Vol. # 97, Issue # 3
| September 24, 2012
BROWN LINE COFFEE CRAWL
A PHOTO REVOLUTION
Focus, page 14-15
Arts & Life, page 17
‘Spring’ comes early
Theatre School opens series with controversial production
surprise that DePaul was behind putting on the show from the beginning. “What the story is about is the danger of not talking about it (sexual exploration) and the tragedy that happens when people are forced to keep quiet,” said the show’s choreographer and Theatre School professor, Julia Neary. See AWAKENING, page 21
See COLLINS, page 5
DePaul’s Theatre School opens its Showcase Series on Friday, Sept. 28 with “Spring Awakening,” starring students Sonaz Izadi as Wendla and Joe Keery as Melchior, pictured above.
Abortion, masturbation, sex and nudity are often not choice topics of discussion throughout private, Catholic institutions. However, DePaul University, known as the country’s largest private Catholic university, will jumpstart their Theatre School Showcase series with a focus on
many of these themes. Opening Friday, Sept. 28, is DePaul’s take on one of the most controversial shows introduced in years… “Spring Awakening.” The show tells a story revolving around teenage sexual exploration and expression during a time when the presence of religion and authority was overwhelmingly inhibiting. A modern take on a centuryold German play, the rock musical
is the first of that variety to be performed on DePaul’s Merle Reskin Theatre stage, 60 E. Balbo Ave., in two years. “There’s a lot of expectations,” said Alexis Links, The Theatre School production coordinator. “It’s definitely been the hot topic around here recently.” At a Catholic university supportive of drag performances and weeks devoted to LGBTQA awareness, it should come as no
By DYLAN FAHOOME Contributing Writer
Aug. 17 began like any other day for Alice Butler-Collins. She got up and heard her son – Kenneth Collins, a DePaul Ph.D. student – start his car after a few misfires and drive away. That was at 6:45 a.m. At 7:45 a.m., she received a phone call from the Roseland Community Hospital where her son worked. She was informed that her son had been in an accident. Butler-Collins called her daughter and drove with her to the hospital. When they arrived, they noticed several police cars and the entrance to the hospital was blocked off. Not long later, it was confirmed that her son had died. “It was just complete shock,” said Butler-Collins. “Just shock. There wasn’t anger. It was just disbelief, shock, a lot of crying and just completely ‘this can’t be happening.’” Collins, 43, died on his way to pick up his paycheck after a car hit him from behind when the driver fell asleep at the wheel. Collins was born and raised in Chicago. As a child, he was “high energy” and “fun-loving.” Butler-Collins described him as an “adventurous, talkative, sort of a daredevil type” who wasn’t afraid to do anything. “You know, (a) tough little boy,” said ButlerCollins. Collins studied at Western Illinois University, Olive-Harvey Junior College and Chicago State University before coming to DePaul. Collins entered first as a
PHOTO COURTESY OF ANNA ABLES
By ELIZABETH SCHUETZ Editor-in-Chief
DePaul student remembered after accident
Student event website sparks university controversy By HALEY BEMILLER Contributing Writer EventDrops.com, a website created by DePaul student Khoa Nguyen, was created to assist DePaul organizations in their event planning. Recently, however, the website has been a source of controversy with the administration raising objections to it. Nguyen, a sophomore, started working on the website last September after hearing
student complaints about OrgSync, the site used by the Office of Involvement to organize student group’s information. Many claimed that it is hard to find organization’s events among the website’s other features, so Nguyen wanted to create something devoted solely to events. “We just want to make it an easy hub, centralized place for DePaul students to just find out about events,” said Nguyen. “As long as the events benefit the students, I don’t care what events they are … I wanted to make EventDrops as simple as possible.”
“
For them to actually do this was against everything that I thought (the school was) about when I applied to DePaul.” KHOA NGUYEN, sophomore
EventDrops launched January 2012, and the first encounter Nguyen had with DePaul administration was after the Winter
Involvement Fair. Nguyen asked Assistant Director of Student Involvement Roniciel “Joy” Vergara if the DePaul Activities Board would consider posting events on his website. According to Nguyen, Vergara declined his offer. “Joy thought that I had somehow hacked or somehow got the system for Campus Connect, the whole login system,” he said. “I told her it’s a totally different system. All I required was (that users) regSee EVENTDROPS, page 4