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Show Arts & Entertainment THE SIGNPOST Scenes worth reliving MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012 WSU choirs and dancers collaborate during NCUR By Lyndee McKay correspondent I The Signpost Kory Wood • The Signpost columnist We're almost done for the year! The birds are out and singing, the ice is slowly creeping off our windshields in the morning, and there are occasional blue patches which pop out between the gray, lake-effect-y clouds. And do you know what this sudden upswing in outside happiness means? That's right: staying inside and watching movies. I recently conducted an extremely scientific poll (which involved asking my Facebook friends and texting my relatives what they thought) in which I asked people what movie scenes they would most like to re-enact in real life. The results were fascinating .. . Actually, the results were pretty OK. Predictable, but still entertaining. The male answers seemed to fall into three groups: (1) scenes where food rains from the sky, (2) scenes where you get to make out with Jennifer Aniston, and (3) action scenes from Liam Neeson movies. And from women, the answers were mainly things like "that scene at the end of the Never Been Kissed," or "that scene at the end of Love, Actually," or "that scene before the end of Titanic." Now, I know these genderstereotyped answers are, you See Scenes page 8 SOURCE: ERIK STERN Students from the Weber State University Department of Performing Arts are gearing up for COIL, the Orchesis Dance Theater Spring Concert. Erik Stern, WSU Moving Company director, said one aspect makes this performance different and unique: collaboration. More than 50 collaborators from WSU's dance, choral and English departments are joining forces April 5-7. The performance will feature 28 dancers and 24 choir members, as well as several faculty and staff designers. It is what Stern called a "very ambitious project." "This is why it is exciting. This is about putting the students forward, and all of them are involved in the creative process," Stern said. "All of the works are original, so they are all part of creating something from the ground up." Five different choreographers created pieces that will be featured in the performance: Stern, Joanne Lawrence, Tawna Halbert, Elizabeth Stich and Alicia Trump. The second half of the performance will feature the title piece COIL, choreographed by Stern. He said this two-part work was inspired by a piece of literature titled "Meditation XVII," by John Donne. Donne wrote the famous line "No man is an island, entire of itself," more than 400 years ago. "The message is so apt, it See COIL page 8 WSU puts on once-banned musical Student actors and technicians organize Depression-era show By Briana Drandakis a&e reporter I The Signpost The Weber State University Performing Arts Department's 2011-12 theater season came to a close with the showing of a completely student-run production, The Cradle Will Rock. The Associated Actors and Technicians put on the show. "I love the student-directed stuff here, just because it really shows the intense dedication," said Shauna Ross, who has recently joined AAT and was house manager for the performances, enabling her to see the show several times. Trent Cox, a theater education major at WSU, directed the show. According to Cox, several difficulties go along with holding the title of student director. "It's difficult kind of drawing that line between Now I'm director, and now I'm your friend," Cox said. "But I feel like there wasn't any issues with that or anything. I wouldn't say just as a student director, but as a director in general, just the material is difficult. It's a 75-year-old play, and just relating it to nowadays is a great challenge." The Cradle Will Rock, written by Marc Blitzstein, was originally part of the Federal Theatre Project in the 1930s, a program used to put theaters back to work during the Great Depression. However, the program had some past problems with censorship, and shortly before it was about to open, the show was shut down. "The cast and director (Orson Welles) gathered the opening-night audience, the cast and one piano, and walked 21 blocks PHOTO BY AMANDA LEWARK I THE SIGNPOST WSU theater students perform a scene in The Cradle Will Rock. The musical, which was banned for its pro-union message during the Great Depression, was directed and put together entirely by theater students from the WSU Associated Actors and Technicians. to a new theater, and performers were told they were going to be arrested if they performed the show on stage because of 'political overtones," Cox said. He said Blitzstein just got up and started performing the show's music on piano, and, one by one, the cast members got up from the audience and sang their parts, performing the entire opening show within the audience. "I just go to thinking what a great experience that would be as an audience member, as a performer, as just someone in the theater at that time, so I wanted to put that into nowadays and relate that to now," Cox said. The in-audience feel of the performance might have been the live piano performance of all the show's music by music director Rick Rea, and even having the cast perform its own side effects offstage while the show continued. The show is about an average American town in the 1930s called Steeltown, USA, which is being rocked by the efforts of an average worker, Larry Foreman, to form a laborers' union. This doesn't go over well with greedy steel tycoon, Mr. Mister, as he's gone out of his way to own the entire town, from the preachers to the press, in order to make sure this very thing doesn't happen. Foreman is arrested giving a public speech about the union, along with See Cradle page 8 |