For many people, theater is pure entertainment, the chance to experience some great acting or to enjoy the glitz of an extravagant production. But beneath the surface, there is another aspect to the art, one that Bruce A. Levitt and Beth F. Milles, professor and associate professor, respectively, in performing and media arts, address.
Along with creating and producing plays and other types of performances, they explore the meaning behind the bright lights: What is theater’s value to 21st-century society? In what way does it serve as a conduit for performers and audience members to explore their own humanity? And how does theater today respond to contemporary audiences steeped in the immediacy of smart phones and 10-minute YouTube videos?
Ryan Young/Cornell University
Campus Community Leadership Award winner Netra Shetty ’25 (center-left) poses with (from left) Marla Love, the Robert W. and Elizabeth C. Staley Dean of Students; Alec Brown, program manager of the Hunter R. Rawlings III Cornell Presidential Research Scholars Program; Monica Yant Kinney, interim vice president for university relations; Sarah Bartlett, volunteer and outreach manager at the Ithaca Free Clinic; and Taili Mugambee, lead program coordinator of Ultimate Reentry Opportunity, outside of Day Hall
