titled “The Ferguson Theatre Syllabus” mentions Collidescope.

October 2014: What better way to sample the pleasures of the new season than to comb through its highlights in the company of some of America’s most accomplished theatre designers? Jared Mezzocchi: “Center Stage of Baltimore’s production of Marley, and Woolly Mammoth of D.C.’s Zombie: The American,..”

Smithsonian American Art Museum:

March 2015 - Local costume designer, Deb Sivigny, has designed costumes for many Washington, DC, theater and performances. She will talk about the connection between costume design and the fine arts. Deb is a graduate of the MFA in Design program at TDPS.

Baltimore Times

February 2015 – Stacy Brown writes of the TDPS Black Theatre Symposium, which explores the expansion of an inclusive presence and influence in the field of theater.

Terp Magazine

February 2015 – Maryland is one of seven Big Ten schools hosting performances and post-show, expert-led discussions during the 2014–15 season, while four others will host readings of it. Production of Good Kids, by commissioned playwrite Naomi Iizuka.

February 2015 – Theater is the only place I can do anything I want and be whoever I want to be, quote by BA Theatre major Moriamo Akibu in Karen Shih’s article titled “Senior Performs for Social Justice” which highlights Moriamo and her performance of a piece from Collidescope at LaMaMa Theatre in New York City.

Spring 2014 - “I have never seen a study like this before. It’s a completely new approach,” says Klaus Gramann, a professor of biological psychology at the Berlin Institute of Technology. Original research of Professor Karen Bradley in collaboration with University of Houston neuroscientist Jose Contreras-Vidal, et al., with research article published in the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience on April 8, 2014.

DCMetro Theatre Arts

May 2015 – Interview with Paige Hathaway, scenic designer, and Aaron Posner, director, of the show Rosencrantz and the Guildenstern are Dead. The set was a handsome, two-level, quirky jumble. Intriguing was an understatement

March 2015 - The ensemble is professional to the hilt and their well-rehearsed characterizations give sensitive sensibility to a difficult and complex topic. Review of Good Kids by Ramona Harper.

Grants, Awards, Invitations, Accolades

Jennifer Barclay was invited to join Center Stage’s inaugural Playwrights Collective, where she will be in residence through the end of the 2015-16 season.

Karen Bradley was awarded the Dorothy G. Madden Professorship in Dance by the College of Arts & Humanities, which is granted to a faculty member who has made a significant contribution to the discipline. Karen organized workshops, classes and panel discussions around project titled “Dancing Ireni: Addressing Youth and Violence Through Dance

Dan Conway’s work on the Tempest secured an assignment on Broadway for performance artists, Penn and Teller opening in July 2015 at the Marriot Marquis Theatre. His work on the Tempest was nominated for outstanding design by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle and The Boston Critics Association (Norton Award).

Adriane Fang presents Grains, her new work combining movement, lighting, organic materials, and a sound-score by Jeffrey Dorfman, at the Kennedy Center, as part of the Local Dance Commissioning Project.

Leslie Felbain’s performance, Measure of Our Lives, where TDPS students work with historians at the National Portrait Gallery and the Library of Congress has become a part of the Gallery’s Fall calendar. Leslie was awarded a Foxworth Creative Enterprise Initiative Curriculum Development Grant for her course, Theatre of the Oppressed.

Helen Huang’s book published, Elizabethan Costume Design and Construction: (The Focal Press Costume Topics Series). Helen’s costume design work Monkey King was chosen for the international exhibit Costume at the Turn of the Century at the A. A. Bakhrushin Museum in Moscow, Russia June/July 2015.

Misha Kachman set designer for Così fan tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Les Femmes Vengées by Philidor, directed by Nicholas Olcott, conducted by Ryan Brown. Opera Lafaette at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts/Rose Theatre at The Lincoln Center/Opera Royale, Versailles, France.

Esther Lee’s article, “Asian American Women Playwrights and the Dilemma of the Identity Play: Staging Heterotopic Subjectivities” was published in Contemporary Women Playwrights. Esther also received a Graduate School Research and Scholarship Award for her project investigating the history of yellowface as a theatrical convention providing a critical interpretation of its significance.

Sharon Mansur and her collaborator, Ronit Eisenbach were invited guest speakers at the Project Anywhere conference: Art at the Outermost Limits of Location--‐ Specificity at Parsons The New School for Design, in New York City.

Jared Mezzocchi was invited to become an official company member at Woolly Mammoth Theater Company after having designed Totalitarians which was nominated for a Helen Hayes award in Lighting and Projections, the first time Projections Design has been acknowledged in the awards.

Sara Pearson performed a solo monologue and dance in New York City in “From the Horse’s Mouth” at Tisch/NYU in October 2014 and will perform another one at the Abrons Arts Center in New York City May 2015.

Miriam Phillips presented two research projects at the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) Study Group on Ethnochoreology in Korčula, Croatia.

MFA Dance candidate Colette Krogol and her team were awarded the A2RU Challenge grant for their project Dance CTC – Dance Curating Through Community.

PhD candidate, Adam Sheaffer wins the Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship from the College of Arts & Humanities for his dissertation titled Til thou have audience’: The New York Shakespeare Festival & Audience Construction in New York City

Alberto Segarra, MFA candidate in lighting design, was recommended by the 2014 Designer Organizing Review Committee for membership in the Lighting Design Category of United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829. Alberto also interned as Kenneth Posner's Assistant Lighting Designer for the Broadway production of Disgraced.

Chris Law , MFA candidate in dance, had his article "Hip Hop’s Fusion into Classical Dance” published in Ngoma Reader Magazine — Washington, D.C.'s Dance Magazine.  

TDPS Dance program was nominated for Best College Dance Program by MD Theatre Guide's Best of 2014 Readers' Choice Awards.

MFA Dance candidate, Sarah Oppenheim, is recipient of the 2015 Choreographer’s Commission Grant, which is one of only three commissioning awards for professional dance artists in the DC region.

Sam Mauceri, senior Theatre and Arabic Studies student, has been selected for membership in Omicron Delta Kappa, the National Leadership Honors Society, being the 6^th TDPS undergraduate student to be nominated in the past 4 years.

Khalid Yaya Long, Phd student in the Theatre and Performance Studies program was awarded the 2014 Graduate Student Service Award by the College of Arts & Humanities

Laurie Frederik is appointed Director of the Latin America Studies Center

Faedra Chatard Carpenter appointed administrator for Foxworth Creative Enterprise Initiative.

The Kennedy Center collaborates with University of Maryland undergraduate students in the presentation of In His Own Words: A Tribute to Walter Dean Myers performed on the Millennium Stage

TDPS, under the coordination of Adriane Fang, launched a Subversive Arts Festival, a year-long festival bringing together leading artists and scholars who explore aesthetic boundaries, challenge social norms and question rules in their performance and research. This festival was hugely successful and well received by the university community. To learn more go to http://www.subfest.org/.

TDPS sponsored the second annual Black Theatre Symposium, in partnership with the African Continuum Theatre Company. Theatre professionals, scholars, and students convened to discuss and take action around questions of black theatre, exploring the expansion of an inclusive presence and influence in the field of theatre.

TDPS created and inaugurated the first ever Center for Creative Collaboration over the 2015 winter term.

Jennifer Barclay developed An Experiment, an interview-based play that was commissioned by the Department of Physics, and which culminated in a wonderfully successful staged reading in the Physics building in February. TDPS is currently in conversation with a number of interested parties about continued development of the script and future readings and productions.