Campus Stories - Theater & Performance
A decidedly Stanford take on Leonard Bernstein
The Department of Music and the student-run troupe Stanford Savoyards are combining forces to present a LEONARD BERNSTEIN double feature in Dinkelspiel Auditorium: the satiric operetta Candide and the opera Trouble in Tahiti. Bernstein’s Candide, drawing inspiration from Voltaire’s novella that blends comedy, tragedy and farce, has been transposed to the Farm, using projections of images drawn from the…
Stanford Library Blog: Opern-Typen: opera meets the comics
Opern-Tÿpen consists of six volumes of chromolithographic plates depicting scenes from 54 operas popular in 19th century Germany. Each opera plot has been distilled into a mere six frames, with liberally adapted accompanying text. The visual charms of Opern-Typen are evident. The plates reveal a sophisticated understanding of the effective use of line, gesture, and composition…
Happy 2016!
With the opening of the McMurtry Building, the new home for the Department of Art & Art History, we reached a milestone in the university’s ongoing commitment to building programs, curricula, and resources in the arts. The new building provides an architecturally exciting and inspiring home for the department, allowing it to expand its programmatic…
Artistic works influence our minds and nervous systems, Stanford scholar reveals
No two disciplines could seem further apart than theater and science, but, as it turns out, they’re intimate bedfellows. As Stanford professor Matthew W. Smith has discovered, modern theater – and, by extension, film and television – basically owe their life to the scientific study of the nervous system. An associate professor of German studies…
Anna Deavere Smith talks about the healing power of stories
On Oct. 28, hundreds gathered at Memorial Auditorium for a night of storytelling and conversation with former Stanford faculty member Anna Deavere Smith, an award-winning pioneer in the field of documentary theater. Smith is best known for her one-woman, multi-character performances, which depict people reflecting on moments of intense catastrophe. Her plays range in dramatic…
Dry-5: Stories from the California Drought
Two Stanford alums and an undergraduate walk into a bar… Actually, they aren’t in a bar; they are on stage putting on a show about the California drought. So no drinks, but there is plenty of talk of being parched. The alumnae are MARI AMEND and DORIA CHARLSON, both of the Class of ’13, who…
From Stanford’s Braun Music Hall to the Big Apple
“Surreal and wonderful” is how Stanford alumnus LOUIS LAGALANTE described presenting the opening number from his original musical Mirror Image at the New York Musical Theater Festival this summer. Mirror Image, with music and lyrics by Lagalante, premiered at Stanford in March 2015 as Lagalante’s senior capstone project in music composition. The story follows three…
Stanford Repertory Theater presents the wide range of Noël Coward
Rush Rehm, theater professor and artistic director of Stanford Repertory Theater, admits to being something of a Noël Coward neophyte before organizing this summer’s SRT festival, Noël Coward: Art, Style, and Decadence. In Rehm’s thorough reading, listening and seeing all things Coward to prepare for the festival, he discovered to his great delight and amazement…
Spark! Grants: A Year in Photos 2014-15
From a rock band record release to Steve Reich, from Much Ado About Nothing to original, student-written musical theater, this year’s Spark! grant supported creative diversity across Stanford campus. These student groups, individuals, undergraduates, and graduates enliven the campus with their artistic endeavors. 2014-2015 Projects: SImps Workshops The Long Way Around The Benevolent Institution Proof…
Congratulations 2014-15 graduates!
Go forward and remember the words of your Baccalaureate speaker and civil rights leader Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. who said that the world was calling out for you to realize your talents – not just for your own gain – but also to lift up those in whose shoes, but for the grace of God,…
Eva Perón, icon and spirit, is reimagined on the Stanford stage
Stanford junior Sammi Cannold is a great admirer of fem-icon Eva Perón, Argentina’s first lady from 1946 until her death in 1952. It all started with Evita. After seeing the 2012 Broadway revival in New York several times during her senior year of high school (it was at the top of her gift wish list…
Stanford Repertory Theater explores the ethics of science with Brecht’s Life of Galileo
German playwright Bertolt Brecht is considered to be one of the most influential figures in 20th-century theatre. Like so many of Brecht’s plays, the themes in Life of Galileo resonate decades after it was written. The story centers on the great Italian scientist and natural philosopher Galileo Galilei, during the period when the Roman Catholic…
Unexpected intersections
Far-flung collaborations flourish at Stanford: Physicists create dance performances, biologists and musicians expand our understanding of epilepsy, and engineers speed environmental research. This interdisciplinary environment springs from having strong science and humanities departments adjacent to a thriving arts district and is aided by research institutes that cross school and department lines. These collaborations blur traditional…
Stanford Live expands its mission with 2015-16 season
“The Arts and Social Change” and “War: Return and Recovery” are the two key themes at the core of Stanford Live’s 2015-16 season. The program will offer a full spectrum of classical, contemporary and multimedia performances, as well as talks, panels and seminars that build on the intellectual depth and breadth of this past season’s…
Choices!
It’s May at Stanford and that of course means – an exciting smorgasbord of arts activities. Every weekend is packed with an abundance of arts options. Make some difficult choices – or attend them all! Here is just a sampling of what each weekend brings: May 1-3: Musical Happy Hour with Fleet Street and Chanticleer…
Students draw parallels between civil rights movement in the 1960s and today in “Hairspray”
Stanford’s oldest and largest theatrical organization, the Ram’s Head Theatrical Society, explores civil rights and today’s world in its upcoming Hairspray production. Hairspray will take the spotlight in Memorial Auditorium for five performances: April 10–11 and 16–18. The theatrical society sets the scene for the production: Tracy Turnblad is a high school student in 1962…
