Calling all Theatre VCU Students!

Next week Theatre VCU has invited two potential Lighting Design faculty to interview with our faculty and students. This is a one year position that precedes a national search.

Wouldn't YOU like to be HERE to help with this decision on Wed. and Thurs. July 24 & 25 between 10am and 11:30 pm and meet with our final candidates. We will meet in the PAC lobby at 10 am, final meeting place TBA. Be prepared ask questions.

Wednesday, July 24

Christian DeAngelis

Here is his website:

www.CHRISTIANDEANGELIS.com

Thursday, July 25
Brant Thomas Murray
Here is Brant's website:

www.brantmurray.com

This is an invitation is to all interested Theatre VCU students - tech and performance.

It would be very helpful if you emailed Bonnie McCoy to let her know that you are coming.

Your input is essential to our decision.

More from Arena Stage's Workshopping of Mother Courage

Take a look at all our guys 

with Kathleen Turner in the center.

Everyone looks energized and excited!

David Leong Invites Theatre VCU Grad Students (Past & Present) to Washington DC's Arena Stage

David Leong and Arena Stage's Artistic Director Molly Smith are workshopping the January 2014 production of Mother Courage starring Kathleen Turner.

This production features 13 new songs, a new visual look and style, and all new choreography.

David has reached out to our MFA Movement grads from all over the country to brainstorm this week in Washington.

Photo by Valerie Accetta

Here is a list of the participants:

Jamie Cheatham - Artistic Director, Head of Acting, Theatre Arts Department, University of Wisconsin at Parkside, WI


 Robb Hunter (2008) - Adjunct Instructor, Department of Drama, Catholic University (Washington, DC)


Penny Maas (2012) - Assistant Professor, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth TX


Marie Boyette (2012) - Assistant Professor, University of Connecticut, CT


Cara Rawlings (2005) - Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre and Cinema, Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA


Darrell Rushton - Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre, Frostburg State University (Frostburg, MD)


Jonathan Kipp Becker (2005) - Associate Professor, Ball State University (Muncie, IN)


Valerie Accetta (2013) - Assistant Professor, University of Alabama, Birmingham, AL


Ali Angelone (2009) - Assistant Professor, University of North Dakota, ND


Maggie Marlin (2009) - Assistant Professor, Missouri State, MS


Drew Richardson - Current MFA candidate


Brad Willcuts - Current MFA candidate


Kevin Inouye (2012) - Adjunct Professor, William & Mary University, VA

Kelly Shoger (2011) - Currently studying Alexander Technique, Charlottesville, VA

Photo by Kevin Inouye

The beautiful Ms Valerie Accetta has agreed to send the Blogster her workshop journal and photos to blog everyday!

Sunday, July 14, 2013

This is going to be an amazing week. We had our first meeting with David tonight and had the opportunity to meet everyone and talk through what we will be doing at the workshop. The work on Mother Courage is going to be challenging and creative, but even more exciting than that is having the chance to work with bunch of smart, talented and creative people who have graduated from or will be attending the Theatre VCU Graduate Program. What an incredible group of people – from all over the country!

In terms of the workshop, we will have four days to explore and discover how best to tell this story. Mother Courage is an iconic piece of theatre that has inherent challenges. Right now we have more questions than answers. In fact, David gave us all homework for tonight –to come up with one burning question to ask the director, Molly Smith, at our meeting tomorrow. We hope that by Thursday we’ll have a better sense of what the physical and stylistic language will be. Here’s to a great week!

Monday, July 15, 2013

Photo by Valerie Accetta

Arena Stage is a beautiful and truly impressive theatre. We started our day with a tour of the facilities, seeing The Fichandler Stage (where we will work all week and where Mother Courage will be performed), The Kreeger Theatre and The Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle (a theatre used to promote new works). The architecture is stunning – the original buildings are intact and the remainder of the structure was built around them, highlighting the theatre’s past within an impressive glass structure. We are so lucky to work here for the week!

After the tour, we met Molly Smith, director of Mother Courage, to hear about her thoughts on the production and the major themes of play. We were also fortunate enough to get to meet (and briefly work with) with the composer, James Sugg, who taught everyone the opening song. Then David gave us our assignments for the day while he and Molly attended auditions for the production – we were divided into two groups and asked to come up with as many ideas for the opening of the show as we possibly could. We would show these ideas at the end of the day.

This was a difficult task. It is much easier to create staging and physical storytelling when given parameters or obstacles because you can narrow down the options. In this case, we were given a blank stage, could use as many or as few actors as we wanted, have music or silence, stage movement or stillness, etc. With so many options, narrowing down the choices proved a real challenge!

In the end, however, the two groups created a wide variety of opening sequences (as well as transitions and movement pieces) that would help to establish the environment and vocabulary of the play. Both Molly and David were very pleased with the choices and have already begun to shape a few ideas into more solid concepts that we will explore throughout the rest of the week. What a great process!

Jett Higham Rest In Peace (Gone Too Soon) We Miss You

Our wonderful and much loved Head of Costume Design, Toni Leslie James, lost her youngest child, Jett Higham, last week to a senseless act of violence, here in Richmond.

We are all still reeling from the tragedy of this terrible loss.

Today a beautiful video of Jett was posted on her FB page.
It shows a vibrant, life-loving boy whose life was just beginning to unfold.

This film was made by one of Jett’s friends. 


From Toni Leslie James on Facebook last week
“We are eternally grateful to Graham Moomaw of the Richmond Times-Dispatch for coming to our home to interview us about who our son really was in this world. Our anguish at this senseless act was compounded by reading reports of “Man Found Dead in Downtown Richmond Alley”. I wrote an email to put a face on our child, who was not yet a man but a vibrant, sometime knuckle headed, a boy of 18, 6’3 and one of the most gorgeous young black men on the planet, not just another nameless, faceless young black male gunned down by other young black males. I am glad that we were able to let everyone know that he was loved and a son, brother, nephew, cousin and friend. Every child lost, whatever the circumstances and who they are, has the same. The short thrift the media gives the countless, seemly endless, deaths of young black males and woman is abominable. That we have been able have our son’s story told is of some comfort to us. I thank every who has so kindly and loving supported us in our grief and letting us vent on FB. We will survive for the only way we can honor our son is to keep living. Your support and outpourings of love is a tremendous help. Love your families and I’d appreciate it if your keep us in your prayers. We have a long road ahead.

Jett’s Obituary
Jett Gerald Higham was born March 15, 1995 at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, New York. He attended Poly Prep Country Day Lower & Middle Schools in Brooklyn, New York and was a senior at the Lower Manhattan Arts Academy in Manhattan. He also attended high school art classes at the The Fashion Institute of Techonology. He was a photographer, lacrosse player and just beginning to find and celebrate life, when it was taken from him on July 2, 2013. Jett was deeply loved by all of his family and friends, who mourn him from the bottom of their hearts. Jett Gerald Higham is survived by his parents, David Higham and Toni-Leslie James; one sister, Cosima Higham and extended family in Perth, Western Australia, Florida and Clairton, Pennsylvania.

Toni - bless you and your family. Our thoughts and hearts will be with you all tomorrow at Jett's New York Memorial Service.

Some Great Summer News from Theatre VCU

Let's start with the front page story in the Richmond Times Dispatch!

Morgan in last year's Avenue Q

Morgan Meadows has won a $100,000 voice-over contract with Virginia Beach-based Studio Center in the company's first Next Great Voice Talent competition.

Morgan as the mean old Mrs. Thistletwat

I love her quote from the article: "I flipped out," Meadows said of receiving the phone call informing her that she'd won. "I was jumping up and down and crying (and) I was all alone in my aprtment. I must have looked like a fool." 

Morgan was also on WRIC (Richmond Channel 8) this morning.

Congratulations Morgan!!

MORE NEWS:

 Theatre VCU has hired Wesley Broulik as the new Senior Acting Teacher.

Here is a bit of Wesley's bio:

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Wesley Broulik is a New York based actor, writer, sometime producer & reluctant director. He currently serves as the Artistic Director of the NYC based theatre company Dark Luna Productions.

Wesley has worked as an actor off-Broadway, off-off Broadway and at such regional theatres as George Street Playhouse and The Shakespeare Theatre DC (including the Helen Hayes nominated Dog In The Manger).  His television and film work includes Law & Order: SVU, Six Degrees, The Onion News Network, Guiding Light, As The World Turns, Experiment 7 and Three Backyards (Sundance Award Winner: Best Director).

Wesley has worked on camera and in voice over on numerous national network commercials and he can often be caught improvising at The Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre and around New York.

He holds an MFA in Acting from Rutgers University where he studied with William Esper, and a BA in Theatre Arts from the University of Iowa where he studied writing.

He has previously taught at Rutgers University, has guest taught at University of Portland and Willamette University, been a guest at the New Play Lab at Hollins University and was on staff at The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts School of Film, Television and Theater.

www.wesleybroulik.com and follow him on twitter @wesleybroulik.

 

AND BEFORE IT IS ANCIENT NEWS:

The Bloginator heard from Luke Cresson and his summer gig-

The Charlotte Observer wrote this great review of Central Piedmont Community College's summer production of Wait Until Dark and mentions Luke's light design: "Luke Cresson’s lighting design helps there: For once, darkness onstage really is dark, and the sudden appearance of a small light can be startling."

Great work Luke!!

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/07/06/4150192/wait-until-dark-shrieks-no-creaks.html#storylink=cpy