Kevin Renn will conduct an open-to-the public discussion regarding his experiences as a Black playwright at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 22, at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, 205 Monroe St.
A playwright from New York City will conduct a free and open-to-the-public community discussion at Kalamazoo College days before his latest show, Blacks+Phats, is presented at K’s Festival Playhouse.
Kevin Renn will discuss his experiences as a Black playwright at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 22, at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, 205 Monroe St. Renn is known for productions such as Showcase: A Musical Rehearsal, which details a challenging final practice session for a group of theatre students the night before a performance; Mulatto Boy, about the only student of color at a private school where he runs for student body president; and Jungle Juice, addressing six friends who celebrate their college graduation and end up confronting their uncertain futures and a troubling secret.
Blacks+Phats uses characters such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the Black Panther Party and Michael Jackson to take a satirical look at Black cultural issues, body image, fetishism and their representation in modern society. The play will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, February 24–Saturday, February 26; and at 2 p.m. Sunday, February 27, at the Festival Playhouse, 129 Thompson St.
Tickets for Blacks+Phats are available through the Festival Playhouse online box office. Adults are $15, seniors $10 and students $5. K students, faculty and staff are admitted for free. The Thursday production includes a talkback session with Renn and Director Janai Lashon. Please note the play includes potentially triggering references to sexual assault and eating disorders, and masks and proof of COVID-19 vaccinations are required for admittance to the theatre.
For more information on the play and the Festival Playhouse, visit its website at festivalplayhouse.kzoo.edu.
A traveling museum coming to Kalamazoo College will spotlight Henrietta Lacks whose cells have led to multiple medical breakthroughs.
A traveling museum and lecture dedicated to the history and legacy of a Black woman who has been key to multiple medical breakthroughs is coming to Kalamazoo College on Thursday, February 17.
Jermaine Jackson, Henrietta Lacks’ great-nephew and a Kalamazoo resident, will provide a lecture and question-and-answer session exhibiting the Henrietta Lacks Traveling Museum from 6–8 p.m. at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.
Johns Hopkins Hospital was treating Lacks for cervical cancer in 1951 when her cells were sent to a nearby tissue lab without her consent. At that lab, doctors found her cells to be unlike anyone’s they had ever seen. Instead of dying, her cells—later called HeLa cells—doubled every 20 to 24 hours.
Although Lacks died of cancer on October 4, 1951, at age 31, her cells continue to benefit the world. HeLa cells are used to study the effects of toxins, drugs, hormones and viruses on the growth of cancer cells without experimenting on humans. They’ve also been used to test the effects of radiation and poisons, to study the human genome and learn more about how viruses work, playing a crucial role in the development of the polio and COVID-19 vaccines.
Lacks’ story speaks to issues such as global health, scientific research, bioethics, patient rights and equity. The event is free and open to the public.
Apollo 5, an international award-winning British vocal ensemble, will join the Kalamazoo College Singers, Kalamazoo Male Chorus and Bach Festival Chorus in one of three concerts this month featuring K students.
Three upcoming concerts in the Dalton Theatre at K will invite audiences to explore Paris, time and love.
First, the Academy Street Winds will present “French Ties” at 8 p.m. this Friday. This free concert invites audience members to enjoy an evening of exquisite music from the French tradition, directed by Music Professor Tom Evans.
Songs will evoke the experience of visiting a café in Paris and strolling through various parts of the city, including Latin Quarter Saint-Germain-des-Prés, art and music center Pigalle, Père Lachaise cemetery and old market place Les Halles, complete with bells which are heard throughout Paris. The concert will close with Cirque du Soleil, arranged by Victor Lopez.
At 8 p.m. Saturday, Evans and the Kalamazoo College Jazz Band will take audiences on a “Time Warp” through the stages of jazz, from New Orleans, swing, Latin, hard bop and more. Audience dancing is encouraged at this free concert.
Finally, experience “Love Is (Volume 5)” with the Kalamazoo College Singers, Kalamazoo Male Chorus and Bach Festival Chorus, joined by special guests Apollo 5, an international award-winning British vocal ensemble. This eclectic tribute to love will be at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 22.
“Love Is (Volume 5)” will be in person and livestreamed on YouTube. Tickets for this event range from $5-$29 and can be purchased at kalamazoobachfestival.org.
Audience members are required to wear a mask over the nose and mouth and show proof of vaccination for all music department events.
For more information, contact the music department at 269.337.7070 or susan.lawrence@kzoo.edu.
Matthew Swarthout ’22 will present “Acting Shakespeare,” his own play adapted from Sir Ian McKellen’s production of the same name, this Thursday–Sunday at the Dungeon Theatre, 139 Thompson St.
If you desire an appreciation for the works of William Shakespeare yet find his plays challenging, you’ll want to attend a show coming this week to Kalamazoo College. Matthew Swarthout ’22 will present his self-written senior integrated project (SIP), a play titled Acting Shakespeare, adapted from Sir Ian McKellen’s production of the same name, this Thursday–Sunday at the Dungeon Theatre, 139 Thompson St.
The original production featured McKellen alone on stage with no props or scenery, performing monologues from Shakespeare’s work, and discussing some of his plays. McKellen first performed it in 1980, and a 1984 Broadway engagement earned him the Drama Desk Award for an Outstanding One-Person Show and a Tony Award nomination.
This version will encompass both Swarthout’s and McKellen’s insight into Shakespeare’s plays, featuring monologues and scenes from plays such as Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Macbeth, Henry the Fourth Part One and Henry the Fifth.
“This is the kind of Shakespeare show for people who don’t know Shakespeare,” Swarthout said. “I can talk in my 2022 language, which everyone can understand, and then I can shift into Shakespearean language and say, ‘This is what Shakespeare meant by this.’ It’s like a sampler of plays. You’ve got a comedy, a tragedy, a history and you can decide for yourself if you enjoy Shakespeare enough to see more of his plays.”
Matthew Swarthout ’22 offers his insights into William Shakespeare’s plays in “Acting Shakespeare,” coming this week to the Dungeon Theatre at Kalamazoo College.
Swarthout first developed his appreciation for Shakespeare as a young child when he saw As You Like It at the Stratford Festival in Canada. He later was drawn to K as he found the liberal arts could empower him to double major in biology and theatre. Since, Swarthout has performed in several Festival Playhouse shows with roles including the comical character Sir Andrew in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and Buzz Windrip, a politician who unexpectedly wins the U.S. presidency in It Can’t Happen Here, a play based on Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 satire of what could happen if Fascism spreads to the United States.
“I’ve had a lot of freedom at K with directors who really like to see some big, expressive characters, and that’s the kind of role I’m often cast into,” Swarthout said. “Even for Acting Shakespeare, I change things around one day and try something completely different the next day to see what works. It’s nice to see what goes wrong in order to see what’s going to go right.”
“Acting Shakespeare” will encompass plays such as “Romeo and Juliet,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Hamlet,” “Macbeth,” “Henry the Fourth Part One” and “Henry the Fifth.”
That freedom takes on more complexity in preparing for Acting Shakespeare as Swarthout serves as both actor and director. He listens to recordings of himself reciting the play while snowboarding for memorization purposes in addition to maintaining regular rehearsals.
“There’s a challenge in looking at yourself with such a critical eye,” he said. “Usually as an actor, you’re doing your best and then it’s up to the director to say, ‘You could improve upon this.’ But since I’m directing myself, I’ve had rehearsals where I go over about three lines in 45 minutes. It’s hard to separate the director from the actor.”
In additional theatre pursuits, Swarthout participated in the New York Arts Program, a study away opportunity that places students from Great Lakes College Association (GLCA) affiliated schools in Broadway and off-Broadway theatre organizations, opera houses, dance companies, publishing houses, literary agencies and music performance venues. Swarthout worked at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, finishing just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the city. An adviser told him not to expect an opportunity to act on stage while there, as most of the acting opportunities go to New York University students. However, his talents enabled him to accept the role of Underling in a production of The Drowsy Chaperone, a parody of American musical comedies of the 1920s.
“That was probably the best experience I had in New York just because I felt like I was living there as a working actor,” Swarthout said. “I had my classes, I had my job and then I had the gig, which was really fantastic.”
Swarthout is sending out audition tapes to adapt to theatre’s current virtual landscape in the hopes of one day returning to the East Coast and eventually New York after graduation. In the meantime, he’s excited to think of how his audiences could develop an interest in Shakespeare as a result of his performances. Tickets for Acting Shakespeare, which is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday–Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, are available online. Kalamazoo College students, faculty and staff are admitted free. Tickets for the general public are $5. Please note that proof of vaccination and masks are required for admittance to the theatre.
“People should enjoy Shakespeare and keep Shakespeare alive, not for the history of it, but what we can do with it,” Swarthout said. “We can change its meaning and interpret it in so many ways to get a point across. If you’re trying to have a theatre season that’s focused on anti-racism or has some themes around homophobia, for example, you can use a Shakespeare show to bridge gaps of understanding. Shakespeare becomes a powerful tool.”
Western Michigan University Associate Professor of Theatre Dwandra Nickole Lampkin is the writer and actor behind “The Conviction of Lady Lorraine,” a free play being presented Friday and Saturday at the Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College.
Two esteemed guests visited the senior seminar led by Kalamazoo College Professor of Theatre Arts Lanny Potts on Wednesday. It’s not unusual for him to bring in professionals that have something to offer his students, but Dwandra Nickole Lampkin and Dee Dee Batteast are special because they’re ready to present the at-large Kalamazoo community with a gift from their talents.
The Festival Playhouse will produce The Conviction of Lady Lorraine, a one-person show written and performed by Lampkin and directed by Batteast. The free play will be offered to the public Friday and Saturday as a part of K’s Martin Luther King Jr. week celebrations. Support for the production is provided by the Arts Fund of Kalamazoo County, a program of the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo.
Director Dee Dee Batteast (left) prepares for “The Conviction of Lady Lorraine,” a free play this weekend at the Festival Playhouse, with Projection Designer Angela Mammel ’22 and Theatre Arts Professor Lanny Potts. Batteast is an adjunct faculty member at Ball State University.
The play is set in Memphis near the Lorraine Motel where King was assassinated. A writer, played by Lampkin, has a brief but powerful encounter with a homeless woman, Lady Lorraine. The writer finds herself transformed by Lady Lorraine’s 20-year quest to right a social wrong. One year later, the writer returns to Memphis, hoping that Lady Lorraine will share her full story of conviction. The writer quickly finds herself asking new questions about many things, and discovers that Lady Lorraine is not the only one on a quest for recognition.
Lampkin connected with Potts when the two worked on a virtual production of The Conviction of Lady Lorraine through Farmers Alley Theatre in Kalamazoo, where they agreed it would be outstanding for the community to see.
“Every theatre has its own energy,” Lampkin said. “The moment I walked into the Festival Playhouse, I thought, ‘Oh yeah, this space feels good!’ The intimacy of that space is perfect for a one-person show. It allows me, the story-teller, to connect with the audience; in the way that larger space wouldn’t.”
Lampkin serves as an associate professor of theatre at Western Michigan University. Her career spans two decades with television credits that include Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, Third Watch and Wonderland. She has performed at the Tony-Award winning Denver Center Theatre, the Huntington Theatre in Boston, the Human Race Theatre Company in Dayton and the Indiana Repertory Theatre in Indianapolis. She received her Masters of Fine Arts from The National Theatre Conservatory.
Batteast is an adjunct faculty member with Ball State University’s Bachelor of Fine Arts program, where she teaches courses in beginning acting, auditioning, one-person shows and Shakespeare. She also coaches Ball State’s professional showcases in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Her recent regional theater credits include work with the Clarence Brown Theatre, Virginia Stage Company, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, PlayMakers Repertory Company and Indiana Repertory Theatre. Her television credits include Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D. She also has a Master’s of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Batteast and Lampkin are natural creative partners as they have known each other since Batteast was Lampkin’s student at Ball State.
“I’m 38, I’ve been through two degrees and this is the only person of color who has ever taught me theatre,” Batteast said, while gesturing toward Lampkin. “I’ve always been drawn to this person as a storyteller and thirsting for that person to teach me because she handles stories in a way that I understand, as she intrinsically looks like me. This is a collaboration that continually gives back. I’m still learning and that’s a gift.”
Lampkin was a short-list candidate for a faculty position at the University of Memphis when she visited, among other sites in the city, the Lorraine Motel. That’s when she got the idea to write The Conviction of Lady Lorraine, thanks to a woman she spotted on the corner.
“The moment I walked away from that corner, I knew that I wanted to tell her story,” Lampkin said. “They ended up offering me the teaching job at Memphis, but I turned them down because I realized that I was never meant to teach at University of Memphis. I believe I was put in that space for the sole purpose of crossing paths with this woman.”
Tickets for The Conviction of Lady Lorraine, which is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the Playhouse at 129 Thompson St., are available online. Please note that proof of vaccination and masks are required for admittance to the theatre.
“We’re coming up to MLK Day, so just the idea that I can tell this story is personally significant because there are many themes that surround Martin Luther King Jr. and his life and legacy,” Lampkin said. “To be able to bring a show like this to K College and to the community of Kalamazoo at this time, is a blessing and a privilege. It’s a way for me to use my creativity to keep his legacy alive, and honor him and the celebration that surrounds his day.”
The performance duo In the Spirit celebrates the power of the word to connect, uplift and transform. They will present “We Shall Not Be Moved: Stories and Songs to Celebrate Resistance as a Form of Revolution” at 2 p.m. Monday, January 17.
A performance duo with more than 20 years of storytelling experience will provide Kalamazoo College students, faculty and staff with a livestream presentation to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Storyteller Emily Lansana and vocalist Zahra Baker form the Chicago-based partnership In the Spirit, which celebrates the power of the word to connect, uplift and transform. They will present “We Shall Not Be Moved: Stories and Songs to Celebrate Resistance as a Form of Revolution” at 2 p.m. Monday, January 17. The performance—sponsored by the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, Student Development and the Black Faculty and Staff Association—will celebrate dynamic leaders and everyday people who have contributed to changing our world, in addition to King’s commitment to social justice and radical change.
In the Spirit traditionally celebrates the Black experience using pieces that highlight significant moments in history. Their repertoire includes African and African American folktales, stories from history, inspirational stories, original tales and personal stories. The livestream will be viewable through Vimeo.
Kalamazoo College’s Festival Playhouse produced “Well-Intentioned White People” last term. This winter, its theatre events include two one-person productions and a satirical vignette about Black cultural issues.
Make plans now to attend three theatre events during the winter term at Kalamazoo College, including two one-person productions and a satirical vignette about Black cultural issues.
First, the Festival Playhouse will produce The Conviction of Lady Lorraine, written and performed by Dwandra Nickole Lampkin, and offer it free to the community as a part of K’s Martin Luther King Jr. week celebrations. Support for this production is provided by the Arts Fund of Kalamazoo County, a program of the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo.
Directed by Dee Dee Batteast, the January 14 and 15 play is set in Memphis near the Lorraine Motel where King was assassinated. A writer, played by Lampkin, has a brief but powerful encounter with a homeless woman, Lady Lorraine. The writer finds herself transformed by Lady Lorraine’s 20-year quest to right a social wrong. One year later, the writer returns to Memphis, hoping that Lady Lorraine will share her full story of conviction. The writer quickly finds herself asking new questions about many things, and finding that Lady Lorraine is not the only one on a quest for recognition.
Lampkin serves as an associate professor of theatre at Western Michigan University. Her career spans two decades with television credits that include Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, Third Watch and Wonderland. She has performed at the Tony-Award winning Denver Center Theatre, the Huntington Theatre in Boston, the Human Race Theatre Company in Dayton and the Indiana Repertory Theatre in Indianapolis.
Tickets for The Conviction of Lady Lorraine, which is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the Playhouse at 129 Thompson St. both days, are available online. Please note that currently both proof of vaccination and masks are required for admittance to the theatre.
Then, from February 10–13, Matthew Swarthout ’22 will undertake Sir Ian McKellen’s one-person show, Acting Shakespeare in this year’s Senior Performance Series. The show will encompass both Swarthout’s and McKellen’s insights into Shakespeare’s plays, featuring monologues and scenes from Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s dream, Hamlet, Macbeth and more. Watch the Festival Playhouse website for ticket information for the show at the Dungeon Theatre, 139 Thompson St.
Finally, from February 24–27, a quick-witted comedy will follow in the Festival Playhouse’s 58th season themed “Black is Beautiful: An Ode to Black Life, Love and Strength.” BLACKS+PHATS will examine themes such as beauty ideals, relationship dynamics and levels of attraction while searching for enlightenment in stereotypes. Current K students are eligible to audition. Watch the Festival Playhouse website for ticket information. The show will take place in the Festival Playhouse at 129 Thompson St.
Please observe the Festival Playhouse’s COVID-19 safety plan when enjoying productions this term. The plan follows current guidelines from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Michigan State Department of Health and Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Actors Equity Association (AEA). Find more information online about the safety plan and upcoming shows.
Assistant Professor of Religion Sohini Pillai will represent Kalamazoo College at 9 a.m. Eastern time Sunday in a YouTube lecture titled “The Multiplicity of the Mahabharata Tradition” that she will present through Karwaan: The Heritage Exploration Initiative.
The initiative is an independent, student-led initiative based in India, which aims to revive the love for India’s heritage and history and inspire young minds. Throughout the pandemic, it has organized scholarly online lectures on Indian history, culture, art, literature, film and religion.
The ancient Sanskrit Mahabharata (c. 300 BCE–300 CE) is a massive epic poem 15 times the length of the Bible that focuses on the war over the Bharata kingdom between two sets of paternal cousins in the royal Kuru family, the five Pandavas and the 100 Kauravas. Pillai said the Mahabharata has been presented as poems, dramas, ballads, novels, short stories, comic books, television shows, feature films, children’s fantasy series, podcasts, YouTube videos, social media posts and more.
Pillai’s talk Sunday will illustrate the rich multiplicity of the Mahabharata tradition through the close examination of 12 renderings of a single Mahabharata episode that was created over a span of at least 2,000 years. She will focus on the most disturbing and popular scenes in the Mahabharata tradition, the attempted disrobing of Draupadi, the shared wife of the Pandavas, and the heroine of the epic.
In May 2021, Pillai co-edited a volume with Nell Shapiro Hawley of Harvard University titled Many Mahabharatas, which was published by State University of New York Press. Some of the Mahabharatas she will discuss Sunday will be prominently featured in her current book project which is tentatively titled Krishna at Court: Devotion, Patronage and the Mahabharata in Premodern South Asia.
The Kalamazoo Bach Festival Chorale will perform in two holiday season concerts titled Holidays with the Kalamazoo Bach Festival, including a virtual option, on Sunday, December 5.
UPDATE: All in-person concerts are canceled on December 5. Bach Fest is moving to an all virtual live-stream only concert at 4 p.m. The concert will remain available on our YouTube Channel for 30 days after the initial concert. If you have already purchased in-person tickets, please check your inbox or junk folder for an email with more details about how you can exchange or get a refund for your ticket purchase.
Begin your holiday season with an annual concert featuring nearly 50 musicians including Kalamazoo College alumni, singers from the at-large community, professional musicians, and a great line-up of soloists.
The Kalamazoo Bach Festival Chorale will perform in two concerts titled Holidays with the Kalamazoo Bach Festival, including a virtual option, on Sunday, December 5. The ensemble, led by K Assistant Professor Chris Ludwa, unites people of diverse backgrounds and ages to provide them with the joy of making music, while exploring messages of hope, racial equity and inclusion.
The performances, a more than 50-year tradition, feature holiday music favorites, including carols from over two hundred years of music history, all performed in Stetson Chapel. Local favorites and special community guest artists will join in the two 70-minute shows, one at 2 p.m. and the other at 4 p.m. The 4 p.m. concert will also be available through a live stream.
Tickets are available online at prices from $5 to $29 for the in-person concert. The virtual broadcast will be available through YouTube for $19. For more information, call the Bach Festival ticket office at 269.337.7407.
Anicka Yi’s “Force Majeure,” 2017, is made out of Plexiglas, aluminum, agar, bacteria, refrigeration system, LED lights, glass, epoxy resin, powder-coated stainless steel, light bulbs, digital clocks, silicone and silk flowers. Yi has created art containing olfactory effects.
An Asian American conceptual artist whose work includes a mix of fragrance, cuisine and science along with collaborations with biologists and chemists will be the subject of a Kalamazoo College faculty member’s presentation at noon on December 7 at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Art and Art History Eunice Uhm will discuss Anicka Yi, a Korean American artist, who has created memorable works of art that have famously contained olfactory effects. Uhm’s presentation will analyze how Yi’s work transgresses the boundaries that are established and sustained by the conventions of Western aesthetics to investigate the racialized and gendered politics of space. The presentation considers the deodorization of the museum in the context of a larger cultural and political process of deodorization in the U.S. that simultaneously excludes smell from aesthetic judgments and establishes aromatic phenomena to be “non-Western” or primitive.
Born in 1971 in Seoul, Yi began working as an artist about 15 years ago after a career in fashion. Yi’s work has won her top honors, including the Guggenheim Museum’s $100,000 Hugo Boss Prize in 2016, which included an exhibition there the next year. Yi’s work elicits visceral sensorial responses in the visitor, demonstrating the subversive aesthetic possibilities of smell to underscore and negotiate biopolitics of race and gender.
Uhm, who serves as a postdoctoral curatorial fellow at K and the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, specializes in modern and contemporary art, with a transnational focus on the United States and East Asia. Her work examines the conditions of migration and the diasporic aesthetic subjectivities in the works of contemporary Japanese and South Korean art from the 1960s to the present. She has previously taught courses on modern and contemporary art, East Asian art, and Asian American studies at Ohio State University. She has organized panels and presented her work on Asian American art at national conferences.
In-person and virtual tickets to Uhm’s presentation are available at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts’ website.
