It takes a certain kind of vulnerability to create powerful theatre. From April 9-11, the stars of the student-produced version of David Ives’ 2010 play Venus in Fur put their acting skills on fearless, intimate display in a 90-minute showing at the Hepburn Zoo. Featuring actors Caitlin Duffy ’15.5 ...
One of many exciting productions featured at the Town Hall Theater this April, The Last Five Years directed by Doug Anderson, proved to be a compelling rendition of Jason Robert Brown’s popular 2001 musical. Starring Mike McCann ’15 – who initiated this production as part of his senior thesis ...
Dejima and everything it stood for is at the heart of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. This novel by David Mitchell, best known for writing Cloud Atlas, is set at the turn of the 19th century, in a secluded and suspicious Japan. Dejima, a small, man-made island in the bay of Nagasaki that functioned ...
You are dropped suddenly into a strange Tim Burton-style world with nothing but empty pockets and one objective: survive. Welcome to Don’t Starve. Don’t Starve is a survival horror game that was released in 2013 by Klei Entertainment. The goal of the game is given in the title, and also includes ...
On Thursday, April 2, the Nile Project’s four-day residency at the College culminated in an engaging, energetic and participatory concert extravaganza that combined education and performance to increase interest in the issues facing the Nile River Basin. Conceived in 2011 by Egyptian ethnomusicologist ...
What happens when fur coats, dangerously high heels and babushka headscarves clash with the otherworldly elements of ancient fairytales? This past weekend, the Seeler Studio Theatre of the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts was transformed into a fantastical fusion between modern Russian reality ...
As this column has emphasized before, global environmental and climate trends will hinge on the emissions of the developing world. Just this month, China’s largest oil refiner, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), has indicated to the world that China may reach peak oil and gasoline ...
There are some names that, when you hear them spoken, just seem to to be made for music. They have a memorable ring that keeps them floating around in your head until you hear it spoken again. The trick for any artist is crafting songs that are equally as memorable as their name. For me, one of the ...
Young river birches line McCardell Bicentennial Hall’s Walk of Science, which leads up to one of the building’s second floor entrances. Of the ten famous scientists whose names are engraved into the path’s black tiles, conspicuously, only one – Marie Curie – is female. The Walk of Science ...
This weekend offers the gamut of classical indulgence, from the sublime brilliance of world-renowned pianist Dubravka Tomsic to the aural majesty of Middlebury’s own student orchestra to a comprehensive lecture by Professor Paul Nelson on the entire 95-year history of the Performing Arts Series. Come ...
For over a decade, the College has annually celebrated Irish music and dance in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. This year saw a continuation of this tradition with some notable changes. Affiliate Artists Timothy Cummings, Pete Sutherland and Dominique Dodge joined with alumnus Caleb Elder ’04 and ...
Nobel Laureate Carol Greider gave a lecture last week on how she helped solve one of molecular biology’s fundamental mysteries: why are germ cell lines immortal? In the 1960s, biologist Leonard Hayflick noticed that adult human cells in a Petri dish can only divide 40 to 60 times until they stop ...
Over the past couple weeks, the brutal conditions of the slowly receding winter have caused leaks to occur at the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts (MCA), which has played an integral role on campus since its construction in 1992. The affected area is located above the Middlebury College Museum ...
A musical collaborative of East African artists drawn from eleven countries touching the world’s longest river will visit the College Mar. 30 through Apr. 3. The Nile Project uses music to raise awareness for the Nile Basin’s sustainability challenges. During four days of residency activities including ...
It opens with a view of sand. Dark tan and flashing in the sun’s rays — this is clearly the desert. The camera pulls up and shows heatwaves emanating from the sparkling sand, and behind a hill the large sun beats down on the land. The yellow sky is striped with clouds. The camera then pans over ...
Joel Potrykus’ Buzzard is a comedy about the kind of adults who have toy lightsaber battles in their parents’ basements, and it is surely the most unsettling movie ever made to feature such a scene. Its hero is a man named Marty who appreciates the comforts of frozen-pizza sandwiches stuffed with ...
Myriad voices filled the lofty ceilings of the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts (MCA) Concert Hall this past Saturday, as the College’s annual “Songs and Arias” performance began. Seven vocal students sang in the event, performing a mix of solo songs and duets. The show started about ...
A few days before Sola was to be performed at the Middlebury College Dance Theatre this past weekend, I received an email from the box office stating that the Friday night show would be an abbreviated version of the full concert. I wondered what their apology was really for — and considered that if ...
This Saturday, two French/Catalan sisters, a Swede and a Scot cross the puddle to give the College one of the most vibrant and impassioned quartet performances of the millennia. The Elias String Quarter has risen like a meteor through the chamber music universe and into our own Performing Arts Series. Too ...
I did not realize the brilliance of Neil Gaiman’s writing until, attempting to recommend his novel Neverwhere to a friend, I realized what a difficult time I had describing the plot. This was not because the book was difficult to understand or fractured into excess subplots; to the contrary, it is ...