Two Muslims, two Christians, a Jew, and an Irish Nationalist are trapped in a haunted house. Surely, this sounds like the set-up for an off-color joke, but it was the premise of the experience presented to the small groups of viewers who wandered the halls of 329 Washington Terrace last weekend to view senior Lily Haje’s thesis production, “Fire + Bone,” presented by the Wesleyan Theater Department.
If you’ve taken a stroll down High Street in the last couple of days, you may have noticed a motley crew of performers capering on the South College fire escape, perhaps bursting into song.
A couple of nights ago, nestled in my bed on this side of that vast ocean that separates us from our one-time overlords, I bore witness to a great event: a television serial airing in our quaint country from all the way across the proverbial pond, direct from that noblest of islands, Great Britain.
It’s a ghost story, a romance, a melodrama. It’s got the spirit of the 1920s in the setting of the 1670s.
Ben Firke ’12 may be best known as the Vice-President of the WSA, but he’s also a dab hand as a playwright.
It’s been six years since Michael Rau ’05 graduated with Honors in Theater. Since then, he has established himself as a professional theatrical and operatic director in New York.
“These are strange times,” a teacher of mathematics tells one of his students in the first scene of “Icarus, or an Angel,” the new play from Anthony Smith ’11 opening in the ’92 Theater this weekend; strange times they are indeed, and a multitude of times, in this genre-bending, decade-spanning collection of vignettes from Wesleyan’s premier student playwright.
This weekend, Wesleyan will host its annual performance of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues,” the quintessential celebration of womanhood performed around the world during the month of February.
Last weekend, in a small apartment converted into a theater, “Dead Sharks,” a play by student Will Dubbs ’14, opened Off-Off-Broadway as part of the Manhattan Repertory Theater’s Winterfest Play Festival to sold-out houses.
Stop! Don’t run away! Continue reading…I know that you probably expect me to be wearing a cape and speaking in a mock-spooky voice, but I assure you, I have no such intentions.
Winter break is often a boon for the movie-going college student; returning home, we have seemingly endless amounts of time to waste our money at the box office.
How can you know which days will change your life? How do you know when you’re moving from a time of happiness into one of sorrow?
Audience members coming into the Theater Department’s production of Richard III the weekend before Thanksgiving break were greeted by a rumbling, militant drumbeat: a six-member troupe of Wesleyan’s taiko drummers, lined up across the front of the CFA Theater’s stage.
Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal was in its day a revolutionary piece, a product of early feminism and the expressionist movement of the 1920s.
Close to a hundred students thronged the baseball diamond on the foot of Foss Hill Thursday night, congregating around the low-set bonfire basins near the stage and around a much larger ring of fire where Prometheus was performing.
“You left me in love!” Mandy Goldstone ’12 screamed to her partner (Eli Timm ’13) in the ’92 Theater Friday night during Second Stage’s production of David Harrower’s Blackbird
Regular Wesleying readers and followers of the electronic music scene may have noticed a new face on campus this semester: Risky Fresh, a collective of Wesleyan DJs that have been appearing at parties and concerts and are now releasing a series of free, downloadable mixes available on Wesleying.
After three dry weeks for student-theater on campus, Second Stage is coming back strong in November with a show every weekend this month! (All right, except for Thanksgiving break).
Ah, the airport. Crossroads of civilization, home to all the things that modern society finds essential to its smooth running: interminable lines, suspicious-looking armed people, second-rate bookstores and food courts, mix-ups, delays, horrifying realizations, panic attacks, and so much more.
Personal stories, wild performances, and energetic fun: all three filled the air late Wednesday night. The venue was WestCo Café, the event was WeSLAM’s first poetry slam of the year, and it was a riotous, cheerful evening.
Moody blue lighting and a cheerful atmosphere filled the air last Saturday in the Patricelli ’92 Theater as a small audience filed in, laughing and chatting. The whole feeling was relaxed and casual as the evening’s performers strolled around, occasionally waving to the audience.
The weekend of Wesleyan arts.
Rinde Eckert seems to embody whatever he’s talking about: twisting his head around on top of his powerful body, gesticulating gracefully with his hands, closing his eyes as he rolls his words around in his mouth.
There were arts events abound this weekend, for those who cared to look. And it did take a bit of looking—the arts scene hasn’t really gotten started yet, this early in the year. But, as usual, Wes provides!
A roundup of arts locations around campus.
A roundup of artistic alums.
The arts community at Wesleyan provides many opportunities for stu- dents to watch, listen to, and partici- pate in creative events and programs. Below is a smattering of the prominent
Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street” is undoubtedly one of the master’s best beloved musicals.
Stepping into Zilkha’s South Gallery feels a bit like stepping into a cave: quiet, dark, still.
In what promises to be an exciting performance, Latasha Alcindor ’10 will present her dance thesis, “The Memoirs of Hip Hop,” in the ’92 Theater this weekend, at 6:30 p.m. on Friday and 8:00 p.m. on Saturday.
“The stage! How disgusting!” exclaimed one character in “The Mystery of Irma Vep,” when told of another’s past life as an actress.
On the tiny stage of the CFA Hall last weekend, a group of 18 women performed – and many more of all sexes and ages gathered – in honor of one of our culture’s most taboo subjects: the vagina.
Here at the University, theses about drag queens are no surprise. A thesis performance in drag, on the other hand, is a bit of a rarity.
With spring comes the dubious in-theater spring movie lineup, a notorious dumping ground for movies that aren’t important enough for the Oscar-contender-dominated fall season or big enough for summer blockbuster season.
Peter Cole, a short, slight man with fluttering hands who wears large glasses over his intense black eyes, hardly seemed like the type to upset the status quo as he delivered a talk on the translation of Middle Eastern liter¬ature to a small but appreciative crowd at Russell House on Tuesday night.
If there are two things that are al¬ways gripping on the stage, it’s the dy¬namic between two people struggling for power, and two people who expect to end their encounter with raw, un¬bridled sex.
“The hammer…is my penis.” These immortal words (and no, they’re not less dumbfounding and hilarious in context) nicely capture the spirit of “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” Joss Whedon ’87 made-for-the-internet movie musical starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day.
This weekend the Center For the Art’s Breaking Ground Dance Series will play host to an outpouring of ecstasy and tension, both spiritual and choreographic.
On December 5, students and a few members of the greater community came together to explore the art form wayang kulít, Javanese shadow-puppetry, presented by students and faculty at the World Music Hall.
Both of their fathers had died. But, he went on, after the performance they were both given full scholarships to the University of Cambodia where they are studying today.
On November 6, at the opening of the PIECE OF PIECES: ROOTZ OF ROOTZ exhibit at Zilkha Gallery, Adrian Augier, a well-known artist, author, and poet, said that, “As people of color, our way has been to travel, both willingly and unwillingly.”
“Alice Ashes,” the play written and directed by Daniel O’Sullivan ’11 that opened in the ’92 Theater on Oct. 15, is a show about aging, loneliness, betrayal, and the often-bitter lives people lead.
The information board outside the “Enlightening Images” exhibit at the Mansfield-Freeman Center opens with two quotes on the nature of images.
The spirit of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” can be summed up in one line from the show itself: “We don’t have to do it justice, we just have to do it.”
As a testament to the diverse and powerful theater community on campus and to the determination of its students, Wesleyan students and alumni, Dylan Marron ’10 and Jo Firestone ’09, are taking their two-person show, “Ridgefield Middle School Talent Nite,” into the public eye this season.
In what promises to be one of the highlight of the University’s arts season, the famed Stephen Petronio Company is bringing one of their newest shows to the Center for the Arts theater this weekend, on the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth of September.
“We’re ghosts,” Amanda told me near the end of our interview—and the more I learned about her group, the Wesleyan Sound Cooperative (WSC), the more I thought she might be right.