“The Next Storm” (November 15–23, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts) is a community-based play by the Cornell University Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA), Ithaca-based theatre company Civic Ensemble, and playwright Thomas Dunn. Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr., Civic Ensemble co–artistic director and PMA senior lecturer, directs this wry comedy.
Performing & Media Arts, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences
What would the Earth look like if we banded together to counter the destructive forces of climate change? Writers Aoise Stratford and Toby Ault bridge science and art in the multimedia experience “Virtual Landscapes,” which offers audiences the opportunity to contribute to the play-in-progress.
Animate grocery store items, a haunted 500-dollar bill, and the provocative case of actor Jussie Smollett are among the varied topics explored in this year’s 10-Minute Play Festival from the Cornell University Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA) and the Graduate Researchers in Media and Performing Arts (GRMPA). The annual festival, now in its seventh year, serves as a laboratory for the development of student-written plays and presents students with a range of opportunities in theater.
Rehearsing and training for “The Wolves” by Sarah DeLappe (September 26–28, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts) has been an exercise in stamina and endurance for Cornell University senior Sabrina Liu. “Being in ‘The Wolves’ has pushed me out of my comfort zone not only in terms of the way that I normally act and perform, but also in terms of what my body can do physically,” said Liu.
This summer, London’s famed National Theatre is staging Githa Sowerby's 1912 play Rutherford and Son, which is on the Theatre’s list of the top 100 plays of the 20th century. Prior to the play’s opening, the National Theatre invited J.
Nic Ceynowa feels lucky to live a dual life. In addition to his job as a DevOps Engineer for Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, he teaches and choreographs dance in the Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA).
Laws of nature versus man. Misogyny and elitism. Dissent as a crime. These themes and more are explored in Antigone by Sophocles, adapted by Cornell University Department of Performing and Media Arts professor David Feldshuh and recently produced at Baltimore Center Stage to sold-out audiences in March 2019.
Cornell Performing and Media Arts PhD candidate Caitlin Kane directs performances of “SPILL” April 26–May 4 in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts’ Flex Theatre.
In 1965, the Cambridge Union Society invited African-American novelist James Baldwin and William F. Buckley, then-editor of the National Review, to debate the question, “Has the American Dream been achieved at the expense of the American Negro?”
Considered the birthplace of Off-Off-Broadway—theatre that is more experimental and less commercial than mainstream staged productions—the Caffe Cino was a haven for budding playwrights and performers, as well as for the queer community, in New York’s Greenwich Village from 1958–1968. From April 18–20, 2019, “An Evening at the Caffe Cino” pays homage to the historic venue in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts’ Black Box Theatre.
Despite its name, Cornell University’s Centrally Isolated Film Festival isn’t so isolated anymore. Now in its sixth year, the annual celebration of cinema, hosted by the Department of Performing and Media Arts, continues to expand, with submissions from distant states such as California, Illinois, and Rhode Island.
The events of August 2017 brought worldwide attention to the issue of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar, who had long been persecuted and oppressed by the Burmese government and military. Despite the initial reaction to the violent displacement of over a million men, women, and children—as well as the deaths of thousands—global media outlets were slow to follow up on their first reports. With information about the genocide scarce and the call to action not nearly loud enough, it was cle
The winners of the Department of Performing & Media Arts’ Heermans-McCalmon undergraduate writing competition will be honored Friday, March 22, at 4:30 p.m. in the Class of ’56 Dance Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.
What would you do if you only had 100 days left to live? That’s the central question explored in the musical "Hundred Days"; Julia Dunetz '19 is associate producer and alumna Dana M. Lerner '14 is co-producer.
The first feature film of Department of Performing and Media Arts alumna Amanda Idoko ’10, "Breaking News in Yuba County," will be produced in mid-2019, starring Allison Janney and Laura Dern.
Since its 1906 debut, “The Awakening of Spring,” by German playwright Frank Wedekind, has often been criticized and sometimes banned for its controversial subject matter, including sexuality, violence, and mistrust between generations.
How many chances do we get to make a first impression? For Roland and Marianne, the two protagonists in Constellations by Nick Payne, the answer is infinite. In the play, running November 1–3 in the Black Box Theatre at Cornell’s Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, Payne proposes that life exists in a multiverse, in which countless parallel existences play out simultaneously, allowing for an infinity of possible futures.
The Women and Theatre Program presented Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA) professor J. Ellen Gainor with the Achievement in Scholarship Award at their annual conference in Boston on August 1.
Cornell Council for the Arts’ (CCA) 2018 Biennial kicks off Sept. 14–15 at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts with “A Meditation on Tongues,” conceived and directed by Ni’Ja Whitson, and performed by The NWA Project. The piece is a live-dance and multimedia adaptation of Marlon T. Riggs’ iconic film “Tongues Untied” (1989).
From selling candy to heroin: on April 25, the Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA) will hold a free screening of “Tony,” a new documentary telling the story of one man’s life. PMA Professor Bruce Levitt produced the film, with filming and editing by Peter Carroll. A talkback with Levitt, Carroll, and Tony will follow the screening, which is free and open to the public. The event will be at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, 430 College Avenue in Ithaca.
Cornell University senior Danielle LaGrua explores the limitations of traditional performance and the pressures of being a student in her dance concert "containment: defining boundaries, activating outbreak," which runs May 3–5 at Cornell’s Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.
Directed by Jayme Kilburn, a PhD student in Cornell University’s Department of Performing and Media Arts, “Mr. Burns, a post-electric play” runs at Cornell’s Kiplinger Theatre in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts April 27–28 and May 4–5.
Award-winning activist, artist, director, and scholar Rhodessa Jones brings her techniques of “Creative Survival” to Cornell’s Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts on March 20 and 22 for a public lecture and master class, respectively.
When Michael Barakiva, artistic director of Ithaca’s Hangar Theatre, decided to bring Charles Dickens’ classic novella A Christmas Carol to the stage, he turned to Aoise Stratford.
Scholars and artists will explore the interaction between history, theatre and performance during the Escape from the Archive Conference, Oct. 27-29 at the Schwartz Center. The conference, organized by doctoral students Caitlin Kane and Erin Stoneking from the Department of Performing and Media Arts, features lectures, performances and roundtable discussions on theatre, film, dance and opera.
J. Ellen Gainor, professor and director of undergraduate professor in Cornell’s Department of Performing and Media Arts, has won the Ellen Stewart Award for Career Achievement in Academic Theatre. The Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) presented the award at a ceremony in Las Vegas on August 3.
A racist caricature drawn on a freshman dorm room door is the catalyst that precipitates intense discussions and confrontations about race in “Baltimore.” The play by Kirsten Greenidge, which runs April 28 to May 6 at Cornell’s Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, references the riots in Ferguson, the Black Lives Matter movement and the deaths of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin,
Director Jeff Guyton can’t remember the first time he heard the saying, but believes it’s the perfect way to describe his upcoming production, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] (Feb. 25-March 5). “If you love Shakespeare, you will love this play. If you hate Shakespeare, you will love this play.”
