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Work has begun in the Dartmouth Department of Theater
on a new program to produce an annual theater piece focusing on issues of
particular relevance to Dartmouth's minority communities. The 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 fall term 2007.
Peter
Hackett '75, chair and professor of theater, says 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 through a
collaborative, public art form," says 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," says Provost Barry
Scherr, whose office is providing funding. "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, explains that Voices is
deliberately amorphous. Beyond the basic requirement of inviting a visiting
artist to contribute to a theatrical production, Hackett says he left the
criteria and structure of the program flexible and open to allow for artists'
schedules and to make possible different kinds of projects and
collaborations.
The flexibility of Voices not only allows for nonacademic production
schedules, but permits different kinds of artists, including playwrights,
actors, and directors, to make a variety of contributions to the program.
Ideally, says Hackett, Dartmouth will develop a resource pool of talented
artists invested in the program and possibly find itself able to commission new
works.
By GENEVIEVE HAAS
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