Few Winter Term traditions enjoy as much student and community popularity as the J-term musical, started a decade ago by Town Hall Theatre (THT) Executive Director Doug Anderson and Department of Music faculty Carol Christensen. In celebration of its tenth anniversary season, Director Anderson and Music ...
In a society dominated by technology, it is oftentimes difficult to distinguish between what is possible and what is necessary. Critically-acclaimed monologist Mike Daisey brought this complicated question to the forefront of the audience’s minds in Faster Better Social, a 75-minute performance on ...
There are few better or more interesting ways of dealing with Harold Pinter’s work than handing it over to a group of improv comedians. The complexity and confusion of language, the situational farce, the importance of timing and the general feeling of burgeoning absurdity that come inevitably attached ...
J-term is generally recognized as a time for intensive academic exploration of typically non-traditional subjects, and the unique format of the four-week semester allows for a variety of options not present during a full semester. This year, Isaac Baker ’14.5 is spending his last J-term leading a ...
Who doesn’t love dragons? (Well, apart from Bilbo Baggins.) Naomi Novik’s rich and exciting Temeraire series is, at first, a basic concept. She writes about the Napoleonic Wars, but with dragons. Out of this simple premise Novik creates a complex, suspenseful and interesting world to explore. Although ...
“On Tuesday, January 13, about 45 people gathered in front of Mead Chapel for a ‘rejection rally’ against the Keystone XL pipeline, joining over 130 rejection rallies nationwide. Encouraged by 350.org and 350 Massachusetts, rallies took place all across the country in the wake of Nebraska’s ...
I’ve experienced my share of existential crises in my life, not surprisingly. But rarely have I had to confront questions of my own physical and mental existence. This is my body, and I’m inhabiting it. My mind controls my body, my consciousness is a part of my mind. Thus, I, my mind and my body ...
I look around me and so much of what I see is divided into separate categories like academic and extracurricular, useful and useless, justice and injustice, natural and artificial, rational and irrational, mind and body. These kinds of binaries can be useful as a way of understanding what is or is not, ...
During a recent survey, an overwhelming percentage of students said they wanted to see more storytelling events like TEDx, Moth and Cocoon. This Friday, Jan. 16 and Saturday, Jan. 17 in Wright Memorial Theatre at 8 p.m., students will have that opportunity. Mike Daisey is a monologist who demands ...
In an era when artists – especially young artists – are increasingly dependent on the success of formulaic three-and-a-half minute singles to spark their careers, and the tops of the popular music charts are filled with musicians like Taylor Swift who make carefully crafted business choices that ...
Visual art does not produce the kind of recognizable, household names typical of the performing arts - unless, of course, one is referring to Andy Warhol, the late 20th century icon whose often emotionless depictions of popular culture quickly gained him a definitive place among his subjects. This month, ...
On Nov. 20 to 22, the Theatre Department presented its second faculty production of the semester, Englishman Snoo Wilson’s 1973 play, Vampire, in the Seeler Studio Theater. Vampire is a play about ... well, no one really knows. And indeed, after an hour and a half of brash sexual exploration, one ...
The terms “suicide” and “comedy” generally do not go well together, but Protocol, an entirely student-produced play that ran in the Hepburn Zoo from Nov. 20-22, managed to merge these two themes beautifully. As the audience followed the complicated lives of a group of twenty-something-year-old ...
The 2014 Fall Dance Concert on Friday, Nov. 21 in the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts Dance Theatre was well worth an hour of my Friday night. Featuring works by senior dance majors Doug LeCours ’15, Afi Yellow-Duke ’15, Stevie Durocher ’15.5, Sarae Snyder ’15 and Artist-in-Residence ...
If you ask a student what they are doing at 8 p.m. on a Friday night, you’d probably expect to hear about parties and relaxing after a tough week of classes. However, if there is ever a reason to mix up your weekend festivities, this is it. On the weekend before exams, take a few hours for the ...
Director Bennett Miller’s third narrative feature, Foxcatcher (2014), employs a similar formula to his previous two, Capote (2005) and Moneyball (2011), which explore a real-life story about a powerful American man attempting to innovate in his field. In this case, Bennett chooses the story of John ...
Margaret George does not shy away from historical giants. The Elizabethan period was rich with these giants in politics, literature, philosophy and science. George tackles them all, exploring Raleigh, Shakespeare, Drake, Bacon and more through the eyes of Queen Elizabeth I and her cousin, Lettice Knollys. This ...
The student production A Small, Good Thing, which ran from Nov. 13-15 in the Hepburn Zoo, grappled with topics of death, sorrow and despair as based on Raymond Carver’s 1989 short story of the same name. A piece of devised theater, the play was built from the evolving visions of the four-person cast, ...
On Saturday, Nov. 15 in Wilson Hall, the Middlebury International Students’ Organization (ISO) brought a splash of cultural celebration to campus with their annual cultural show, this year titled “Crossing Borders.” Students often hear about Middlebury’s “international focus,” and the ISO ...
One week ago, I saw the Tony-nominated Broadway production of John Steinbeck’s American classic Of Mice and Men - in Middlebury. Due to technological advancements and a recent partnership between major performance companies and theaters around the world, the financial and geographic barriers to experiencing ...