Theater and Dance Department News

On Monday night, September 12, Trisha Rae Stahl will host a watch party in Los Angeles to see her debut in a new TV series. She hopes a lot of people back here at IUP will be watching, too. Stahl, a 1998 IUP graduate, recently completed work on the first season of the drama series.

Open auditions for “We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between The Years 1884-1915,” a contemporary drama, will take place Tuesday, April 26, in the Studio Theater of Waller Hall.

IUP’s Theater-by-the-Grove and Music Theater will present its season finale, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” on April 14–17 and 20–23 at 8:00 p.m. and April 17 at 2:00 p.m. The hit musical will be presented on the Waller Hall Mainstage of the IUP Performing Arts Center.

From March 3–6, 2015, IUP Theater professor Rob Gretta taught a well-attended musical theater workshop as well as auditioned high students for possible recruitment at the Southeastern Theater Conference annual convention in Greensboro, N.C.

Michael Schwartz, assistant professor in the Theater and Dance Department, has written a chapter for the recently published book Play, Performance, and Identity: How Institutions Structure Ludic Spaces.

Rob Gretta, assistant professor in the Department of Theater and Dance, will direct an Equity-staged reading of the Katori Halls Broadway hit The Mountaintop as part of the Red Moon Theatre Festival in Jacksonville, Fla. on February 27, 2015.

Ashley Tait Weller (IUP 2007) was selected for the Emerging Leader Award for 2014 by the Pennsylvania State Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance.

Professor of Dance Holly Boda-Sutton and one of her former students presented “Labanotation: a Fun Tool for Incorporating Movement Into the Physical Education Class” to the Arts Education Collaborative by invitation after their presentation at the Arts Education Symposium in Harrisburg.

Marquez Andrews (IUP ’04 in Theater) was recently named the new corporate relations manager for New York’s legendary Public Theater.

Check out “American Horror Story” on Wednesday, November 6, and you’ll see IUP Theater alumna Jennifer Lynn Warren doing her own stunts as the character Borquita LaLaurie.

Theater and Dance Department professor Holly Boda-Sutton spoke about moving toward a teaching endorsement in dance for the state of Pennsylvania.

Theater-by-the-Grove will hold auditions for three productions this Fall: “The Optimist,” “The Brothers Karamazov,” and “A Christmas Carol,” all on the first night of classes in a unified audition.

Joshua Gallagher, senior Theater major, was awarded the O’Neill Design Fellowship at the 2013 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in Washington, D.C. for his set design for the play In Quietness.

Michael Schwartz, Theater and Dance, will publish a book on the representation of the Industrial Workers of the World on the American stage. It is scheduled for publication in early 2014.

Louder Than Words is a laugh-out-loud comedy telling the story of a kingdom where books have been banned and the world’s greatest authors from across time have been exiled to a far-away, barren land.

Associate professor of Dance Joan Van Dyke’s abstract for her paper, “‘The Red Shoes Project’: The Art of Empowerment through Ballet and Literature in the 21st Century,” was accepted to be presented in the MELUS conference on March 14–17, 2013.

Region 2 of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival awarded Theater major Lydia Gibson the National Playwriting Project award for “best performance in a concert reading” in January 2013. Maggie Glass was recognized for exceptional stage management service by Stage Directors and Choreographer’s Fellowship.

Theater majors Josh Gallagher and Morgan Chase were both awarded fellowships to attend the American College Theatre Festival at the Kennedy Center in April 2013.

Lyndsey Grove, an interdisciplinary Fine Arts-Dance Arts major, has been invited to present her creative work, "Dance It, Movie It, Learn It," at the Easter District Association of American Alliance of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance conference in Valley Forge in February. Grove is one of only two students who were selected to present.

Dance Professor Holly Boda Sutton continues to rack up the awards from the Pennsylvania State Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance.  Her latest recognition, The Ethel G. Encke Service Award, comes to Boda Sutton for her years of

Theater alumnus Brandon Burk (’02) is making news in Las Vegas with his upstart production of Sweeney Todd.

The Livingstone Project, a new work about David Livingstone, the celebrated Victorian abolitionist, missionary, and explorer of Africa, will come to life December 6–8, 2012, in Waller Hall, presented by Theater-by-the-Grove.

Obie-winning playwright Caridad Svich’s new play, Spark, will be given a reading Friday, November 9, 2012, at 8:00 p.m. in Waller Hall’s Studio Theater. Admission is free.

Guest playwright Anna Moench will offer a “talk-back” after the opening performance on Thursday night, November 1, 2012, of In Quietness at IUP’s Theater-by-the-Grove.

Shakespeare’s most popular comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, kicks off Footlight Players’ first ever theater-for-youth tour, with a limited engagement at IUP before touring to schools in central and western Pennsylvania. November 11–12, 2012.

Footlight Players has received an ArtWorks grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support their summer youth theater program in 2012–2013, and also a grant from the United Way to provide funding for four young people to attend Footlight at a deeply reduced cost.

Obie-winning playwright Carid Svich’s new play, Spark, will be read at IUP’s Studio Theater in Waller Hall on Friday, November 9, 2012, as part of a national play-reading to honor war veterans in time for Veterans Day and the national elections.

Theater alumnus Phil Keeling returns to IUP for Homecoming weekend, October 5, 2012, with a performance at the Kovalchick Complex of stand-up material that he's developed as an extension of his playwriting craft.

Trisha Rae Stahl (Theater ’98) made her debut in the season opener of Fox Networks’ Glee on Thursday, September 13, 2012. She will appear in a recurring role.

At the 2012 Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference in Washington, D.C., Michael Schwartz, Department of Theater and Dance, participated in a roundtable discussion panel entitled “The Most Fabulous Producers: A Re-evaluation of Producers’ Innovations and Achievements in American Theatre.”

The Acorn Honors project at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will present “Bent,” a play about members of the LGBT community living through the Holocaust.

Richard Kemp, Department of Theater and Dance, received an award from the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education for his project, “Feasibility Study for the Incorporation of Video Technology in Content and Delivery of Theater and Arts Administration Courses at IUP and SRU.”

IUP Theater majors bring you a production of Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? in the Studio Theater at Waller Hall on June 1–3, 2012, with a “brownbag lunch” preview on May 31 at noon.

IUP’s Theater-by-the-Grove will be holding auditions for all interested students for both of our Fall 2012 productions during the week of April 29 through May 3.

Clowns Dave and Cherie shared skills-building techniques with Musical Theater major Matt Spencer in a session on the art of clowning in a visit ahead of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus shows at Kovalchik Complex.

Holly Boda-Sutton received the 2012 Honor Award from the Eastern District Association of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance at the annual convention on March 15, 2012.

RWS and Associates, a New York-based live entertainment producer, will hold auditions at IUP for singers, dancers, actors, and musicians on February 13, 2012, by appointment only.

Professor Barb Blackledge, former chair of the Department of Theater and Dance at IUP, was awarded a prestigious 2012 Gold Medallion Award at last week’s Region 2, Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) hosted by IUP.    Each year, the

The public is invited to see full productions of eight plays presented by eight universities, including IUP, January 11–16, 2012, as part of the annual Region Two American College Theater Festival, hosted by the IUP Department of Theater and Dance.

On September 30, 2011, Professor Joan Van Dyke, Department of Theater and Dance, attended “Making the Cultural Shift to Embodied Voices and Virtual Selves,” sponsored by Indiana University of Pennsylvania along with Clarion University women’s studies programs.

Auditions for three major TBTG productions will be held the evening of the first day of classes, Monday, August 29, in the Waller Hall Mainstage Theater. These auditions are open to all IUP students.

The new musical Discovering Eden will be performed August 4–6, 2011, at 8:00 p.m. on the Waller Hall Mainstage of the IUP Performing Arts Center, presented by Keystone Repertory Theater.

Keystone Repertory Theater presents Evil Dead: The Musical in the Studio Theater at Waller Hall, June 3 through 5 at 8:00 p.m. Attend summer theater at IUP without fear!

Michael Hood’s Combat for the Stage class will participate in a skills proficiency test at 1:00 p.m. on Friday, May 6, 2011, on the Waller Hall mainstage. Part one of the test is open to the public.

The Department of Theater and Dance proudly announces that Ms. Jeannie-Marie Brown will be the new professor of Musical Theater at IUP.

Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, opening April 14, 2011, on the Waller Hall Mainstage in the IUP Performing Arts Center, is the last show in the Theater-by-the-Grove’s season.

Theater and Dance faculty member Dr. C. Thomas Ault’s translation of Jean-Jaques Rousseau’s “On the Paris Opera 1760” was recently published in the Winter 2011 edition of Theatre Design & Technology.

To open the 2011–2012 season, Theater-by-the-Grove will produce Pittsburgh playwright Tammy Ryan’s play Lindsay’s Oyster under the direction of Jason Chimonides.

Audiences have been larger than usual for The Crucible. Tickets remain available for performances at 8:00 p.m. in Waller Hall of the IUP Performing Arts Center on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, February 24–26, 2011.

The IUP Dance Theater company will perform its “’50s Dance” piece from the repertory for the “Day of Dance for Health” on Saturday, February 26, 2011, at 10:00 a.m. in the Indiana Mall.

Five Department of Theater and Dance students were selected as Provost Scholars in December 2010.

Thirty-two students from IUP’s Department of Theater and Dance have been invited to present at the Region II Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in Baltimore, Md., January 11–15, 2011.

Brett Mack (Theater ’05) was cast as a central character in the independent film Knight to D7 in summer 2010.

The IUP Dance Theater Company held a master class for students at Marion Center High School on December 22, 2010.

Several Theater and Dance alumni, under the direction of Ryan Hetrick (IUP ’07), have created The Punxy Movie. The film will be entered in various film festivals.

Eight IUP students have won internal scholarships to attend three days of classes with Pig Iron Theatre of Philadelphia.

Michael Hood, dean of the College of Fine Arts, will offer a course in stage combat during the Spring semester for the Department of Theater and Dance.

The Pennsylvania State Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance honored IUP Professor Joan Van Dyke with the prestigious Dance Teacher of the Year award at the university level for 2010.

IUP senior Theater major Nick Hrutkay’s production of The Shape of Things concluded the "I Am An Artist" initiative on November 16-18, 2010.

Rick Kemp, Department of Theater and Dance, will present his paper, “Movement, Metaphor, and Meaning: Cognitive Principles in the Work of Jacques Lecoq,” at the national conference of the American Society for Theatre Research on November 18–21, 2010.

Barb Blackledge, professor of acting and directing in the IUP Department of Theater and Dance, is the lone actor in “The Lady with All the Answers,” running in November 2010 at the Electric Theatre Company in Scranton, Pa.

Thursday night, November 11, 2010, is the last performance of Pig Iron Theatre’s Chekhov Lizardbrain. This amazing show takes place at 8:00 p.m. in Waller Hall’s Theater-by-the-Grove.

Deborah Sorce of the Indiana Area School District chose the Department of Theater and Dance for an enrichment field trip on October 1, 2010.

IUP Theater majors Kelsey Peterson and Caleb Fiegles were featured in the public service commercial “You’re Going Out, So Are We.” The commercial is part of a media campaign by the Armstrong-Indiana Drug Free Communities Coalition.

IUP Theater professor Rick Kemp is starring in “faustUS” at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust from now through August 1, 2010.

Brian Jones, Department of Theater and Dance, will discuss the Footlight Players theater-for-youth program and its upcoming shows during an interview Tuesday, July 6, 2010, at 7:45 a.m. on WDAD-AM 1450.

Keystone Repertory Theater will produce two very different plays this summer related to old media (you know—newspapers!). Both will be performed in Waller Hall’s Studio Theater during the first Summer Session 2010 of classes at IUP.

Indiana’s theater-for-youth company, Footlight Players, still has twelve spots open for children and teens to register for the 2010 program that runs June 14 to July 12.

IUP Theater majors Nick Hrutkay and Hayley Faight presented the activity “How Light Are You on Your Feet?” for HeyDay, serving students at the Indiana Area Junior High School on Friday, May 7, 2010.

Professor of Theater and former chair of the department Barb Blackledge is “the lady with all the answers” at the Electric Theater Company in Scranton, where she performed in a one-woman show of the same name—a monodrama about Eppie Friedman, also known as advice columnist Ann Landers.

Department of Theater alumni Emily Ehlinger (’05) and Caitlin Simkovich (’06) will be two of eight actors portraying twenty-seven characters in BareShakespeare’s production of the Bard’s little-seen comedy All’s Well That Ends Well.

In summer 2010, associate professor of Dance Joan Van Dyke will travel to Athens, Greece, to present “Alignment for Character” for the Sixth International Festival of Making Theatre at the International Theatre of Changes.

Associate Professor of Theater Rick Kemp was awarded the IUP Distinguished Faculty Award in the Creative Arts in a special ceremony on March 28, 2010.

Theater major Nick Hrutkay traveled to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., this month as the Region II representative in directing for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

Theater major Jessica Sabol has been selected by the College of Fine Arts faculty to address the May 2010 IUP Commencement ceremony as speaker for the graduating class.

Assistant Professor Jason Chimonides has been selected for the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, June 15–July 6, 2010, in New York.

IUP’s Center For Teaching Excellence announced that Assistant Professor Jason Chimonides has been awarded a Teaching Excellence Award for his approach to the large course sections of Introduction to Theater.

Registrations are now being taken for Footlight Players’ popular Theater-for-Youth program beginning June 14, 2010, at Theater-by-the-Grove on IUP’s campus. All school-age children and teens are eligible for this fun summer program.

Erika Pealstrom came to IUP three years ago looking for a dynamic musical theater program that would give her creative and academic opportunities. This week, that dream becomes a reality when the Bob Fosse musical Sweet Charity opens on the Fisher Auditorium.

Due to weather conditions, the workshop and performance by the IUP Dance Theater at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History for February 6, 2010, was postponed and is now rescheduled for Saturday, February 20, 2010. The student dance ensemble will perform scenes from Out of the Deep, a work originated by choreographer Holly Boda-Sutton in collaboration with poet Rosaly Roffman and composer David Berlin.

The Carnegie Museum of Natural History has invited the IUP Dance Theater Company to perform scenes from Out of the Deep during its “Whale of a Day” event February 6.

Auditions for all three major spring productions for Theater-by-the-Grove will be held on Sunday, November 6, 2009, for the musical Sweet Charity, and on Monday, November 7, for the classic comedy The Servant of Two Masters and the contemporary drama Asylum. These auditions are open to all students at IUP.

Auditions for ten short plays scheduled for Saturday, October 24, 2009, will be conducted from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the Waller Studio Theater. Auditions are open to all IUP students.

The Theater-by-the-Grove season kicked of with a sold-out performance of The Importance of Being Earnest on October 1, 2009. Performances continue Wednesday, October 7, through Saturday, October 10, at 8:00 p.m. in Waller Hall.

Lighting the Cathedral of Learning and other work at the G-20 Summit is keeping two IUP Theater and Dance majors busy this week.

Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Theater and Dance will present “A Year with Frog and Toad,” a musical by Robert and Willie Beale, which runs October 16, 17, and 18, 2009.

IUP Theater and Dance faculty member Rick Kemp is performing in a production of faustUS at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater in Pittsburgh, September 8 through 12, 2009.

Footlight Players is celebrating its sixth birthday in Summer 2009 with two productions that put the familiar lyric “Come with me, and you’ll be, in a world of pure imagination!” into practice.

Footlight Players Theater-for-Youth will host a giant puppet parade at IUP’s Picnic in the Grove this Wednesday, July 1, 2009. The parade will feature the award-winning puppetry of Cheryl Capezzuti.

Barb Blackledge, Director of Production for the Department of Theater and Dance, has been invited to share her expertise at the national convention for the Association for Theatre in Higher Educaton (ATHE) in New York City from August 8-11, 2009.

Michael Hood’s adventurous production of Shakespeare’s MacBeth titled Macbeth 3 (for the three actors that play all the roles) has received praise from the Pittsburgh Tribune Review and the City Paper.

Footlight Players Theater-For-Youth begins its sixth summer enrichment program for young people in the greater Indiana community on Monday, June 15, 2009.

Rick Kemp from the Department of Theater and Dance has received an Innovation Award from the Academic Excellence and Innovation Award Committee at the IUP Research Institute.

On May 2, 2009, IUP Associate Professor of Dance Holly Boda-Sutton traveled to Boston to attend the Eastern District Association Conference of the American Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance as Pennsylvania’s representative.

Auditions for four IUP of the Department of Theater’s Fall 2009 productions are scheduled for Monday, April 20, 2009.

The Theater and Dance Department’s community outreach program, Footlight Players, has announced its summer plans for the community. Registrations are now being taken for the popular summer program that will begin on June 15 at Theater-by-the-Grove on IUP’s campus.

Dr. C. Thomas Ault will receive the Herbert D. Greggs Award at the annual conference of the U.S. Institute for Theater Technology for his article, “Color in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Italian Stage Design.”

Megan Miller, Grace Maberg, and Kate Smith are all winners in Philadelphia theater festival.

Violet Sharp performance is a hit at the festival!

Acclaimed production of Violet Sharp — open dress rehearsal January 11 at 8:00 p.m. in Fisher to public before heading to Philadelphia for an invited performance at the Region II Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival next week.

Professor of Dance Holly Boda-Sutton was awarded Dance Educator of the Year by the Pennsylvania State Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance at their Awards Luncheon in Pittsburgh on November 21.

Rob Gretta was invited to present a musical theater workshop at the sixtieth annual Southeastern Theatre Conference Convention in Birmingham in March 2009.

Caitlin Simkovich, an IUP theater alumna, is performing Juliet in Romeo and Juliet at the Manhattan Rep in New York City.

Department of Theater and Dance production of William Cameron’s new play, Violet Sharp, is one of only nine productions invited to KCACTF festival from a five-state region.

Theater majors Scott Fetterman and Jessica Sabol as well as theater professor Barb Blackledge earned  Certificates for Meritorious Achievement in from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for their work on Violet Sharp.

Professor Barb Blackledge is associate chair of the Irene Ryan Acting Competition at the Region II Festival of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

Professor Rick Kemp is performing in The Museum of Desire at the Frick Art and Historical Center in Pittsburgh, November 6 through 23.  Produced by Quantum Theatre, Kemp cocreated this production with an ensemble cast under the direction of Dan Jemmitt.

Professor Malcolm “Mal” Bowes passed away October 26. His life was celebrated with a funeral mass at St. Thomas More University Parish.

Kemp codirects Astro-rama with Pittsburgh’s Squonk Opera. Performed in October 2008, this newest rock-opera played to responsive audiences at Schenley Park.

Rick Kemp is performing in Quantum Theatre’s Museum of Desire November 6–23. This devised theater project, created by the company, involves theater, art, and music in a multidimensional experience.

The Department of Theater and Dance will present the 1953 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Picnic on November 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, and 15 at 7:00 p.m. and November 9 at 2:00 p.m.

IUP’s Dance Theater will present Babes in Toyland from Oct. 24–26 at the dance studio in Zink Hall.

Barb Blackledge has been offered a nine-month contract in the 2009–2010 company of the Electric Theatre Company in Scranton, Pa.

Rob Gretta is contracted as both a director and an actor for the 2009 season at the Post Playhouse, an Equity professional theater company in Fort Washington, Nebraska.

Professor Holly Boda-Sutton took the IUP Dance-Theater Company to Pittsburgh where they performed their new work “Furoshiki,” at the invitation of the 2008 Regional Arts and Technology Mini-Conference.

IUP's Dance Theater will present “Babes in Toyland” by Victor Herbert and Glen MacDonough and adapted by IUP dance faculty member Holly Boda-Sutton Oct. 24-26.

Barb Blackledge was invited to be a mentor at the ninth Leadership Development Institute in Denver, Colorado, presented by the Association for Theater in Higher Education.

Joan Van Dyke choreographed and staged Matko Srsen’s DARSA at the Dubrovnik International Festival this summer in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

C. Thomas Ault had his article “Color in 16th and 17th Century Italian Stage Design” published in the Summer 2008 edition of Theater Design and Technology.

Robert Gretta performed leading and supporting roles for Post Playhouse in Nebraska, which sold out its season for the first time ever.

Rick Kemp performed as numerous characters in Quantum Theatre’s production of Cymbaline by William Shakespeare.

Theater goers can expect a very exciting next season.

One of Professor Jason Chimonides’ plays will be published, while two others are now being presented to audiences.

Theater-by-the-Grove’s Acorn Project showcases the work of students in four productions this Spring.

Shakespeare’s historical masterpiece brilliantly balances the pomp of the royal court and the rowdiness of tavern life in this dramatic and often comedic adventure.

The music of Pink Floyd takes over this year’s spring dance performance, giving the audience a spectacle of motion, sound, and lights.

The brutish and sinister world of Mack the Knife haunts 1920s Germany and IUP’s Waller Theater in this joint production of the departments of Theater and Dance and Music.