When I graduated from St. Mary's as a theater major, I realized I had received not just a degree, but a true education. The department not only gave me a foundation in the theory and practice of my craft, but most importantly an opportunity to ignite as an artist and to develop a style and interest in challenging theatrical material, which led me on fascinating journeys after I left the school.
A. Lorraine Robinson, '92, co-founder and -producer, MuseFire Productions, a multimedia production company incorporating both stage and screen media, Washington, D.C.; freelance director and former coordinator, Allen Lee Hughes Fellowship Program, Arena Stage, Washington, D.C.
Featured Event
Eric Bogosian's subUrbia opens Wednesday, December 10
In a town not-so-ironically called Burnfield, a trio of twenty-somethings -- angst-ridden philosopher, Jeff; easy-going party animal, Buff; and alcoholic Air Force vet, Tim -- hangs out in front of a 7-Eleven waiting for a visit from their former high school classmate, Neil "Pony" Moynihan, who's long blown town and become a minor rock sensation. With nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no future prospects, they pass the time ranting and raging against a society each claims has cheated them. When "Pony" eventually arrives with his publicist, jealousies and passions flare up, and the night takes an ultimately tragic turn. Bogosian's "Re-coming of Age" story lays bare the emptiness of an American way of life and examines, through the lens of a bunch of misfit twenty-somethings, what keeps us apart and what it means to move on and to leave youth behind.
KUDOS
ASIANetwork Award
Associate Professor Holly Blumner and five SMCM students have received an ASIANetwork Freeman Student-Faculty Fellows Award to study traditional Japanese theatre in Japan during the summer of 2008. Their study in Japan is preparatory to staging and performing a series of kyôgen plays in the Bruce Davis Theater in October 2008. Dr. Blumner and her students have also been invited to attend the ASIANetwork conference in 2009 and to present their work. The amount of the award, $31,000, is the largest that ASIANetwork has ever bestowed on a recipient.
Green Theatre
Theater alum and assistant professor of theater, Kurt Gerard Heinlein ('92), has recently published Green Theatre: Promoting Ecological Preservation and Advancing the Sustainability of Humanity and Nature, a book on the socio-educational value of live performance in addressing our socio-environmental crises.
Department of Theater, Film, and Media Studies, 2008 All Rights Reserved
