Campus Stories - Theater & Performance
artsCatalyst Grants 2019-20
This past academic year, the Office of the Vice President for the Arts awarded 33 artsCatalyst Grants to faculty members from across the University. These grants foster arts experiences that enhance classroom experiences for undergraduate students. Activities included field trips to Bay Area cultural organizations, workshops with visiting artists, and attending performances. 2019-20 artsCatalyst Grant Recipients Why is Climate Change…
Student Arts Grants: A Year in Photos 2019-20
This year’s VPA Student Arts Grants supported a wide range of student-initiated collaborative projects across the Stanford campus. Projects ranged from photography, documentary and narrative film, zines, musical theater, dance, contemporary plays, and inviting renowned artists for exhibitions and artist talks serving the student community. Students and their project teams represented a wide range of…
Stanford Repertory Theater commemorates Juneteenth with livestreamed reading of Vincent Terrell Durham play
Stanford Repertory Theater (SRT) is one of three dozen theater companies co-presenting a Juneteenth reading of Vincent Terrell Durham’s play Polar Bears, Black Boys & Prairie Fringed Orchids. The reading will be livestreamed via Zoom at 7 p.m. PT on June 19 in recognition of Juneteenth, which commemorates the ending of slavery in the United States. Polar Bears,…
Honors in the Arts seniors present capstone projects to the public via video essays
This year’s cohort of 16 Stanford Honors in the Arts (HIA) students presented their capstone projects by way of publicly accessible video essays, fulfilling the final requirement for the year-long interdisciplinary program. The projects employ a wide range of artistic media and genres, including creative writing, studio art, film and theater. They also demonstrate the inspiration…
The Faculty Women’s Forum presented its Outstanding Leader Award to Jisha Menon
The Faculty Women’s Forum, which acts to enable women faculty members to thrive at Stanford, presented its inaugural awards – for outstanding leadership and outstanding sponsorship – to two faculty members on Monday at a virtual ceremony. The Faculty Women’s Forum presented its Outstanding Leader Award to Jisha Menon, an associate professor of theater and performance studies in…
COVID-19’s impact on Stanford arts events
Stanford University has been closely monitoring the rapidly evolving events surrounding COVID-19, also known as novel coronavirus. The university is working to take steps that inhibit, rather than accelerate, the ability of infection to spread. Events that bring participants to campus have been canceled or postponed. This includes a range of arts performances, public lectures,…
How two Stanford students turned mental health struggles into art
One night in the spring of 2017, geology PhD student Zack Burton’s graduate career was derailed after a series of delusions led him to the top of a campus parking garage, where he seriously considered hurting himself. PhD student Zack Burton and Elisa Hofmeister, ’18, are the creators of The Manic Monologues. (Image credit: Dr. Matthew Malkowski)…
Winter quarter 2020 guest artists
The roster of winter quarter guest artists includes talent from around the globe. Melbourne Australia’s Choir of Trinity College performs with the Stanford Chamber Chorale; Chinese dance legend and renowned choreographer Yang Liping presents her reimagined production of Rite of Spring to Memorial Auditorium; Maqueque, a collective of female artists from Cuba led by Canadian Jane Bunnett,…
Stanford Live presents a genre-bending musical performance exploring beauty and aesthetics in Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography
Marking 30 years since the death of groundbreaking photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, Triptych (Eyes of One on Another) explores the origins and impact of Mapplethorpe’s controversial photography. This staged musical work produced by ArKtype / Thomas O. Kriegsmann combines orchestra, vocal ensembles, theater, poetry, and photography to re-examine notions of obscenity, race, and aesthetics that Mapplethorpe himself challenged…
Stanford Repertory Theater and Planet Earth Arts tackle environmental and social justice issues
The final three performances of Anna Considers Mars, the story of a young woman who dreams of being chosen for a one-way journey to Mars, take place in the Nitery Theater this Saturday and Sunday, and The Guardians, about the indigenous community in Mexico that is the guardian of imperiled monarch butterflies, screens at Cubberley Auditorium on Monday. Both the play and…
artsCatalyst Grants 2018-19
This past academic year, the Office of the Vice President for the Arts awarded 27 artsCatalyst Grants to faculty members from across the University. These grants foster arts experiences that enhance classroom experiences for undergraduate students. Activities included field trips to Bay Area cultural organizations, workshops with visiting artists, and attending performances. 2018-19 artsCatalyst Grant Recipients Interpreting Art (ITALIC 92), Karla…
Two from Stanford named 2019 Great Immigrants by Carnegie Corporation
Carnegie Corporation of New York has released its annual July 4 list of Great Immigrants in a salute to 38 naturalized citizens who strengthen America’s economy, enrich our culture and communities and invigorate our democracy through their lives, their work and their examples. Among the honorees are President MARC TESSIER-LAVIGNE, a native of Canada, and YOUNG JEAN LEE,…
Student Arts Grants: A Year in Photos 2018-19
vvcThis year’s Student Arts Grants supported a wide range of projects across the Stanford campus. The projects covered many genres including contemporary plays, documentary and fiction film shorts, musical theater, zines, photography, sculpture, and more. Many of this year’s grantees utilized Roble Arts Gym as a rehearsal/work space as well as a venue for their exhibits and…
Ram’s Head brings The Addams Family, living, dead and undecided, to Stanford
From casting to set design, Stanford’s Ram’s Head Theatrical Society takes advantage of the diverse talent on campus to present their perennial spring musical. This year’s production is The Addams Family. The Addams Family musical takes the humorously macabre characters drawn by cartoonist Charles Addams and places them in an original story on stage. Wednesday Addams, a…
Stanford Live’s 2019-20 season will explore the intersection of art and politics
Stanford Live’s curators have put together a 2019-20 season of multidisciplinary events that intersect music and performance with politics. “A key role of the artist is to reflect a society back upon itself and that political context and content is a crucial part of this storytelling process,” says Chris Lorway, executive director of Stanford Live….
Young Jean Lee has been awarded the 2019 Windham-Campbell Prize in Drama
YOUNG JEAN LEE, associate professor of theater and performance studies in the School of Humanities and Sciences, has been awarded the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize in the category of drama. Administered by Yale University, the Windham-Campbell Prizes are awarded to eight international writers in the fields of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama. Winners will receive a $165,000 prize…

































