We love faces; our lives depend on it from an early age. And a close-up on a face is one of the most notable differences between the experience of a movie and the experience of live theater. When we choose to see a film instead of a play it may be, in part, because were drawn to the human face. In her latest installment of her Psychology Today blog (What Shapes Film?) Associate Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan explores what attracts us to cinematic face time. Her article is aptly titled “3 Reasons Why We’re Drawn to Faces in Film.” Maybe it should be four reasons, because music plays a big role as well. It’s a fascinating read, and Tan demonstrates her points with faces from some pretty famous films, including Amelie, It’s a Wonderful Life, Saving Private Ryan, and Toy Story 2, among others. Of particular interest is how facial close-ups make us, the audience, both mirror and blank-canvas-and-painter, depending on a face’s intensity or nuance, respectively.
theatre
Dream Approaches
Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College performs August Strindberg’s A Dream Play in the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse in November. The show opens on Thursday, November 7, at 7.30 PM (“pay-what-you-like-night”). A brief talk-back will follow Thursday’s performance. Additional evening performances are on Friday and Saturday, November 8 and 9, at 8 PM; a matinee concludes the run on Sunday, November 10 at 2 PM. Tickets are $5 for students with an ID, $10 for seniors, $15 for other adults. A Dream Play is part of the Festival Playhouse’s Golden Anniversary season.
The play explores fundamental questions: Why do we exist, and why is life so difficult? The plot surrounds the daughter of the Hindu god, Indra, who leaves heaven to visit humans on earth. In living with humans as a human herself, her mission is to determine why humans suffer. Director Ed Menta says the production will attempt to create a theatre poem by interweaving Strindberg’s text with Festival Playhouse’s staging, performance, and design.
Senior David M. Landskroener, who serves as composer and music producer for the production, says that “creating live sound effects is such an interesting experience because I’m making sound to accompany a dream. Many times while tinkering around with effects I reject my initial thoughts about a certain sound in a scene and try out multiple options that may not at first sound completely congruent with the action onstage, but reflect the idea of associative links found in a dream.”
Before 1901, plays may have contained a dream sequence, but Strindberg created a new genre with a play that is entirely a dream. In the play’s foreword Strindberg wrote: “Everything can happen, everything is possible and probable. Time and place do not exist; on an insignificant basis of reality, the imagination spins, weaving new patterns; a mixture of memories, experiences, free fancies, incongruities and improvisations.”
Given such source materials, one can understand why “It has been a challenge to make all of the 30+ characters come to life,” according to K senior Michael Wecht, assistant director for A Dream Play. “It is my goal, through movement coaching and exercises emphasizing physicality, to help the cast discover each of their roles. This is especially pertinent because most of the actors are playing multiple roles.”
For reservations or more information about Festival Playhouse’s Golden Anniversary season (stay tuned for The Firebugs and Peer Gynt) call 269.337.7333.
Wilde for Potts
Professor of Theatre Arts Lanny Potts received a 2013 Wilde Award for the “Best Lighting Designer Of The Year.” The award honors his work on The Light in the Piazza this past summer at Farmers Alley Theatre. The Wilde Awards were established by Pride Source Media Group to honor the excellent work produced by Michigan’s professional theaters. The Wildes are presented by EncoreMichigan.com, the most comprehensive resource for news and information about the state’s professional theater industry. Its team of 10 critics reviewed 179 productions produced or presented by 47 theater companies across the state and narrowed the slate to 71 productions. Of the 71 productions nominated, the top-honored show was The Light in the Piazza with six awards, including Lanny’s.
Writer’s Voice Rising
Alejandra Castillo ’15 will be the first in her family to graduate from college, and she is making her family proud every step of the way. “My three siblings dropped out of high school in the 9th grade. The fact that I’m at a prestigious liberal arts college is truly a dream come true, not just for me but for my whole family.”
Castillo is a Posse scholar, attending Kalamazoo College on a full scholarship awarded to teens from urban areas who exhibit high academic achievement and leadership skills.
Four years ago, while still a high school student, Castillo began work at a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization called WriteGirl. This summer, she returned to the organization, but this time on an “independent internship” through K’s Center for Career and Professional Development’s Field Experience Program. WriteGirl challenges interns to think critically about the world, to write about it, and then to voice their work out loud. Leadership, communication skills and self-confidence are qualities nurtured in the program.
“I came back to WriteGirl because I want to be as ready as I can be to enter the workforce when I graduate college,” says Castillo.
At Kalamazoo College, Castillo is majoring in anthropology and sociology AND distinguishing herself as a playwright. Her one-act play, How Miss Long Beach Became Miss Long Beach, will be performed at the Kalamazoo College Festival Playhouse as part of the Senior Performance Series under direction of senior Amy Jimenez. The Senior Performance Series will occur May 1-4, 2014.
“Alejandra has been my student in playwriting class, and she developed this play in an independent study,” says her theatre arts professor, Ed Menta. “It’s a heartfelt and funny story of a young Latina who has mixed feelings about her mother forcing her to participate in a beauty pageant. The play touches on issues of mother/daughter, body image, assimilation, and sexuality.”
Another Castillo play, Say Yes, a conversation between two young people in the parking lot of a convenience store in Los Angeles, was selected for the Kalamazoo New Play Festival.
Time to Reprise
It’s been 50 years of great theatre at Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College. What have been the highlights? And who should choose? Let’s start with the people who have acted and directed many of that half century of productions. They have picked their favorites, and you can enjoy them.
An Evening of Kalamazoo College Theatre Alumni Scenes occurs Saturday, October 19, at 4 PM in the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse. Alumni of past Festival Playhouse productions will present staged readings of their favorite plays. On the schedule:
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, featuring Emilia LaPenta ’10 and Emily Harpe ’08;
Top Girls, by Caryl Churchill, featuring Wa-Louisa Hubbard ’03, Lisa Ludwinsk ’06, Anne LaTarte ’03, and Betsy King ’05;
Uncommon Women and Others, by Wendy Wasserstein, featuring recently retired Professor of English Gail Griffin and Laura Livingstone-McNellis ’89;
Pullman, WA, by Young Jean Lee, featuring Ryan Hatch ’04 and Matt Pieknik ’04;
Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, by Anna Deavere Smith, featuring Kristala Pouncy ’02;
subUrbia, by Eric Bogosian, featuring Ben Harpe ’09 and Paul Whitehouse ’08;
Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett, featuring Todd Beck ’60 and Bill Vincent ’60
Festival Playhouse Golden Anniversary Features A DREAM PLAY
Theatergoers should not miss Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College’s production of August Strindberg’s masterpiece of early expressionism, A Dream Play. The opening night performance includes a pre-show ceremony to inaugurate the grand re-opening of the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse. Dates and times are: Thursday, November 7, 7:30 PM; Friday and Saturday, November 8 and 9, 8 PM;, and Sunday, November 10, 2 PM. Tickets are $5/students, $10/seniors, and $15/adults. Thursday night’s performance is “pay-what-you-like.” Call 269-337-7333 for reservations.
“It’s a beautiful theatrical experience,” says Festival Playhouse Manager Laura Livingstone-McNellis (an alumna theatre arts minor from the Class of 1989). Her statement captures the irony of art and suffering, of art on suffering. “The way cast and crew combine movement, text, and voice to create the semblance of a dream is nothing less than stunning,” she adds.
The play depicts a female demigod’s visit to earth to explore the nature and depth of human suffering. Livingstone-McNellis’s “semblance of a dream” description and the play’s theme reminds this author of poet Lucille Clifton’s poem “sorrows,” recently anthologized in Poetry magazine’s The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of Poetry Magazine.
sorrows
who would believe them winged
who would believe they could be
beautiful who would believe
they could fall so in love with mortals
that they would attach themselves
as scars attach and ride the skin
sometimes we hear them in our dreams
rattling their skulls clicking their bony fingers
envying our crackling hair
our spice filled flesh
they have heard me beseeching
as I whispered into my own
cupped hands enough not me again
enough but who can distinguish
one human voice
amid such choruses of desire
Award-winning Performance Artist Returns for THE DOG AND PONY SHOW
She’s back. And back again! Playwright and performance artist (and alumna…Class of 1977!) Holly Hughes presents The Dog and Pony Show, a hilarious one-person show about lesbians and their dogs. The performance takes place at 8 PM on Saturday, September 21, in the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse. There is no charge but reserving tickets is an option and encouraged for those with special needs or who are attending in partial fulfillment of course requirements. Reserved tickets will be held at the box office until 10 minutes prior to curtain at 8pm; tickets not picked up by that time will be made available to others who are interested. Call 269-337-7333 for ticket reservations and for more information. Hughes is a 2010 Guggenheim recipient and a professor at the University of Michigan School of Art & Design. She describes Dog and Pony as “a blend of autobiography, animal behavior and bald-faced lies…a poetic/comic meditation on the midlife crisis in the key of canine by the woman who drove Jesse Helms nuts. Or nuttier.” It will not be her first visit to campus. She performed her one-woman play “Preaching to the Perverted” on campus in 2000. That play was inspired by the 1990 revocation of grants that had been made to Hughes and three other artists by the National Endowment of the Arts. Hughes was an art major during her student years on campus (1973-77). she has won numerous awards for her work, including Kalamazoo College’s Distinguished Achievement Award (1995). The performance will be followed by a talk-back, book signing, and reception.
The difference between traditional theatre and performance art, she explains, is that the latter is more experimental, quasi-anarchistic, and rebellious. And that suits her perfectly. “If you’re really committed to change,” she said, “then you must be committed to being uncomfortable.”
The Dog and Pony Show is part of The Festival Playhouse Diversity Guest Artist Series. That program is committed to providing culturally diverse art free to the Greater Kalamazoo community. It is made possible primarily through funding from the Dorothy U. Dalton Enrichment Fund. Previous Guest Artist Series performances include Oni Faida Lampley in The Dark Kalamazoo, Lisa Kron in 2.5 Minute Ride, and Guillermo Goméz-Peña in The Return of Border Brujo.
Summer in the Zoo
What do students do at Kalamazoo College during the summer? They are certainly here—some 200 or so. Students from around the world enjoy these hot months on campus. They work as interns, they continue work-study jobs, they spruce up the infrastructure with Facilities Management (FacMan) colleagues, they conduct research in the Dow science building, they dive into the early phases of the Senior Individualized Projects. For fun, they run around, go on adventures, eat great food, and hang out with friends. Here’s what a few students are up to this summer.
Meet Jane Huffman ’15, administrative intern for the theatre arts department, splitting her time between Saugatuck (Mich., where she’s working on the plays Xanadu and Game Show) and the Kalamazoo College campus. She has been having some fun cooking home made meals with her housemates and going to see some shows at the local theatres. She will study this fall in Chicago and is sad to be missing the opening festivities of the 50thanniversary season of Festival Playhouse at Kalamazoo College.
Dorraine Duncan ’14 is the student intern at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. This summer she has been cooking up an international food storm. The best meal she has made was her own version of the Thai dish “Gra-Pow”. Her friend from Thailand gave her an eight out of 10! Dorraine will soon return to Kingston, Jamaica, for an environmental internship. It will be her first trip home in two years.
Utsav Adhikari ’14 is in his third year on the FacMan recycling crew this summer. On that experience rests his claim to be the “wisest of the FacMan recycling crew.” This summer he went to Irish Fest, one of many summer festivals in downtown Kalamazoo, and had a splendid time. He plays a lot of soccer with neighborhood acquaintances on the Davis Street soccer fields, and chills with friends at the beach in St. Joseph, Mich. At the end of June, he left for an internship at Pinnacle Solutions, a business intelligence company based in Indianapolis, Ind.
Samantha Jolly ’15 holds two positions this summer. She is one of three interns for the Lillian Anderson Arboretum. And she’s the College’s sole summer compost intern. Whatever you might imagine about that second post, Samantha likes both her jobs—minimal supervision! She is her own boss! At three o’clock everyday she heads home to start cooking something delectable; her best meal so far has been her black bean burgers. Every weekend Samantha heads downtown for brunch at her favorite local restaurant, Main Street Café.
Tyler Nichols ’15 has been a busy kid this summer. He works full time as a chef at Henderson Castle, (he prefers the dinner shift). He also has a research stipend from K for an interdisciplinary research project with a political science emphasis. In between work and research he often finds himself at Bell’s Brewing Company or at impromptu block parties in the Vine Street neighborhood.
Erika Robles ’14 hails from Costa Rica and just returned to K from study abroad in Japan. In addition to working for FacMan she also serves as Hoben Hall’s summer Resident Assistant. “It’s much more chill in the summer here, with fun small events like barbeques,” she said. She can’t believe how many times she and her friends have made the trek by bus to the movie theater this summer. She has also been enjoying the festivals in downtown Kalamazoo.
Brad Stech ’15 is a proud member of the custodial FacMan crew. He stayed over to earn some money before he heads out on his extended-term study abroad (nine months!) in Japan. He likes his job because of the funny and friendly people he gets to work with. In his free time he has been hanging out with friends, playing music, and enjoying sushi from downtown Kalamazoo.
Dakota Clement ’14 lives with his friends in the Vine Street neighborhood. He is working his third summer for the FacMan grounds crew, and he is also starting preliminary research for his Senior Individualized Project. He is writing a poetry SIP based on nine of his favorite movies from directors Stanley Kubrick and Terrence Malick. These films include Clock Work Orange and The Thin Red Line.
Hadley Harris ’16 lives only twenty minutes away from K but decided to stay on campus to continue her work-study job in media services. There are not too many media requests during the summer, so the crew has spent a lot of time cleaning the library’s DVD collection. When she can’t stand to be in the humid dorm rooms at night, she heads to the movies with her friends.
Sammy Li ’16, a native of China, stayed at K to work for FacMan’s renovation crew. She resides in the Vine Street neighborhood but often thinks about camping out in Hicks Center because of the summer heat! She has gone to the movies a lot, and not just because of the air conditioning. Her favorite films of the summer have been World War Z, The Lone Ranger, and Despicable Me 2.
Golden Opening
Kalamazoo College opens the 50th anniversary season of its celebrated Festival Playhouse theatre arts program, with Into the Woods, the groundbreaking musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, May 16-19. Performances occur in the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse on Thursday May 16 (7:30 p.m.), Friday May 17 and Saturday May 18 (8 p.m.), and Sunday May 19 (2 p.m.) Tickets are $15/Adults, $10/seniors, and $5/students. Into the Woods features iconic characters such as Little Red Riding Hood (played by Julia Smucker ’13), Rapunzel (Corinne Taborn ’13), Cinderella (Rudi Goddard ’13), the eponymous character from Jack and Beanstalk (Brian Craig ’14), and one antagonistic witch (McKenna Kring ’15). The ensemble cast performs memorable songs such as “Giants in the Sky,” “Agony,” and “Children Will Listen.” Assistant director and K senior Megan Rosenberg calls Sondheim’s score “an elegant lullaby that stirs up the shadows of classic bedtime stories. Its intricate storyline and beautiful, if somewhat creepy, music lend themselves perfectly to bold directorial choices. “Without giving too much away, our production will break some rules,” added Rosenberg. K Professors of Music Tom Evans and James Turner serve as musical and vocal directors, respectively. Assistant Director of Student Involvement Kate Yancho serves as choreographer.“Audiences will be struck by both the darkness and vitality of this musical,” said Yancho about the Tony, Drama Critics Circle, and Drama Desk Award winning show that puts a new twist on a fusion of old Brothers Grim tales. “Adults will love how numerous fairy tales they knew as children are intertwined into one entirely new story, with vibrant song and dance,” said Yancho, who earned a B.A. degree in dance from Ohio University and teaches dance to K students.
Improv Festival in Downtown Kalamazoo
Professor of Theatre Arts Ed Menta, who also directs Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College, gives a shout-out to the 5th Annual Kalamazoo Improv Festival. Festival activities take place on May 10 and 11. Friday, May 10, features four shows (6PM, 8PM, 10PM, and 11:30 PM). Saturday offers two workshops (1PM and 4PM) and two shows (8PM and 10PM). All shows and workshops will be at Farmers Alley Theatre. More information and ticket reservation are available online, for call the Farmers Alley box office at 269.343.2727.