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As we’ve recently discussed in the pages of this very publication, the college campus in the summertime is not the ghost town of old. However, it remains true that arts offerings in the warm months are fewer and further between than during the regular school year. Now that it’s September, though, the drought is over, and our local institutions of higher learning are preparing their full slates of fall programming. We thought we’d check in with the folks that put on the shows to see what they’re most excited about, in order to help you mark your calendar in advance.
At the University of Minnesota-Duluth’s School of Fine Arts, Sherise Morgan, the Associate Administrator and Marketing Director of their Departments of Theatre and Music, is perhaps most thrilled about a show called The Foreigner, something Morgan calls “the funniest show ever.” New York-based director Michael Perreca will return to guest-direct after successfully helming Bus Stop at UMD in 2008, something that Morgan says was “a wonderful experience for our students. He’s so well-organized and very clear on his vision.” It opens October 20.
Another notable show is Target Behavior, a world-premiere written by UMD student Caity Shea Violette and directed by Tom Isbell. “There was a tremendous amount” of support and enthusiasm for the play, Sherise Morgan says. Be there for the first public performance on December 1.
In addition to their theatre offerings, UMD is also honoring the 10th anniversary of their Weber Music Hall on October 13th with a big night of performances (the lineup was not confirmed at press time – see d.umn.edu/finearts for more), the school’s Tweed Museum is continuing to display their collection of rock and roll posters, Glensheen Mansion continues to add events, and there are a lot of unique musical artists demonstrating their talents in the music department on a constant basis.
Over at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, Music Department chair Beth Gilbert is more than happy to promote her school’s fall offerings.
“I would highlight the Tri-State Band and Jazz Band festivals in October, which draw hundreds of high school students to UWS for an exciting day of making music together under guest clinicians, culminating in evening concerts,” she says.
Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello is UW-Superior’s only fall offering in theatre. Cathy Fank, Associate Director of Theatre at the school, says “Six Characters is probably one the best and most well-known absurdist plays, but it isn’t so out there that it is hard to engage with the characters. Wonderful play.” The show opens November 10th.
Merry Renn Vaughan is Director of Theatre and Chair of the Communication, Theatre, and Art department at The College of St. Scholastica. “This fall we have two exciting things happening at CSS Theatre,” she says, “the return of our student-directed show, and Arthur Miller’s penultimate play.”
Miller’s Resurrection Blues starts October 21st, and features some community members as well as CSS students. “The show will be directed by Tony Barrett and, as near as I can tell, it is only the fourth time the play has been performed in the US,” Vaughan says. ‘Miller never quite viewed the play as complete, and [he] worked and rewrote the script multiple times, right up until his death. The rights to perform the play are held by the Miller estate, and it took about ten months to get the approval to do the show.”
The student-directed show is Some Girl(s) by the ever-popular Neil LaBute, and it opens in December. And, like UMD and UWS, St. Scholastica has a huge array of music, fine art, and dance performances to take in all fall long.
As usual, our local colleges have stepped up their games yet again, bringing a full fall smorgasbord to fruition, a feast so vast that there is hardly enough room in the pages of this magazine to even scratch the surface of sufficiently promoting them all. Your best bet is to let this article serve as an appetite-whetter, and then you should take that appetite to the schools’ respective websites, where comprehensive information on every single event is just a click away.
Tony Bennett is a Duluth-based writer.
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