As the weather gets increasingly cold and wet, our students and alumni are working up a sweat with all the work being created. Check out the fantastic productions that are opening in the near future - you're not going to want to miss them!
In this issue:
Up Next: Fucking A
Coming Soon: The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G
New Faculty Spotlight: Bridget Connors
UTS Presents: The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abriged) [Revised]
Alumni News
This week we open Suzan-Lori Parks’ challenging and powerful piece, Fucking A.
Parks’ otherworldly adaptation of The Scarlet Letter reimagines Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tragic tale of an exiled adulteress. Hester Smith—branded A for Abortionist—plies her trade in order to regain a life she’s lost. D.C. Theatre Scenecalled the play “mythically powerful.” Parks’ is a master of harnessing language and music in a way that lets her stories land in the deep parts of your brain, and that talent is on full display here.
This play feels so tuned to this particular moment in time. It’s about the rawness and danger that we may perceive to be sitting on the margins of our society, but that could flare up and seep into our daily lives at any moment. Malika says, “it’s an American story—Suzan-Lori has written the DNA of America into Fucking A.”
Many of you are probably familiar with Malika’s work, either from here at UW, or out in the community. You might have seen her production of BOOTYCANDY last year at Intiman, which City Arts Magazine called “seamless and fearless.”
Visit drama.uw.edu for more information and to purchase tickets.
School of Drama undergraduates have been teaming up with Intiman Theatre Casting Director Ali el-Gasseir to bring the crazy world of The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G to life!
When playwright Qui Nguyen refuses to finish his "Gook Story Trilogy," his main character kidnaps him and force him to pen the story he's been avoiding for ten years, in this hysterical meta-theatrical ride filled with racist puppets, ninjas, and one very angry David Henry Hwang.
This is director Ali el-Gasseir's second production with the School of Drama, after directing Walk Across America for Mother Earth in collaboration with the Washington Ensemble Theatre last February. “The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G is a messy, goofy, intersectionally dynamic, and hilarious play about the ownership of truth,” says el-Gassier. “Through a bad ass prismatic lens of Jackie Chan, Wu Tang Clan, and Tarantino, Qui Nguyen's deconstruction of genre, race, and gender politics is the ultra-timely play we need.”
Visit drama.uw.edu for more information and to purchase tickets.
We are so excited to have welcomed new faculty member Bridget Connors into our School of Drama family this year. Bridget joins us as a Senior Lecturer in Voice and Dialect, after having been the head of Voice and Movement at Point Park University in Pittsburgh for over ten years. Last week I sat down with Bridget to learn a little bit more about our new addition!
- Bobbin Ramsey, Editor and Constituent Relations Officer
Hi Bridget, can you tell me a little bit about how you came to the UW?
Before coming to the University of Washington I was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I taught at Point Park University for ten years. As Head of the Voice and Movement Program I taught voice, speech, dialects, language and acting. I have always admired the program here at the University of Washington and its outstanding reputation. When I became aware that my friend Judy Shahn was going to retire, leaving an opening at the UW School of Drama, I believed the position as voice teacher would be a good match for my personal and professional life and my teaching career. I was ready for a new chapter in my life, helping me to grow both as a teacher and as an actor. I was excited by the prospect of teaching graduate students again in an exceptional program, supported by a talented and inspiring faculty within the backdrop of a Research 1 institution. I am thrilled to be here.
What got...
Read more
On Thursday December 1st the Undergraduate Theater Society opens their second show of the season The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] by Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield. Directed by BA student Aaron Jin,this fast-paced, slap-stick comedy takes the audience through all 37 of Shakespeare's plays with incredible comedy and physical exertion!
In a world of dry, vomitless academia, how do we turn The Complete Works of William Shakespeare into something fun? In December 2016, three actors come together to accomplish the colossal task of giving you all 1280 pages of Shakespeare’s genius works in 90 minutes of unadulterated fun, and it looks like Titus Andronicus as a cooking show, Hamlet done three times faster and backwards, and a night of bad wigs, props in the air, men in tights, and more! Join these three preeminent Shakespearean scholars on a wild ride of piteous misadventures through the works of the bard. If you love Shakespeare, this play is for you; if you hate Shakespeare, this play is made for you.
The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abriged) [Revised] runs Dec. 1-11 with performances on Wednesday through Sunday at 7:30pm in the Cabaret Theater at Hutchinson Hall. Tickets and Info.
Ben Gonio (PATP '05) will be appearing in Season 3 of TNT's original series "The Librarians".
Lenne Klingaman (PATP '07) will be acting in Fingersmith at American Repertory Theatre, directed by OSF Artistic Director Bill Rauch. The production opens December 4th and runs through January 8th.
Tlaloc Rivas (MFA '99) directed a production of Abigail/1702 by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre to critical acclaim.
Claire Fort (PATP '16) performs in A Christmas Carol at the New Ohio Theatre in New York City. This non-traditional take on the classic runs December 21-31
Yesenia Iglesias (PATP '14) will be appearing in A Christmas Carol at the Fords Theatre in Washington D.C. from November 17th-December 31st.
Christian Telesmar (PATP '14) will be acting in the West Coast premier of Leah Nanako Winkler's ...
Read more