April & May 2020 College News

1 Cassie Abate's stuents participating in her video assignment called Rhythm Exploration 2 Caitlin Cavannaugh, Matthew Simpson, Henry Ayres-Brown, and Nathan Salstone in Twelfth Night directed by Deb Alley 3 Payton Russell (top left) with B.F.A. Acting students in the new play Stranded: Views from Quarantine (A Monologue Play) 14 | April & May | College News THEATRE Acting, Musical Theatre, Per formance and Production, Teacher Certif ication in Theatre, Technical Production, & Theatre FACULTY ACCOLADES Cassie Abate will (hopefully) be directing and choreographing Te Pirates of Penzance at the Utah Shakespeare Festival where the frst two weeks will be virtual rehearsal in quarantine followed by a week and a half of in-person rehearsals. Te show will also feature Texas State Musical Teatre alumni CK Anderson (‘19) and Adria Swan (‘17). In Cassie’s Musical Teatre Tap 2 course, most of the students did not have access to a place they could safely tap. She developed an assignment called Rhythm Exploration where one student created rhythms using unconventional items and then another student interpreted those rhythms into tap steps. Te results can be seen in this video . [ 1 ] Deb Alley’s 2015 production of Twelfth Night is being featured in on-line oferings from the Texas Shakespeare Festival. [ 2 ] Penfold Teatre Company in Austin will be producing Natalie Blackman's solo show, Disorder , this July. Disorder will be directed by Aaron Sparks (M.F.A. Directing Candidate) with dramaturgy by Caitlin Turnage. Linda Nenno Breining's Voice and Diction classes have created musical dance numbers of their Shakespearean Sonnets inspired by the Broadway Musical Something’s Rotten . Her Acting classes are collaborating on flm productions based on the characters they have created from contemporary plays. Betty Buckley wrote, voiced, and produced "Format and Flow” an animatic to illustrate to her Business of Film students the process of writing, selling, producing and distributing theatrical/narrative entertainment content vs. the “format and fow” of writing selling and making TV commercials, documentaries, PSA's (1 & 2 ), reality TV, and corporate entertainment. Buckley also mentored the creation of Women in Film & Television Austin which launched last semester. Betty’s Business of Film class had guest speaker David Acuf speak to them about ways to “break in” to Disney, La and elsewhere, as well as how and when Disney plans to resume normal operations. In light of the transition to on-line teaching, Kiira Schmidt Carper hosted three exciting industry guest artist master classes via zoom: Emmy winner for NBC’s Smash and Tony nominee, Josh Bergasse; resident choreographer for Broadway’s Aladdin , Michael Callahan; resident choreographer for Broadway’s Hello Dolly and the upcoming Music Man revival starring Hugh Jackman, Sara Edwards. Michelle Dahlenburg was granted the College Achievement Award and Nicole Wesley was selected for the Presidential Distinction Award. Te Teatre and Dance in the Community class, taught by Michelle Dahlenburg and Kaysie Brown , worked for several weeks this spring with guest theatre artist and scientist Nichole Bennett. Nichole is a Ph.D. student in the Science & Technology Communication Lab at the Stan Richards School for Advertising and Public Relations at UT Austin. Te class helped Nichole develop arts- based community engagement techniques to facilitate meaningful interactions between climate scientists and citizens. Te work they created will be part of a project for Planet Texas 2050. In the second half of the semester, the class created their own arts-based climate change workshops that they facilitated over Zoom. During Quarantine, the EmilyAnn has produced several live-streamed productions, including William Shakespeare’s Te Tempest and Much Ado About Nothing . Te EmilyAnn also co-produced two additional live streams with Lockhart’s Gaslight Baker Teatre ( Te Potboiler and Overtones by Alice Gerstenberg). Tese productions are also available on the EmilyAnn’s YouTube channel. Lecturer Kevin Gates participated in several of these productions (playing Jaques in As You Like It , Prospero in Te Tempest , Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing , and Sud in Te Potboiler .) Kevin is also a member of the PLAYWrights team and one of the actors to perform the students’ plays. Texas State Alumni who performed in the PLAYWrights include Hannah Awtrey Mobarek (’17) and Maddie Tatman (’19). Kate Glasheen was hired as Dialect Coach and began rehearsals for the Zach Teater's production of Roe by Lisa Loomer. She was also accepted to present at the STRANDED: VIEWS FROM QUARANTINE B.F.A. Acting Sophomore Payton Russell produced the new play Stranded: Views from Quarantine (A Monologue Play). Tis play was written as an efort by StagePartners to say “thank you and hang in there.” It features the hilarious and heartbreaking writing of numerous well-published and highly acclaimed professional playwrights. Te monologues were recorded by each actor remotely and edited by Payton Russell . Te play premiered Saturday April 18th on YouTube and features B.F.A. Acting students Javaun Butler , Preston Straus , Payton Russell , Britain Stibora , Aubrey Clyborn , Dani Trevino , Anastacio Gutierrez , Rachel Arguello , Matthew Vo , Hunter Ginn , Ava Baker , Jackson Cosgrove , Kat Adams , Devon Khalsa , Marisa Mendoza , Jonaee Davis , and Alana Garcia and Acting Faculty Kate Glasheen and Neil Patrick Stewart . [ 3] College of Fine Arts and Communication | 15