November December 2020 College News

College of Fine Arts and Communication | 15 1 Into the Woods at Flint Rep, featuring award-winning costume design by Brandon R. McWilliams 2 Bryan Poyser's short flm Gopherit 3 Craig Nigh as Hill, the right hand to Ginny, the current villain played by Colby Minife on Fear the Walking Dead 18 | November & December | College News THEATRE Acting, Musical Theatre, Per formance and Production, Teacher Certif ication in Theatre, Technical Production, & Theatre FACULTY ACCOLADES Michelle Dahlenburg reported and produced a 16-minute audio documentary, "Te Coronabride." Te story is featured on a recent episode of the Neighbors podcast, which is associated with Nashville Public Radio. It covers the story of how professor Susan Busa shifted her wedding to Zoom, and about how we're all coping with loss and change in 2020. Listen to the story here. Babs George was nominated for a B. Iden Payne Award for her role as Gladys Green in Te Waverly Gallery at Alchemy Teatre Company. Tobie Minor performed in two online performances with Austin Shakespeare. He played Puck in A Midsummer Nights Dream by William Shakespeare and Lane/ Merriman in Te Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde. Tobie is currently directing a Christmas cabaret in Buda for Hill Country Teatre titled Christmas on Main Street . He also won a B. Iden Payne Award for Best Fight Choreography for his work with Archive Teatre's production of Cyrano De Bergerac . Associate Professor of Costume Design, Brandon R. McWilliams has received the 2020 WILDE Award for Best Costume Design for his costume design of Into the Woods at Flint Rep. [ 1 ] Te Wilde Awards, founded by Encore Michigan recognize excellence in theatre in the state of Michigan. Bryan Poyser's short flm Gopherit won a Special Jury Prize at the Victoria Independent Film Festival. [ 2 ] Bryan made the flm in 2018 with assistance from two of his former students, Texas State graduates Joshua Demings and Bailey Mangan . Caitlin Turnage was a fnalist for the Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards and a semi-fnalist for the 2021 Screen Craft TV Pilot competition for her medical drama Put Under . STUDENT ACCOLADES Rachel Carnegie (Teacher Certifcation Major) directed a production of Oh My Gods! , a devised piece virtually created, produced, and performed by the Contemporary Teatre Workshop class during the third weekend of November which follows the story of the Greek gods in 2020 and their experience with COVID-19. Te cast and crew of this production include Jada Jay Adams , Rossie Banks , Payton Blisard , Helena "Lane" Cosme , Loraine Dempsey , Emma Espada , Samara Fraker- Harrison , Justice Graves , Kylie Gutierrez , Quentin "Cody" Moreno , Clarissa Reyes , Aaliyah Richard , Joshua Sanchez , Morgan Schramm , Gregory Sokol , Peyton Tuminello , Samantha Turner , Jacki "Rae" Whitehouse , and Claire Wilcox . Madison Miller’s award winning play Luck of the Cards had a zoom production at Stephen F. Austin under the direction of Jackie Rosenfeld . Craig Nigh has a recurring role as Hill, the right hand to Ginny, the current villain played by Colby Minife on Fear the Walking Dead where he’s done nine episodes with at least two more to go. [ 3] Peter Ong'olo (B.F.A. Teatre, Production & Performance, Directing) directed a production of Harriet Tubman: An American Moses that streamed on Broadway On Demand. Tis story highlighted important aspects of the life of the African American heroine, humanized her, and showed how powerful collaboration and allyship can be, how much courage it takes to have hope, and that you don't need to be a hero to change things. Te amazing cast and crew for this production included Jada Adams as Harriet Tubman, Sydney Cooper as Storyteller, Tyra Williams as Assistant Director, Frida Cantu as Stage Manager, Martay Whitfeld as Production Designer and Olina Gonzalez as Marketing and Outreach, and Texas State alumnus Lyanne Alvarado . Morgan Peterson (Production & Performance and Communication Studies major) directed I Didn’t Know You Could Cook the radio play during the second weekend of November. Te show features a paraplegic man coming out to his older brother. Peterson worked in collaboration with TILT performance for disabled actors for the show and the talkbacks which happened after each performance. Te cast and crew included Andrew WONDERLAND Trad Burns , lecturer in Lighting Design, recently returned from Seattle, Washington where he lit the world premier ballet Wonderland , choreographed by Penny Saunders for Pacifc Northwest Ballet. Wonderland was flmed in Seattle’s McCaw over a four day period and was released as part of Pacifc Northwest Ballet’s 20/21 Digital season. In Te Seattle Times , Moira Macdonald writes that “Sometimes, art can simultaneously take you somewhere you’ve never imagined, and yet somehow take you home. Tat’s what happens, beautifully, in Penny Saunders’ Wonderland , a world premiere work that leads of Pacifc Northwest Ballet’s Rep 2.” 9