Fajer Al-Kaisi M.F.A. ('07) is performing in the world premiere of Aftermath at New York Theatre Workshop. Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank are the award-winning writers of, The Exonerated, which ran for eighteen months Off-Broadway.
Michelle Habeck, Assistant Professor of Lighting Design at the Department of Theatre and Dance, has received the 2009 University Co-op Fine Arts Award.
After a brief illness June Moll died peacefully on Friday, October 23, 2009, at Christopher House in Austin. For several years she lived at the Summit at Northwest Hills, and then, at the Summit at Westlake Hills Healthcare Center.
In performance one never knows where they may find inspiration. For B.F.A. in Dance candidates, Lisa Kobdish and Mariclaire Gamble, it all started with YouTube. "We were attracted to a video where middle aged men slapped high fives and then looked towards the camera,” Kobdish said. From that video, the students collaborated to create High Five Jive, an original dance work exploring the motifs of gesturing the high five.
Any Other Name, written by playwriting graduate George Brant (M.F.A. '08), made its debut on September 4 at Premier Stages at Kean University. Winner of the 2009 Premiere Stages Play Festival, Any Other Name is set in 1940s London and follows a desperate young poet who conspires to steal and profit from the unpublished work of another poet, now committed to an asylum.
Associate Professor of Performance as Public Practice Deborah Paredez, has announced the publication of her new book Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory. Published in August by Duke University Press, the book explores the significance and broader meanings of the extensive posthumous celebration of the Tejana pop star, Selena Quintanilla Pérez, who died in 1995.
Drama and Theatre for Youth Area Head, Dr. Coleman A. Jennings received the Distinguished Book Award from AATE at their annual conference in New York last month. Jennings was selected for his work as editor on “Nine Plays by JoséCruz González Magical Realism and Mature Themes in Theatre for Young Audiences”.
Associate Professor and Dance Unit Head, Lyn C. Wilthsire, and Theater for Youth Chair and Distinguished Teaching Professor, Suzan Zeder, have been selected to receive the 2008-09 Department of Theatre and Dance Teaching Excellence Award.
