Theatre & Dance Newsletter

VISION STATEMENT

MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR

FALL CALENDAR & DEPARTMENT EVENTS

SPOTLIGHTS

COMP POLICY IN MEMORIAM

DEPARTMENT

THEATRE & DANCE VISION STATEMENT

OF

The Department of Theatre and Dance at California State University of Fullerton strives to create a diverse inclusive environment that raises awareness, instills compassion, advocates for our community, and supports our students in their creative and academic goals. As a department we are committed to developing innovative and unique educational experiences. We strive to challenge our students to develop their curiosity as artists and cultural leaders of tomorrow. Our goal is to inspire, nurture, challenge, educate, and empower our students.

As the new chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance, I would like to welcome you all to the start of the 2023/2024 academic year. I’m excited to embark on a journey with you to create an inclusive environment that encourages community, collaboration, and creativity in our department.

To give you a little background on myself, I received my MFA from UC Irvine in 2006 in Costume Design and have been working and teaching in Southern California for the past 17 years. In 2017, I joined Cal State Fullerton as full-time faculty in Costume Design and Theatrical Makeup. Over the past six years, I have enjoyed working closely with our students as a teacher, mentor, and advisor and watching their journey and growth as artists.

I have a great passion for design and teaching. I am a theatre artist because I love designing characters that come to life on stage. Through costume design, I combine my love for painting, history, fashion, and art and apply those skills to the tangible art performed on stage. I couldn’t create my designs without performers, directors, designers, technicians, playwrights, and historians. In theatre and dance, we create unique artforms that encompass so many distinctive elements and talents; we need the whole community to create magic on stage.

In theatre and dance we often problem solve complex situations in very short periods of time. How can we help each other through difficult times that might be stressful and overwhelming? Through community, collaboration, and creativity. I believe that this can be achieved by creating a culture within the department where we support one another and celebrate our accomplishments.

Please join me in celebrating our accomplishments of this past year and of our dreams to come in 2023/2024.

Katie Wilson (she/her) Chair - Department of Theatre & Dance

FALL CALENDAR

Sept 8th-9th 24 Hour Playwriting Festival starting at 10:30pm 9/8/23 (Arena)

Sept 22nd Intimacy Workshop 1-4pm w/ Amanda Rose Villarreal (Young Theatre)

*Open to all in the Theatre & Dance Department • RSVP Here

Oct 6th Let the Right One In- Opening Night Reception (post performance)

Oct 6th-21st Let the Right One In (Hallberg Theatre)

Oct 1st-31st Theatre & Dance Spring Advising Month

Oct 11th-14th The Revolutionists (Arena)

Oct 20th Twelfth Night- Opening Night Reception (post performance)

Oct 20th-Nov 4th Twelfth Night (Young Theatre)

Oct 20th-28th Love & Information - Sophomore BFA Acting Showcase (Arena)

Oct 29th Cereal Halloween Costume Party at 5:30pm (CPAC Grand Foyer)

Oct 26th-29th Opera Scenes (Recital Hall)

Nov 3rd-5th The Boys and the Nuns (Arena)

Nov 9th A Chorus Line- Opening Night Reception (post performance)

Nov 9th-Dec 2nd A Chorus Line (Little Theatre)

Oct 1st-Nov 30th University deadline for new student applications (BFAs)

Nov 30th Fall Dance Theatre- Opening Night Reception (post performance)

Nov 30th-Dec 9th Fall Dance Theatre (Hallberg Theatre)

Dec 1st-2nd Tacos with a Fork (Grand Central)

Dec 4th-8th Auditions for Spring Shows

Dec 11th-15th Final Exams

DEPARTMENT EVENTS FALL 2023

24-Hour Playwriting Festival • Coordinated by Collette Rutherford • Sept 8th-9th

A festival of 10-minute plays, written, rehearsed, and performed in just 24 hours. The event will start with a meeting at 10:30pm on 9/8 in the Arena. The playwrights will write overnight and will meet back in the Arena at 9am on 9/9 to send folks off into groups to rehearse. Tech will begin that afternoon and then there will be performances in Arena at 8pm on 9/9.

Intimacy Workshop with Amanda Rose Villarreal • Sept 22nd • RSVP Here

This workshop covers practices and tools that you can enfold into your own artistic practice in classrooms and in production. We will introduce tools for developing a consent-based process, self-care as a theatre artist, setting boundaries, choreographing intimacy and documenting intimacy choreography.

The Revolutionists • Directed by Sarah Ripper • Oct 11th-14th

The Revolutionists is a new play about four very real women who lived boldly in France during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. Playwright Olympe De Gouge, assassin Charlotte Corday, former queen (and fan of ribbons) Marie Antoinette, and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle hang out, murder Marat, loose their heads and try to beat back the extremist insanity in the Paris of 1793. What was a hopeful revolution for the people is now sinking into hyper violent hypocritical male rhetoric. However will modern audiences relate. This grand and dream-tweaked comedy is about violence and legacy, art and activism, feminism and terrorism, compatriots and chosen sisters, and how we actually go about changing the world.

Love & Information (Sophomore BFA Acting Showcase) • Directed by Jeremy Lewis • Oct 20th-28th

Someone sneezes. Someone can’t get a signal. Someone won’t answer the door. Someone put an elephant on the stairs. Someone’s not ready to talk. Someone is her brother’s mother. Someone hates irrational numbers. Someone told the police. Someone got a message from the traffic light. Someone’s never felt like this before. In this fast moving kaleidoscope, more than a hundred characters try to make sense of what they know.

The Boys and the Nuns • Directed by Jonny Martinez • Arena Theatre • Nov 9th-12th

CSUF Theatre & Dance Department partnered with New York’s Latiné Musical Theatre Lab to source up-and-coming Musical Theatre writers and composers who have been vetted by the lab and have promising new works already in development. This is a unique, innovative, and desperately needed project in that it literally harnesses the creative power of the HSI Community to solve history inequities in Latiné representation.

Plot:

In 1986, a group of LGBTQ activists from Chicago’s “Boystown” are weary - they have been fighting City Hall to pass the “Gay Rights Ordinance” since 1972. Enter a group of Catholic Sisters who band together with the activists while embroiled in their own fight for equal rights within the church. And in the middle, Pablo, a musician searching for his place in the world. Inspired by true events, The Boys and the Nuns is an examination of identity, belonging, and faith, woven together with the music of the 80s, from Spanish language power ballads to synthy new wave to Chicago’s homegrown house music.

Tacos with a Fork • Performed by Christian De La Torre • Grand Central Theatre • Dec 1st-2nd

Tacos with a Fork is an original piece written by BFA Devised senior, Christian De La Torre. It is a brief look into the upbringing of a young child who struggled with finding a place within his race. From altercations with friends, the color of his skin, and feeling like a fraud as a member of the Hispanic community, this piece tells the story of a young child finding who he is within the ethnic community he was born into.

SCOTT BOLMAN

Last fall, Scott Bolman designed the lighting for Marcus Gardley’s LEAR at Cal Shakes, winning a Bay Area Critics Circle award for Lighting Design, and recreated the lighting for the William Kentridge production of The Magic Flute at the Taichung National Opera in Taiwan. This past summer, Scott traveled to Prague as one of the designers of the U.S. National Exhibition for the 2023 Prague Quadrennial for Space and Design. He then spent two weeks backpacking in the Dolomites before heading to Germany, where he collaborated on a new devised theater piece called Burger Family Hesitation, which had a workshop performance at Uferstudios in Berlin.”

HEATHER DENYER

This summer, Heather Denyer presented at the International Federation of Theatre Research Conference in Ghana and at the African Theatre Association Conference in England. She has ten book chapters on African theatres and puppetry that were recently or will be soon published, and is currently developing two book projects. She also launched a website of African playwrights writing in French, which was developed by CSUF students! She will be leading 4 antiracist pedagogy workshops this fall through the FDC, and is organizing conferences on topical themes featuring established scholars and developed by students in the Theatres of Americas classes.

JOSH GRISETTI

Keeping creatively active, Josh Grisetti played “Simeon” in JOSEPH & THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT at the La Mirada Theatre, as well as “Tateh” in RAGTIME for Broadway at Music Circus over the summer. He is also continuing to oversee the $113,000 new works project awarded last year via the HSI Community Grant sponsored by CSUN and Apple, Inc. The project is called THE BOYS & THE NUNS and will celebrate both Latiné and LGBTQ+ characters, creators, and performers via a 6-week staged workshop at CSUF this Fall. This grant came with an additional $30,000 in technology donated to the Department.

HYUN SOOK KIM

Hyun Sook Kim displayed her work at the 2023 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space this past June in Prague for the international presentation of her costume design for ‘Acquittal’. In addition, Hyun Sook Kim collaborated with OISTAT (International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians) on an installation presentation for ‘A Pandemic Mask Landscape’ in PQ 2023 at OISTAT convention and participated in ‘OISTAT Hub’ Costume Design Sub-Commission Meeting, with Laura Crow (USA costume designer and retired professor) and Lise Kitten (Denish costume design) and other designers from all over the world.

LISA LONG

Lisa Long’s book, Mindful Rigor: Holistic Training to Enhance Dance Performance is out in its preliminary edition while it undergoes peer review. She has the great fortune of collaborating with all of our students from the past 3 years, Kinesiology graduate student and now alumni, Jamie Rodden, Dr Brendan Murray, Natasha Diamond Walker, principal dancer for the Martha Graham Dance Company, and four of our alumni dancing around the world. This research is the basis of the cross-listed DANC/THTR/MUS Mindful Conditioning for Performers that ran this past spring.

ALVIN RANGEL-ALVARADO

This summer Alvin Rangel-Alvarado traveled to Australia to teach Horton Technique to students and faculty at the National Aboriginal Islander Skills Development Association Dance College (NAISDA). Since 2018, he has been developing a Horton Dance technique curriculum at the college. NAISDA Dance College is Australia’s premier Indigenous training college with a tradition of producing the next generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dance artists. In Australia he also taught the pre-professional training program at the world-renowned Sydney Dance Company. This summer he also participated in the Katherine Dunham Dance Institute at Ohio State University.

AMANDA ROSE VILLARREAL

Over the summer, Amanda Rose Villarreal presented scholarship at the ATHE conference; led a Summer Arts course; devised a new immersive experience in NYC; and developed consent mechanics for “Every Brilliant Thing,” opening at Geffen Playhouse this month.

JIM VOLZ

Entering his final FERP year, Jim Volz is busy as editor of eight books (with more to come) in the Introductions to Theatre Series for London’s Methuen Drama and New York’s Bloomsbury Publishing and continues as Editor of the e-Magazine, Quarto, for the international Shakespeare Theatre Association. He is currently on the Artistic Director Search Committee for the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival and wishes his colleagues well in the new school year!

• Department Faculty, Staff & Grad Asst. Students (paid by department):

Two (2) complimentary tickets per production (including COTA operas/musicals)

• Production designers, choreographers, vocal coaches, and musical directors

Two (2) complimentary tickets per production

One (1) complimentary ticket per performance for yourself only.

• Department design assistants, asst. directors, asst. choreographers and other production assistants for particular shows do NOT get comps unless authorized by chair.

• Production Directors:

Two (2) complimentary tickets for the production you directed.

One (1) complimentary ticket per performance for yourself only.

Additional requests for comps must be approved in advance by the Department Chair or Vice Chair.

Issuance of complimentary tickets is subject to availability at time of request.

* Please contact Stephanie Tancredi (stancredi@fullerton.edu) in advance for any special accommodations or ticket reservations.

DEPARTMENT CANVAS PAGE

The Department of Theatre and Dance has a new Canvas page for all of those in our department community, which is meant to be a central location for information. Please refer to this page for general information about productions, classes, contact information for faculty and staff, departmental announcements, a virtual call board for student projects, and general information about the Department and University.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

If you have any suggestions for future topics to be included in the Newsletter, please contact Katie Wilson katwilson@fullerton.edu

DR. LARRY JASPER

IN MEMORIAM

From Lynne Lundquist Westfahl:

RIP Dr. Larry Jasper, Professor Emeritus, Cal State Fullerton--Larry fought very valiantly for twenty-eight months with pancreatic cancer. He treasured the many students that he taught over 39 years at the university, as well as the friendships he formed with his colleagues. He possessed an impressive amount of knowledge in the areas of dramatic literature, theatre history, and dramatic criticism. He enjoyed participating in the end-of-year baseball games that the Theatre Department held, as well as attending hundreds of excellent plays put on by the Department. His life was centered around his experiences at the University. He leaves behind his sister, Glenda Cole, and many nieces and nephews.

DR. SALLIE MITCHELL

Dr. Sallie Mitchell began her distinguished career at CSUF in the Fall of 1975 moving up through the ranks achieving promotion to Full Professor in 1985. For her entire career she headed the Secondary Education Teacher Training Program in Drama (as we called it then) training the best HS Drama Teachers in the California. In 1991 she became Chair of the Theatre and Dance Department and did that from 1991-1997, all the while continuing to advise a majority of the department’s Theatre students and keeping her finger in the Teacher Training Program. She retired in 1999, subsequently FERPed for 5 years- officially separating from the university in 2004. She passed peacefully on Monday February 20th, 2023 at the age of 88 years.

Dr. Mitchell received her A.B. degree from Midland College, her M.Ed. degree from Northern Illinois University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois. She joined the Fullerton faculty in 1975 and received emeritus status in 1999. Professor Mitchell established an endowed scholarship for Theater Education majors.