This past weekend, Bryn Mawr College Performing Arts Series hosted David Neumann / Advanced Beginner Group’s production of “I Understand Everything Better.” The dance-based /theater performance was inspired by the death of Neumann’s father during Hurricane Sandy. It interspersed elements of Noh theater, video, music, and text.
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Tag Archives: theater
Bryn Mawr Performing Arts Series: Wintry Mix
On Friday January 27, the Bryn Mawr Performing Arts Series presented the first of two unique Wintry Mix shows. Wintry Mix is a performance festival of theater, dance, video, and music. The concept behind the design is to allow multiple artists to showcase their work across genres and traditional boundaries. The Friday lineup consisted Chelsea and Magda (everybodygetinthecar.com), David Brick (headlong.org), Jenna Horton (jennahorton.com), Sam Tower (samtower-ensemble.org), Peter Rose (peterrosepicture.com/), Chlamydia Dell-Arte, and closed with a set by Japanese Breakfast (michellezauner.bandcamp.com).
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Bi-Co Theater: Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl
The Theater Program of Bryn Mawr and Haverford College’s Fall production of Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl opened this weekend. The story is a modern adaptation of the classic Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice told from Eurydice’s perspective. Students are involved in every aspect of bringing the production to life, from the acting, to assisting in lighting and set design, to collaborating with the theater faculty directors. I had the chance to watch the play on opening night, and I highly recommend going to see it for yourself during one of the remaining shows November 17-19.
King Lear Performance by Bryn Mawr Theater
Tonight I watched the Bryn Mawr Theater Department’s production of Shakespeare’s King Lear. Students involved in this production, either acting or managing backstage, were part of the Bryn Mawr 360° Program “Shakespeare in Global and Local Landscapes.” They had the opportunity to work with 8th graders in Philadelphia learning Shakespeare in the modern urban context and to travel to Iceland to understand the changeable forces of nature.
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Between Physics and Theater
Last week, Bryn Mawr Communications interviewed Theater major Samantha Wall’17 about her experience taking welding lessons in the Park Science Machine Shop. Coincidentally, I am having the reverse experience as a Physics major, also class of 2017, taking the Physics Electronics Lab and the Fundamentals of Technical Theater classes this semester.
Learning to tape the stage floor.
Winter Break Reading: Uncommon Women and Others
My winter break readings of choice are Wendy Wasserstein’s plays Uncommon Women and Others, Isn’t It Romantic?, and The Heidi Chronicles. I had heard of the plays through an alum who had posted a quote about Bryn Mawr from Uncommon Women and Others on the Facebook group You Know You Went To Bryn Mawr College When….
Wendy W
asserstein received her B.A. in history from Mount Holyoke College in 1971, an M.A. in creative writing from City College of New York in 1973, and an M.F.A. in fine arts from the Yale School of Drama in 1976. Uncommon Women and Others was her graduate thesis at Yale. She won the Tony Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play The Heidi Chronicles in 1989. Her plays typically focus on feminism, family relations, and pop culture.
I finished reading Uncommon Women and Others and Isn’t It Romantic? and am starting The Heidi Chronicles. Continue reading
Greasepaint Productions: Next to Normal
The Greasepaint Productions musical “Next to Normal” was also the weekend before finals. Greasepaint is a Bi-Co theater club that puts together one small musical per semester. Their shows are in the Bryn Mawr Hepburn teaching theater or the Haverford DC Blackbox. “Next to Normal” is about a family trying to deal with the mother’s bipolar disorder. The father and the mother married when they were young. Since the mother’s bipolar diagnosis, the father is fighting depression, the mother hallucinates about her dead son and misses her emotions she doesn’t feel while on medication, and the daughter feels neglected and turns rebellious.