For a single week each year, classes and production work in the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University take an intermission while student directors, designers, actors, technicians and playwrights collaborate on more than 40 productions of their own in "Playground: A Festival of Independent Student Work." Now in its fifth year, the festival includes dramatic and musical performances, films, installations, mural projects and light shows in the Purnell Center for the Performing Arts. All events are free and open to the public.
"Playground represents a singular opportunity for students in the School of Drama. We encourage them to explore, collaborate and commit to experiences in theatre-making as diverse as their own passions and preoccupations," said Elizabeth Bradley, head of the School of Drama and creator of Playground. "The empowerment and sense of community that Playground week creates is exhilarating for everyone who participates or attends. Drama students often expressed the opinion that Playground provided the context for the most valuable learning that they did during their time in the program."
Playground provides an outlet for the creativity and innovation of independent student-produced work. Students propose projects to a committee of faculty members and student representatives, and accepted projects are provided with designated rehearsal time, space and a performance venue. Productions are limited to 45 minutes and no funding is provided.
This year's plays draws students from all disciplines in the College of Fine Arts, from drama and art to music. Some of the plays and musicals are new works written by students at other universities. The musical "The Count of Monte Cristo" was written by Ithaca College graduate Brett Boles and is being produced by musical theatre and School of Music students. "Zerafall," by Columbia University student Daniel Feldman, takes place on the eve of Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) in 1938 Berlin. Other projects include a medley of short films and "Hellmouth," an installation comprised of recycled soda cans based on the medieval hell mouth, a doorway to hell. Student composer Joe Etzine and a musical theatre student created "BlackMale," a one-man cabaret.
Playground productions have often traveled to different venues across the country. A Los Angeles performance of "The Salesman" was described by the LA Weekly as "smartly choreographed." "Housetaurant" has been performed at New York University, The Ashland Ten Minute Play Festival, The Short Leaps Festival in San Francisco and The Kennedy Center's National College Theatre Regional Festival.
For a performance schedule, visit www.cmu.edu/cfa/drama/playground on or after Tuesday, March 18. A video trailer is also online at www.cmu.edu/cfa/drama/playground/trail.html. Tickets will be available Wednesday, April 2. For more information, call the School of Drama box office at 412-268-2407.
Events _____________________________________________________________________
The STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University presents Other Options Pittsburgh, a symposium on alternative economics and value systems April 1113 at Goods & Services, 2628 East Carson St. The weekend-long symposium, which explores how local actions relate to global capitalism, includes an art exhibition, panel discussion, macroeconomics workshop, cottage industry expo and Sunday Soup on the South Side as well as guided tours, dinner and a dance party in Braddock.
The symposium is the collective effort of the ReTool Project at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry; Goods & Services, a project space affiliated with the Carnegie Mellon School of Art; InCubate, a group of arts administrators and arts historians from Chicago; and Braddock Active Arts, an artist collective working in Braddock, Pa. to organize a series of site-specific installations titled Points of Interest.
The symposium opens Friday, April 11 from 6 to 9 p.m. with an art exhibition curated by InCubate and produced in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon students at Goods & Services. The exhibition looks at artist groups who are re-interpreting, altering and creating infrastructure that affects their everyday lives and artistic practice. Artists in the exhibition include Robin Hewlett and Carolyn Lambert (Pittsburgh), Forays (New York/Montreal), Phil Orr and Ryan Thompson (Urbana-Champaign, Illinois), Material Exchange (Chicago), and Carnegie Mellon graduate and undergraduate students. The exhibition will continue through May 2.
On Saturday April 12, a panel discussion, Exploring our Options, will showcase four models of community organizing and artistic practice that question dominant value systems and suggest practical alternatives. On Sunday at 12:30, activist Matt Meyer will explore alternatives to capitalism.
This symposium is supported in part by the Sprout Fund, the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, and the Center for Arts and Society at Carnegie Mellon. For more information, contact Carolyn Lambert at 412-398-1122 or visit the ReTool website for a complete schedule of events at http://retool.wordpress.com/2008/01/. ________________
School of Drama Performs Two Comedic Plays at Outdoor Locations Around Pittsburgh, April 1126
The School of Drama is taking its latest production, Commedia Dell Arte, on the road to outdoor locations around Carnegie Mellons Oakland campus, as well as Hartwood Acres Park, the SouthSide Works and Station Square.
From April 11 to April 26, the traveling troupe with their portable stage and period costumes will perform adaptations set in 1930s Pittsburgh of Carlo Goldonis Servant of Two Masters and Molires Scapino, clownish comedies chock full of scoundrels and hapless lovers. The performances, for all ages, are free to the public. People are encouraged to bring lawn chairs or blankets to the Carnegie Mellon and Hartwood Acres Park performances as seating will not be provided.
These exuberant, clownish comedies of scoundrels and hapless lovers will engage audiences of all ages, said Elizabeth Bradley, head of the School of Drama. Visiting selected sites around the city, a playful version of the classic touring commedia wagon provides a portable stage for a bluegrass band and all the pratfalls, jokes and fun an ambitious troupe of 21st century traveling players can deliver.
To prepare for the production, Director Mark Bell helped students find their inner clown by improvising stories and making mistakes. For Bell, clowning around is a serious business. A past visiting professor in the School of Drama, Bell quotes Samuel Beckett by saying, [the] clown is the most essential expression of what it is to be a human being. Scapino and Servant of Two Masters gives ample opportunity for the students to become clowns and tickle the funny bones of audiences.
Performances are subject to change. A complete schedule is online at www.cmu.edu/cfa/drama/season/current_season/comedia/comedia.html
Performances at Carnegie Mellon Preview of Servant of Two Masters
1 p.m., Thursday, April 10 on Carnegie Mellons Cut, near the tennis courts
Preview of Scapino 6:30 p.m., Thursday, April 10 on Carnegie Mellons Cut, near the tennis courts Scapino 5:30 p.m., Friday, April 18 in the Morewood Gardens Parking lot off Forbes Avenue
Servant of Two Masters 5:30 p.m., Thursday, April 17 in the Morewood Gardens Parking lot off Forbes Avenue
5:30 p.m., Thursday, April 24 on Carnegie Mellons Cut, near the tennis courts
Performances at the SouthSide Works: Scapino
5:30 p.m., Friday, April 25, and Saturday April 26
Servant of Two Masters
1 p.m., Saturday, April 26
Performances at Station Square:
Scapino
1 p.m., Saturday, April 12 Servant of Two Masters 5:30 p.m., Friday, April 11, and Saturday, April 12
Performances at Hartwood Acres Park:
Servant of Two Masters
1 p.m., Saturday, April 19
Scapino
4 p.m., Saturday, April 19 __________________________
Express Your Inner Peace: a chalk art extravaganza Thursday, April 3 11AM-2PM (any portion of that time period) The Cut
As part of Peace Week, the Student Development Office offers the opportunity for students, faculty, or staff to publicly express their inner peace through chalk art. We will provide the chalk and the space, a concrete block along the Cut. You provide the creativity and the expression.
Email hft@cmu.edu if interested. Some walk-on spots might also be available. ______________________________
Carnegie Mellon International Film Festival Highlights Mechanization of Modern Society, April 4-15
Industrialization is increasingly shaping peoples day-to-day routines and society as a whole. To explore technologys influence on our lives and communities, the Humanities Center at Carnegie Mellon University presents Faces of Mechanization, the 2008 Carnegie Mellon International Film Festival, April 4-15.
The festivals lineup includes a collection of eight feature films and documentaries along with a number of shorter works from countries as diverse as Argentina and Austria. The selections cover topics ranging from the processes by which food and clothing are produced for the masses to parents efforts to take advantage of scientific advances to design the perfect child. Four of the films are being shown for the first time in Pittsburgh, and one, Polish director Artur Zmijewskis Selected Works, is making its American debut.
We are thrilled to have such a unique group of award-winning and thought-provoking films and documentaries in the International Film Festival schedule, said Jolanta Lion, the festivals director. Through their work, these filmmakers have raised important questions about technology and modern society that warrant further discussion. We hope that our audiences will continue those conversations long after the festival ends.
The festival opens April 4 at Pittsburgh Filmmakers Melwood Screening Room with Argentinean director Esteban Sapirs La Antena, a black-and-white silent film in which citizens of a future society live in a voiceless world that is thoroughly controlled by television. This screening in Pittsburgh is only the second time the film has ever been shown at an American film festival.
In addition to the Melwood Screening Room, the festivals films will be shown in McConomy Auditorium in the University Center on Carnegie Mellons Oakland campus as well as the Squirrel Hill and Manor theatres in Pittsburghs Squirrel Hill neighborhood. General admission tickets are $7 for the public and $3 for students, and a festival pass can be purchased for $30 ($15 for students). Tickets for the opening night screening of La Antena and reception are $8 for the public and $5 for students.
For a complete schedule and full descriptions of the festivals films, along with additional details, including a list of the festivals sponsors, please visit the festivals Web site at www.cmu.edu/faces
Carnegie Mellon International Film Festival Schedule
Friday, April 4 Melwood Screening Room, 477 Melwood Ave., Oakland 7 p.m., La Antena (Argentina 2007) and opening night reception
Saturday, April 5 McConomy Auditorium, University Center on Carnegie Mellons Oakland campus 4:30 p.m., Mardi Gras: Made in China (United States 2005) 6:30 p.m., Selected Works (Poland 2007)
Sunday, April 6 McConomy Auditorium, University Center on Carnegie Mellons Oakland campus 5:30 p.m., China Blue (United States 2005) 7:30 p.m., The Future Is Not What It Used To Be (Finland 2003)
Friday, April 11 Squirrel Hill Theatre, 5824 Forward Ave., Squirrel Hill 6 p.m., Frozen Angels (Germany 2005) 7:50 p.m., La Antena (Argentina 2007)
Saturday, April 12 Manor Theatre, 1729 Murray Ave., Squirrel Hill 5 p.m. Working Mans Death (Austria/Germany 2006) 7:30 p.m., La Antena (Argentina 2007)
Sunday, April 13 Manor Theatre, 1729 Murray Ave., Squirrel Hill 3:10 p.m., Working Mans Death (Austria/Germany 2006) 5:30 p.m., Our Daily Bread (Austria 2006)
Monday April 14 McConomy Auditorium, University Center on Carnegie Mellons Oakland campus 9 p.m., Our Daily Bread (Austria 2006)
Tuesday, April 15 McConomy Auditorium, University Center on Carnegie Mellons Oakland campus 5:30 p.m., Mardi Gras: Made in China (United States 2005) ____________________
2008 KATAYANAGI PRIZE CEREMONY AND LECTURES
Katayanagi Emerging Leadership Prize Lecture 4:30 pm ERIK D. DEMAINE Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Professor and Associate Professor Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"Origami, Linkages, and Polyhedra: Folding with Algorithms"
DEMAINE "Origami, Linkages, and Polyhedra: Folding with Algorithms"
ABSTRACT: What forms of origami can be designed automatically by algorithms? How might we build reconfigurable robots like Transformers or Terminator 3, hinging together a collection of pieces that dynamically reconfigure into arbitrary shapes? When can a robotic arm of rigid rods be folded into a desired configuration? What shapes can result by folding a piece of paper flat and making one complete straight cut? What 3D surfaces can be manufactured from a single sheet of material? How might proteins fold? Geometric folding is a branch of discrete and computational geometry that addresses these and many other intriguing questions. I will give a taste of the many results that have been proved in the past several years, as well as the several exciting unsolved problems that remain open. Many folding problems have applications in areas including manufacturing, robotics, graphics, and protein folding.
BIO: Erik Demaine is Associate Professor and Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Professor in computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Demaine's research interests range throughout algorithms, from data structures for improving web searches to the geometry of understanding how proteins fold to the computational difficulty of playing games. He received a MacArthur Fellowship (2003) as a "computational geometer tackling and solving difficult problems related to folding and bending--moving readily between the theoretical and the playful, with a keen eye to revealing the former in the latter". He recently published a book about folding, together with Joseph O'Rourke, called Geometric Folding Algorithms: Linkages, Origami, Polyhedra, (Cambridge University Press, 2007). He has also coedited Tribute to a Mathemagician (A K Peters, 2003), in honor of the influential mathemagician Martin Gardner. His interests also span the connections between mathematics and art, particularly sculpture and performance, including curved origami sculptures currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
PGH Events _________________________________________________________________
Professional freelance artist Anna Marie Sninsky will exhibit paintings and garden sculpture in the newly renovated gallery at 105 East Eighth Avenue, Homestead. The exhibition opens with a reception on April 5 from 6 pm to 8 p.m. Over 24 acrylic paintings by the Munhall artist will be shown, as well as garden sculptures made at a pipe factory in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania from still-wet clay extruded in large clay pipe forms that she shaped into sculptures and large figurative fountainheads.
Anna Marie is often heard to say The Pittsburgh area is a painters paradise; everywhere you look there is inspiration for artwork. Most of her paintings reflect the wonderful images found in this area. She started painting Pittsburghs blast furnaces and river scenes as a teenager and has continued to do so for over 50 years. She often referred to the furnaces as the dragons in my valley. Her work has been shown throughout this area and has won many juror awards for excellence including two major awards at the Carnegie Museum of Art. Recently, Southwestern Pennsylvania Council for the Arts selected her 12-page book of images of local river scenes for inclusion in their collection. This piece was also exhibited at Warhol Museum and Southern Allegheny Museum. Her work is in many private collections including The Rivers Club, Mellon Bank, and Art South. Her work also was chosen by Pennsylvania state legislators who presented the piece to the president of France on his bicentennial visit to our country as a gift from the people of Pennsylvania.
Besides being a founding member of Steel Valley Arts Council, Anna Marie is a member of Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, having served on their board of directors and as executive director for 10 years. She continues to serve as a consultant and grant writer. When she served on the board of Carnegie Library of Homestead, her grant-writing skills helped raise over $3,000,000 for fundamental renovations of the facility after USS turned over maintenance of the building to community leaders when the mills closed in the mid-1980s. She continues to be a volunteer fundraiser for the non-profit Library.
The exhibition will close on April 30 with a gallery talk and reception from 6 to 8 p.m. _____________________
Announcing a Health Care Plan for the Arts Community
The Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council is proud to announce the arrival of a health care program for local individual artists and part-time and seasonal employees of local cultural organizations. This is not a traditional health insurance program, but a limited benefits medical plan that was designed based on input from the arts community about desired benefits and pricing. Eligible Arts Council members will have the opportunity to choose from three tiers of coverage. Starting at under $60 per month, the HM Care Advantage plan includes benefits for physician office visits, annual wellness tests and screenings, ambulance and emergency room coverage as well as discounts on pharmacy, vision, fitness and wellness services. Some plans also include an additional critical illness component. Coverage will begin on July 1, 2008. First Information Meeting Monday, March 31 at the New Hazlett Theater The first informational meeting about the program will be held on Monday, March 31 at 6:15 pm during Last Days Caf at the New Hazlett Theater. Last Days Caf is a casual happy hour held the last day of each month from 5:30-8:30 pm that features time for networking, complimentary refreshments and a brief program. The New Hazlett Theater is located at 6 Allegheny Square East on Pittsburghs North Side. If you cannot attend, visit the Arts Councils website www.pittsburghartscouncil.org after April 1 for dates of upcoming meetings and webinars and to download an informational brochure. Questions? Interested? Contact us at 412.391.2060 x 234 or rfreytag@pittsburghartscouncil.org. With the introduction of this plan, the Arts Council has taken an important first step towards making health coverage available to everyone in the local arts community who needs it. We look forward to taking more steps forward in the future! Best Wishes, Mitch Swain, CEO Tiffany Wilhelm, Director of Development and Membership Ryan Freytag, Development and Membership Coordinator
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