Summer is hardly only for relaxing. Many of our students, graduates, faculty, and staff are working on exciting projects outside the School of Drama this summer.
Karen Hartman (Sr. Artist in Residence) and Josh Beerman (office assistant) are both members of the Seattle Rep Writers Group. Their plays will receive full readings as part of the 4th Annual Writers Group Showcase. Catch Karen's play Roz and Ray on Sunday, June 14 and Josh's play Mosquito on Saturday, June 20.
Cathy Madden (Principal Lecturer) begins rehearsals for The Withing Project, which will premiere at the Hughes Penthouse in November. She will also teach The Alexander Technique in Japan and Friday Harbor, WA, as well as present at the International Congress of the Alexander Technique in Limerick, Ireland in August.
Thorn Michaels (MFA Design '16) does the lighting design for Civic Rep's The Two Character Play by Tennessee Williams, after which she'll observe Duane Schuler, lighting designer for Nabucco at Seattle Opera.
Many members of the School of Drama family are involved in Civic Rep's The Two Character Play. L. Zane Jones (Associate Professor) directs, Sam Read (External Relations Director) stars, and Andy Swan (BA '15) will sound design.
Scott Magelssen (Associate Professor) will spend part of his summer researching a reconstructed Viking ship that was built in 1893 in Norway and sailed across the Atlantic for the Chicago World’s Fair. The Fair commemorated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” of America, but the Viking ship project told the story of Leif Ericksson’s landing in North America nearly 500 years earlier than that. Scott will visit archives in Decorah, Iowa and Northfield, Minnesota.
Christopher Goodson (PhD student) will be in attendance at the annual Latino Theater Commons in Chicago representing the UW School of Drama and doing research on his upcoming dissertation. Chris will also be traveling to Los Angeles in order to conduct interviews with a number of experimental theater artists who are on the forefront of theater for social change.
Judy Shahn (Senior Lecturer) will lead the 4th annual Linklater Voice Intensive at the UW in June, along with Kimberly White. She will also attend the annual Voice and Speech Trainer’s Association conference in Montreal and play a role in Andrew Tsao’s film.
Mark Jenkins (Professor) will be involved with a workshop of his play, Red Earth, Gold Gate, Shadow Sky, directed by Victor Pappas. Two showings for invited audiences will happen July 25 and 26 at The Jones Playhouse. Grace (Ai) Nguyen (undergrad), Tom Dang (BA), Ray Tagavilla (BA '01) will be in the cast.
Megan Brewer (undergrad) is the Casting Director for Bold Print Theatre Company, as well as the Production Management Intern for Seattle Shakespeare Company and the Production Apprentice for the Emerging Artists Program at the Intiman Theatre Festival.
Michael Joseph Hanley (BA '15) will direct Street Shakes for Bold Print Theatre Company and The Aliens for the Bathhouse Ensemble at Seattle Public Theatre.
Michael Monicatti (undergrad) will be studying Shakespeare as a Fulbright Summer Institute Scholar at Shakespeare's Globe in London.
Todd London (Executive Director and Professor) will be leading a three-day artist retreat called The Third Bohemia for 25 artists from different artistic disciplines at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis in late June and early July. He'll also be working on his next book with co-author, theatre/film director/actor Andre Gregory, which will be published by Farrar Straus Giroux.
Deb Trout (Associate Professor) designs for the new opera An American Dream, composed by Jack Perla, librettist Jessica Murphy Moo, and directed by Peter Kazaras. It opens for two nights in August at Seattle Opera. She also designs costumes for Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play, by Anne Washbrun and directed by John Langs, opening at ACT—A Contemporary Theatre in October. For this project, Deb explores the making of epic "Homeric" myth in a post-apocalyptic (post-electric) America.
Hazel Lozano (PATP '17) will be at Williamstown Theatre Festival this summer, working as an apprentice. You can support Hazel through IndieGoGo.
Jared Roberts (MFA Design '15) will be designing scenery for John Baxter is a Switch Hitter at Intiman Theatre Festival and for American Idiot at ArtsWest.
Playing the role of Alex in John Baxter is a Switch Hitter is Moises Castro (PATP '16).
Julia Welch (MFA Design '15) designed the scenery for Bootycandy at Intiman Theatre Festival and will go into tech after returning from a nine-week road trip in a beat up minivan.
Directing Bootycandy is Malika Oyetimein (MFA Directing '17).
Val Mayse (costumer specialist) will be designing and building costumes for UW Chamber Dance Company's performance in October. Val will also teach an advanced class for IATSE, focusing on the design and construction of rectangle shirts.
Leah Adcock-Starr (MFA Directing '15) is in pre-production for a new adaptation of Macbeth that she hopes to produce and direct for Seattle audiences in the fall of 2015, she continues development on a series of short short films inspired by Shakespeare's sonnets, and will spend excess amounts of time with her beloved and their cats: Pyramus and Thisbe. Also on the to do list; get a job and fund the revolution.
In July, Jyana S. Browne (PhD candidate) will present a paper on local folk puppetry in the context of a large-scale, international visual arts festival on Naoshima (a small island in the Seto Inland Sea) in Japan at the Association for Asian Performance. She also recently workshopped a chapter of her dissertation at a writing retreat organized by Japanese Arts & Globalizations (JAG) at UCLA's Lake Arrowhead Conference Center and has been working with students in her class on "Modern and Contemporary Japanese Theatre" to increase the number and quality of Wikipedia's articles on Japanese theatre artists. Visit the entries for Ai Nagai, Toshiki Okada, and Yōji Sakate to see examples of the students' work.
Jeffrey Fracé (Associate Professor) is playing the role of Jerry in Betrayal by Harold Pinter, at North Coast Rep. He will be directing Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor at Stonington Opera House, where he will also play the role of Master Page. That production also features recent UW BA grads Rachel Brun (BA '12) and Joey Shaw (BA '12), and is co-directed by Julia Sears (BA '12).
Aaron Jin (undergraduate) will be acting, singing, and dancing onstage with Village Theatre through their Kidstage Independent production of Catch Me If You Can and potentially their Village Originals program!