Campus Stories - Theater & Performance
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…
Groundbreaking theater technology in the making
When Stanford’s Ram’s Head Theatrical Society presented Les Misérables last year, it wasn’t just the telling of a tale of love and the power of the human spirit. It was a demonstration of ingenuity. Lighting designer MATT LATHROP ’16, developed a digitally operated remote control follow spot for the production. “Rather than using a typical…
Stanford performance reimagines Doug Engelbart’s historic computer demonstration in a new multimedia work
Stanford Live’s world premiere of The Demo on April 1 and 2 at Bing Concert Hall reflects on a pivotal moment in Silicon Valley’s history with one of its most influential figures. Douglas Engelbart’s egalitarian vision for how technology could expand human intelligence set the world on its head and, ultimately, led to many of…
What would you ask Tony Award-winning choreographer Bill T. Jones? Stanford students get their chance, twice
In a rare performance appearance, choreographer, dancer, director and writer Bill T. Jones will narrate 70 one-minute vignettes performed by his company dancers on Friday, Jan. 30, in Memorial Auditorium. Story/Time is a multidisciplinary work about family, lovers and others drawn from his life. “Bill T. Jones and his great company of dancers are one…
A Scene, A Song, A Number – Game On!
In this whirlwind of a weekend, small teams were given the challenge of creating a musical theater piece (one song, one scene, and one dance) – all over the course of only 72 hours! Three days of intense creative endeavor culminated in a live cabaret- style performance where teams presented the results of their hard…
Matthew Billman, “Bring Him Home”
Stanford+Connects is a 16-city world tour that brings the best of Stanford University to alumni around the world. Designed as a full afternoon of learning and connecting, attendees meet up with new “classmates” then head to the classroom for micro lectures and seminars taught by top Stanford faculty. Each event offers a broad program with…
Weston Gaylord, “Paper Chains: Cultivating Creativity”
Stanford+Connects is a 16-city world tour that brings the best of Stanford University to alumni around the world. Designed as a full afternoon of learning and connecting, attendees meet up with new “classmates” then head to the classroom for micro lectures and seminars taught by top Stanford faculty. Each event offers a broad program with…
British puppetry theater group Blind Summit teaches master class at Stanford
Speaking to members of the Stanford community at the Bing Concert Hall Studio, the celebrated Blind Summit Theatre group demonstrated its unique take on ancient Japanese Bunraku puppetry. At one point, three audience members tried their hand at puppeteering – each controlling a separate part of a single puppet’s body. This weekend, Blind Summit will…
Stanford Repertory Theater in the throes of a whale hunt and preparing for an alien invasion
Perhaps it was Orson Welles’ fascination with magic as a youth that inspired him to turn a 200,000-word novel into a 90-minute play. The trick worked. His Moby Dick – Rehearsed invokes the sea, the great white whale and the infectious mania of Captain Ahab with just a few props, some scaffolding and a remarkable…
Inspiring Stanford humanities majors to consider business careers
On a recent summer morning, a lecture hall at Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) was filled with students from around the world who were ready to analyze the fall – and subsequent resurrection – of an American kidney dialysis company. To prepare for the lecture, titled “A Deep Dive into Company Culture,” the students…
