- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock /news-archive/tag/haislip-theatre/ ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Thu, 20 Feb 2020 17:49:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 ��Vlog��ý Little Rock to showcase plays about American life, family, and alternative experiences during ‘A Seat at the Table’ /news-archive/2020/02/20/seat-at-the-table/ Thu, 20 Feb 2020 17:49:27 +0000 /news/?p=76279 ...]]> “A Seat at the Table” is a staged reading of three plays that present a diverse range of perspectives on contemporary life in the U.S. The plays will begin at 7:30 p.m. nightly March 3-5 in the Haislip Theatre in the Center for Performing Arts at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. “We hope that this set of remarkable plays on family, America, and alternative experiences will serve to open up new perspectives on gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, culture, power, and life in the U.S.,” said Lawrence Smith, assistant professor of theater arts and director of “A Seat at the Table.” Each performance will feature a panel discussion beginning at 6:45 p.m. and a talkback and reception with the cast and crew following each play. The plays will be performed by ��Vlog��ý Little Rock students and produced by the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance. The performances include: Tuesday, March 3 – “Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue” by Quiara Alegría Hudes. This play presents a lyrical and poignant account of three generations of military service within a Puerto Rican family. Wednesday, March 4 – “Hir” by Taylor Mac. “Hir” is an hysterical tragicomedy of suburban life in which a stay-at-home mom and her live-at-home transgender son upend the status quo of the nuclear family. Thursday, March 5 – “Bootycandy” by Robert O’Hara. “Bootycandy” is an outrageous comedy centered around the coming-of-age experiences of a gay black playwright in a dysfunctional family in a dystopic world. General admission tickets are $10. Tickets for ��Vlog��ý Little Rock employees, college students, seniors, and members of the military are $5. Tickets can be or at the door. The plays are for mature audiences only. For more information, contact the box office at 501-569-3456.]]> Fringe Festival to showcase original student plays, performances /news-archive/2019/03/28/fringe-festival/ Thu, 28 Mar 2019 15:27:07 +0000 /news/?p=73808 ...]]> University of Arkansas at Little Rock students will stage their original plays and performance pieces during the university’s Fringe Festival, taking place April 2-5. Performances will begin nightly at 7:30 p.m. in the Haislip Theatre in the Center for the Performing Arts on the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock campus. Doors open at 7 p.m., and admission is free and open to the public with seating available on a first-come, first-served basis. This year’s festival – presented by the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance – includes 12 new plays, monologues, and choreographic work from 11 playwrights. The festival is divided into two events: “PG to OMG” will be presented April 2 and April 4, and “Women’s Voices” will be presented April 3 and April 5. Many of the students created their work during the special topics course “Page to Stage” taught last fall. The student playwrights and directors have revised their written work this semester and brought the pieces to life onstage. Other work in the festival was generated in Dr. Lawrence Smith’s Introduction to Theatre and Dance course and by student majors interested in poetry and creative writing. “T�� works in the festival offer a range of content and theatrical styles,” said Stacy Pendergraft, associate professor and artistic director for the Fringe Festival. “Students have been free to explore subject matter that inspires and challenges their ideas of theatre-making.” Fringe V is directed by students and alumni, and for the first time the festival has a design component. Theatre major Thomas Jackson’s scenic design serves as his senior capstone project. In addition, Conor Van Lierop serves as lighting designer, and Blake Morris serves as sound designer. Students Mykenzie Gordon, Jessi Ley, Thomas Jackson, and Conor Van Lierop received Signature Experience Awards to support their creative works. ��Vlog��ý Little Rock freshman Gage Pipkin wrote and directed an original 10-minute play called “Prisoners,” which will be staged on two nights of the festival. “I am so glad to be involved with something that is presenting unconventional works,” Pipkin said. “A ton of work has been put in by all of those involved, and much of the work is student driven from the page to the stage.” The festival is for mature audiences age 18 and older because of adult themes, strong language, and sexual content. ]]> Hollywood costume designer offers advice to ��Vlog��ý Little Rock students /news-archive/2018/11/28/costume-design/ Wed, 28 Nov 2018 22:48:26 +0000 /news/?p=72811 ...]]> Students in ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s Department of Theater Arts and Dance got an inside scoop on what it takes to be a professional costume designer from ��Vlog��ý Little Rock graduate Jacqueline Saint Anne, who is an Emmy Award winning costume designer and president emeritus of the Costume Designers Guild. Saint Anne has worked as a costume designer in theater and film now for nearly 50 years. Her films include “Seeing Other People,” “Lady in White,” “Normal Life,” and “Pippi Longstocking” while television credits include “Arli$$,” “Columbo,” “Quantum Leap,” “Webster,” and “Sliders.” She’s worked on more than 100 Movies of the Week and miniseries including “An American Story,” “Fatal Vision,” “Max and Helen,” and the “Munsters.” She also teaches at the Los Angeles-based , where she is the creative director the for film and TV costume design. A resident of West Hollywood now, Saint Anne returned to Arkansas over the Thanksgiving holiday to visit her sister in DeWitt. On Monday, Nov. 26, before she returned home, she led a master class for theater and dance students in the Haislip Theatre in ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s Center for Performing Arts, where she first got her start in costume design as a student at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock in the 1960s. Saint Anne remembered the theater’s closet of costumes that she remade over and over again.

“Because I had some sewing skills, that made me the the costumer,” she said. At that time, she wasn’t planning on a career in design. She was a biology major and was on a pre-med track that her parents wanted for her. “T�� great thing about a university education is that you become educated about what’s around you,” she said. She earned a Bachelor of Science but never made it to medical school. Instead she went to the University of Miami for a master’s degree in costume design. Her first job out of college took her to Grand Ledge, Michigan, where she worked the summer at the Boars Head Theater and costumed 12 shows in 13 weeks. The hectic pace was valuable training. It’s where she learned to work within a budget and on tight deadlines, developed her work ethic, and started making a reputation for herself. She returned for three more summers and taught theater at State University of New York’s Auburn campus the rest of the time. After four years, she returned to Miami and became entrenched in theater costume design. She turned down several offers to work on films before she finally said yes to “Shock Waves,” a 1977 horror film (starring Peter Cushing) about underwater Nazi zombies. “T��y presented unique costuming challenges,” Saint Anne said. “T�� uniforms couldn’t be made of wool because of the water. Filming would go on for months, so the costumes had to hold up and maintain color.” Students were interested in how Saint Anne crossed over from theater into film. “T�� way a costumer succeeds is having a sense of the medium in which they are working,” she told them. “T�� most important thing in theater is the audience. I feel my success comes from my ability to see what my audience sees, so if it’s a big opera house or a small intimate stage, or film being shot on HD or 35mm, there are differences in the communication that I’m making with my audience.” She also gave the students practical advice – from having a label for their costumes to having a website they can show to clients on their phone – to professional advice on working with difficult people, collaborating with set designers and directors, and staying current with industry trends. “It was nice to hear her talk about the difference between theater and film projects,” said Kat Hall, a senior design student who has worked on both theater and film projects and hopes to work as a wardrobe supervisor at a regional theater after graduation. Saint Anne’s advice was also helpful for senior dance major Emily Shellabarger, who is taking a course in flat patterning and drafting this semester from ��Vlog��ý Little Rock costume shop manager Don Bolinger. Unlike the students, Saint Anne learned stitching skills on her own. A self-described “Air Force brat,” she was was born in Panama and moved around a lot growing up. “One of the fortunate places I lived was Paris,” she said. As a teen, she saved up money to buy fabric, and her mother showed her how to thread her sewing machine. “I would go to design shops in Paris and look at clothes,” she said. “T��n I’d go home and try to figure out how to make them. I taught myself pattern making. My skills were not taught to me. They were intuitive, the result of trial and error, just wanting to know how things were made and having curiosity about how things are put together.” Early on in her career, while working on “Little Mary Sunshine,” Saint Anne developed a disciplined approach to how she works, and she’s stuck with it ever since. “I was still sewing a piece for Act 2, after the Act 1 curtain went up,” she recalled. “I was physically destroyed. I said I will never do this again. And fortunately, I haven’t. I’m in my 48th year as costume designer. I would not be able to do that without taking care of myself and knowing what I need. Some people thrive in chaos. That’s not me. To this day, I finish anything I’m working on three to four days before opening, so that if I need to change something, I have the time and clarity to do it. “My preparation is never last minute,” she said. “If I’m going to do an all-nighter, it’s going to be a week before the show. It won’t be the night before because that makes me feel out of control.” For the past 13 years, Saint Anne has designed mainly for opera. She doesn’t do modern TV projects anymore, prefers instead to costume period pieces or fantasy. She also offered this nugget of advice to young people just starting out: “At a certain place, when you are the master of your craft, you have little forbearance for people who are ignorant or rude,” she said. “It’s important you learn how to be considerate and kind. Your collaborators – and your competition – will be with you your entire career.” Top Right Photo: Costume designer Jacqueline Saint Anne greets freshman theater student Kaitlynn Mitchell after a master class in Haislip Theatre. Above: Costumer designer and ��Vlog��ý Little Rock graduate Jacqueline Saint Anne poses for a group photo with students, faculty and staff in the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance. ]]> BODYWORKS 2018 to showcase student, faculty choreography /news-archive/2018/04/09/bodyworks-2018/ Mon, 09 Apr 2018 14:08:18 +0000 /news/?p=70099 ...]]> Department of Theatre Arts and Dance will host its BODYWORKS 2018 spring dance concerts April 19-22 along with a master class for young dancers. This year’s concert spotlights the work of student choreographers whose work was selected for presentation at the American College Dance Association Conference, as well as faculty and guest artists. The series opens Thursday, April 19, with special guest , featuring the choreography of Michael Fothergill. A pre-show reception begins at 6:30 p.m. and will be hosted by Friends of the Arts, which provides scholarships to students who major in art, dance, music, and theatre. Guests are invited to stay for a post-show cake and punch reception to meet the choreographers, cast, and crew. As an added bonus, the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance extends free admission to the opening night performance to anyone who has spent time on or backstage in the University or Haislip Theatres. Dates and times of performance:

Thursday, April 19, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, April 20, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, April 21, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, April 22, 2:30 p.m.

On Saturday, April 21, the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance will host a Spring Dance Festival master class from 4-6:30 p.m. for dancers ages 10-24. The $20 registration fee includes classes, dinner, and two tickets to see BODYWORKS that evening. Registration is available online. All performances will be in the University Theatre in Center for Performing Arts, 5900 University Drive. Get . Tickets are $10 for general admission; $5 for students, students, military, and ��Vlog��ý Little Rock faculty and staff. For tickets, call 501-569-3456 or reserve online at /theatre/season/]]> ��Vlog��ý Little Rock theater presents “An Octoroon” /news-archive/2018/02/12/octoroon/ Mon, 12 Feb 2018 16:43:29 +0000 /news/?p=69342 ...]]> An Octoroon Feb. 21-25 in the Haislip Theatre in the Center for Performing Arts on the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock campus, 5900 University Dr. An Octoroon offers audiences a provocative, funny, and surprisingly poignant examination of race in 21st-century America. Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, recipient of the 2014 Obie Award for Best New American Play, cleverly exposes the roles that we play in maintaining the melodramatic travesty of “whiteness” in contemporary America, and how race still functions to keep someone in her “place.” (The word “octoroon” means “one-eighth black.”) Content includes mature language and themes and is not recommended for children. Performances are as follows:

Wednesday, Feb. 21, 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, Feb. 22, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, Feb. 23, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Feb. 24, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, Feb. 25, 2:30 p.m.

Pre-show discussion panels with university faculty on melodrama, Louisiana Creole culture, racial stereotypes in popular media, and other issues relevant to An Octoroon and our times will take place 6:45-7:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and 1:45-2:15 p.m. on Sunday. Post-show discussions with director Stacy Pendergraft and the actors will be after the Thursday and Friday shows. Ticket are $10 for general admission; $5 for faculty, staff and students; and $5 for military and seniors. Tickets can also be purchased in person at the theater’s box office from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays, by calling 501-569-3456, or online at /theatre/season/ Pre-show speakers and topics:

Wednesday, Feb. 21 – “Racial Stereotypes vs. Self-representation in American Popular Media and the Visual Arts,” with Brad Cushman, Edma Delgado, and Erin Fehr, 6:45-7:15 p.m.
Thursday, Feb. 22 – “Intersections of Race, Gender, and Performance” Candrice Jones, Kristina McAbee, and Jana McAuliffe, 6:45-7:15 p.m.
Friday, Feb. 23 – “Antebellum Creole Culture and Melodrama” with Brian K. Mitchell and Lawrence D. Smith, 6:45-7:15 p.m.
Sunday, Feb. 25 – “Legacies of the Delta Slavery Economy” with John Kirk, 1:45-2:15 p.m.

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