Voices Inaugural Program
On October 4th, Suzan-Lori Parks, Pulitzer
prize winning playwright of Topdog/Underdog , came to speak in
the Bentley Theater of the Hopkins Center for the Arts. Come and see our
production of
Topdog/Underdog
October 25, 26, & 27
Directed by VOICES visiting artist Niegel Smith '02
Bentley Theater
October 25 & 26 at 8:00 pm
October 27 at 5:00 pm
This event is free and open to the public. For tickets, contact the Department
of Theater, 646-3104.
and 365 Days/ 365 Plays by Suzan-Lori Parks
Directed by VOICES visiting artist Niegel Smith '02
October 25 & 26 at 7:00 pm
October 27 at 4:00 pm
Locations around the Hopkins Center
The 365 National Festival
Hundreds of theaters have joined a grassroots premiere of the plays in
Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Colorado, Greater Texas, Los Angeles, Minnesota, New
York, Northeast, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Southeast, Universities
(365U), Washington DC Area and Western US. And the festival is growing every
day. To join go to www.365days365plays.com.
Produced by Bonnie Metzgar and Suzan-Lori Parks.
On November 13, 2002, Pulitzer-prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks got an idea to
write a play a day for a year. She began that very day, finishing one
year later. The resulting play cycle, called 365 Days/365Plays, is a
daily meditation on an artistic life. Some plays are very short, less
than a page. Others last forever.
The 365 National Festival invites every theater in the world to join a
grassroots premiere of this play cycle. Over 600 theaters are producing the
plays in Atlanta, Austin, Canada, Chicago, Colorado, Greater Texas, Los
Angeles, Minnesota, New York, Northeast, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle,
Southeast, Universities (365U), Washington DC Area, Western US and in
universities (365U). Produced by Bonnie Metzgar and Suzan-Lori Parks, the 365
Festival will be performed from November 13, 2006 through November 12,
2007.
Plays can be produced in traditional theater spaces or site-specific
locations. They can be staged readings or fully produced. Participating
theaters will each present seven plays, representing one week of this play
cycle, before then passing the cycle on to the next theater in a cultural relay
race that celebrates the community of theater artists around the world.
The Dartmouth College Department of Theater joins with the 365 Festival
to celebrate the widely diverse cross-section of over 50 theater companies and
universities who are participating in the Northeast component of 365.
Make Theater. Make History.
VOICES visiting artist Niegel Smith '02
NIEGEL SMITH is a freelance director and is the Artistic Leadership
Associate at The Public Theater in New York City. Whether in the median of a
busy highway or on the stage of a conventional theater, Niegel uses performance
to navigate the boundaries between spectator and participant in communal
experiences. With Todd Shalom, Niegel co-conceived and staged PROCESSION and
FALLOUT, mass rituals in public settings. His New York directing credits
include RAINY DAYS & MONDAYS, MAUD – THE MADNESS, ONE FOR THE ROAD, and
LIMBS: A PAGEANT. He is Associate Director to Bill T. Jones on the new
Concert/Musical FELA KUTI and has assisted directors Jo Bonney, George C.
Wolfe, Kristin Marting and James Lapine. Niegel has received grants and
fellowships from Theater Communications Group (through the NEA and Doris Duke
foundation), the Van Lier Fund, The Tucker Foundation, and Dartmouth College.
He has an A.B. in Theater from Dartmouth. He grew up in the North Carolina
piedmont, fishing with his dad, shopping with his mom and inventing tall-tale
fantasies with his two younger brothers.
New theater program to emphasize diversity and bring visiting artists
Dartmouth College Office of Public Affairs * Press Release
Posted 05/02/07 * Genevieve Haas * (603) 646-3661
The Dartmouth Department of Theater is developing a new program that will
produce an annual theater piece focusing on issues of particular relevance to
Dartmouth's minority communities. The annual program, Voices: The Dartmouth
Theater Visiting Artist Program, will bring to campus accomplished minority and
other theater artists to collaborate on a production. The first event,
sponsored and produced by the theater department, is tentatively scheduled for
the fall term in 2007.
Peter Hackett, chair of the theater department, said that at a February 2005
August Wilson tribute, both he and Dartmouth President James Wright were struck
by students' passionate desire to see more diverse voices represented in
Dartmouth's theatrical productions. "The arts are in a unique position to take
a leadership role in communicating via a collaborative, public art form," said
Hackett. With an annual funding commitment from the administration, Hackett
began to develop the program whose mission he describes as "presenting work of
particular relevance to Dartmouth's minority communities; attracting and
increasing the participation of members of Dartmouth's minority communities in
the activities of the Theater Department; expanding and enriching the
repertoire of Department offerings to regularly include significant theatrical
works by artists of color; bringing to Dartmouth distinguished theater artists,
including artists of color, to collaborate on these productions; and creating a
highly visible artistic initiative that recognizes the diversity at the center
of the Dartmouth community."
"A program like Voices is a way of putting into practice the ideals and
spirit of Dartmouth," said Provost Barry Scherr, whose office is funding the
program. "It provides a way for faculty and students to join with talented
artists from outside the institution in creating something new and meaningful
through theater."
Hackett, who is planning to convene the theater department in order to
select a multidisciplinary selection committee, explained that Voices is
deliberately amorphous. Beyond the basic requirement of inviting a visiting
artist to contribute to a theatrical production, Hackett said he left the
criteria and structure of the program flexible and open to allow for artists'
schedules and to make possible different kinds of theatrical projects and
collaborations that would not mesh with the more regimented performance
schedule in an academic setting.
The flexibility of Voices not only allows for non-academic production
schedules, but permits different kinds of artists, including playwrights,
actors and directors, to make a variety of contributions to the program.
Ideally, said Hackett, Dartmouth will develop a resource pool of talented
artists invested in the program, and possibly find itself able to commission
new works for the program.
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