Category Archives: Fine Arts

IWU Senior Places Third on “So You Think You Can Dance?”

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – He may not be “America’s Favorite Dancer,” but Evan Kasprzak is still Illinois Wesleyan University’s favorite dancer, as well as the favorite of millions who voted for him across the United States. Kasprzak, an IWU senior from West Bloomfield, Mich., has won third place on Fox TV’s So You Think You Can Dance?, a hit reality TV show in the style of American Idol.

A music theatre major and a dancer since the age of six, Kasprzak was the first contestant dancing the Broadway style to compete on the award-winning show’s top 20. He was also the only dancer of the top 20 in season five who did not have to “dance for his life” to stay in the competition. Each week, the TV audience phoned in votes for their favorite dancer, and there were sufficient votes for Kasprzak to advance without impediment every round of eliminations this season.

“It’s been an awesome journey and I couldn’t ask for anything else,” said Kasprzak in front of an audience of over 3,000 at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. He said one of his favorite aspects of the show has been working with the various professional choreographers, many of whom have won Emmy awards for their work. Hostess Cat Deeley asked him if he was glad he had been on the show. “I’m ecstatic,” he said.

Kasprzak’s final episode was greeted with cheers from an audience of over 60 at IWU’s Minor Myers, jr. Welcome Center auditorium. Members of the campus community gathered to celebrate the Illinois Wesleyan student’s weeks of dancing on the show, and many wore shirts with the phrase “Proud Kasprzaktivist” on them.

Portland Theatre Company Showcases Wesleyan Talent

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – A group of Illinois Wesleyan University students, faculty, and alumni will present a free of charge musical in Portland, Oregon this summer.

Tin Pan Alley Theatre Company (TPA), which was started by an IWU alumnus, will present the musical Triumph of Love at the Artist’s Repertory Morrison Street Theater in Portland. Although the production is free, tickets can be reserved by e-mailing iwantfreemusicals@gmail.com or calling (503) 708-7553. The show will debut on Friday, August 7 and run until Saturday, August 22. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. PST Wednesday through Saturday, and at 2 p.m. PST for the Sunday performance on August 15.

Tin Pan Alley’s co-founder and artistic director is David Rubin, a Portland native and 2009 Illinois Wesleyan graduate with a bachelor of fine arts. “The idea behind the production,” said Rubin, “is to dedicate Triumph of Love to the average person who is ready to have some fun this summer.” According to production promotional materials, the company hopes to continue to offer free musicals in the future with the support of donations through the Web site and at performances.

The show will feature extensive involvement by Illinois Wesleyan School of Theatre Arts students, faculty, and alumni. Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts Scott Susong is the director. TPA’s managing director Natalie Buccomini, ’08, will direct the music (with Rubin choreographing). The musical also features students Maia Diaz, ’10, Neil Stratman, ’10, Melina Rey, ’11, and graduate Tony Lopez, ’08, in lead roles.

Play Director Gets Help From Fellow Alumni

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan School of Theatre Arts graduate Marti Lyons will direct a challenging play this summer, but she won’t be alone. Plenty of IWU alumni and faculty have filled the ranks of the production’s cast and crew.

Tooth and Nail Ensemble will present Maria Irene Fornes’ The Conduct of Life, its debut production, beginning July 11 at Chicago’s Viaduct Theater in cooperation with Two Lights Theatre Company.

“It is incredible to work with everyone again,” Lyons said. “We are so far ahead in the process because we have a shared vocabulary from which to work.”

She and fellow Class of ’08 alumnus Tim Martin were inspired to form Tooth and Nail Ensemble after returning to Illinois Wesleyan last fall to view a production by Associate Theatre Arts Professor Sandra Lindberg. “We started talking about how we were not satisfied with the work we were doing [in Chicago],” Lyons said. “We talked about how we had a real ensemble feel in our Wesleyan training and how much we would want to work with Sandra and a lot of other Wesleyan graduates again.”

The former classmates had studied The Conduct of Life in Lindberg’s Introduction to Dramatic Literature class. “Tim and I were both very moved by the play when we read it in school, so when I mentioned it he got very excited, and then when Sandra agreed to be in it, we knew we had a show,” Lyons said.

The pair recruited Martin Langrall ’08 as their production manager and formed their own ensemble.

Theatre Students Exchange Feedback With Lyricist

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – It was a chance theater students do not have when they perform Shakespeare – to hear what the playwright thinks of their performance, and to offer suggestions of their own.

On Saturday, April 25, successful composer, lyricist and librettist Lawrence Rush attended the Illinois Wesleyan University performance of Winter in the Fall, his musical drama. The next day, Rush spoke with students of the Music Theatre 483 class, who performed in the show under the direction of their instructor, Assistant Professor of the Theatre Arts Scott Susong.

“You did an incredible job. It was thrilling to sit in the audience and watch how you interpreted the show,” said Rush, speaking to students in the E. Melba Johnson Kirkpatrick Laboratory Theatre. “You are helping to bring the show to a whole new place.”

A Touch of Class Brings Melody to Evelyn Chapel Saturday

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – A beautiful melody soars through the air of a room in Presser Hall on the campus of Illinois Wesleyan University. The rise and fall of notes emanate not from handheld instruments, but a group of dynamic women surrounding a grand piano. As their voices swell into a powerful end, smiles spread across the faces of the women who realize they have yet again captured a moment with song.

These women are the 11 Illinois Wesleyan students who make up the a cappella group A Touch of Class. The group will have its final public performance of the semester at A Touch of Class Spring Concert at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 25, at Evelyn Chapel (1301 N. Park Street, Bloomington). The event is free and open to the public. Hear an audio clip.

“It’s when we hit those notes, that I really realize what this group is,” said Susan Rapp, a junior music and interdisciplinary education major from Schaumberg, Ill. “This is a celebration of music, and not just for music majors, but for everyone. This is my chance to share my love of music with everyone.”

A Touch of Class began several years ago at Illinois Wesleyan, but has come into its own in the last two or three years, said faculty advisor Associate Professor of Voice Carren Moham. “In the beginning, it was a group of friends who liked to sing, but rarely challenged each other,” said Moham. “There is a musicianship that has evolved from this group, which has elevated not only their music, but their recognition in the community.”

University Celebrates 25 Years of Evelyn Chapel, Jordan Organ

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Evelyn Chapel (1301 N. Park St., Bloomington) with a series of commemorative events on Saturday, March 28. The celebration, which requires reservations, is free and open to the public.

Alumni organ recitals will begin at 3 p.m. A reception will be held at 5:30 p.m., followed by dinner and a celebratory concert by Marilyn Keiser, 1963 Illinois Wesleyan alumna and retired Indiana University music professor, at 7:30 p.m. After Keiser’s performance, the central Illinois chapter of American Guild Organist will host a reception in the chapel.

Named after Evelyn Sheean, benefactor and friend of the University, the Evelyn Chapel was built in 1984 and houses several campus religious activities, as well as the office of University Chaplain Hope Luckie. In 1985, the chapel received an Interior Architecture Award from the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Faculty to Perform Rare Repertoire by African American Composers

Associate Professor of Voice Carren Moham, soprano, accompanied by Associate Professor of Piano R. Kent Cook, will give a recital of songs by African American composers on Sunday, Feb. 8 at 3 p.m.

Free and open to the public, the performance will take place at St. John’s Lutheran Church (1617 East Emerson St., Bloomington).

The recital, given in celebration of Black History Month, features both art songs and spirituals composed by African Americans, many of which have rarely been performed since the 1940s.

“In the first half of the 20th century, it was almost impossible for black composers to get their music published, and it was even harder for women,” said Moham, who has done extensive research in the past 14 years on the virtually unknown and unpublished art songs of African-American composers. “Many black composers passed their music around to friends.”

Summer Music Camps Introduce Students to Campus Life

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The idea of summer camp brings to mind images of paddling canoes and roasting marshmallows, but at Illinois Wesleyan University, summer camp means days filled with the sweet sound of strings, the rumble of pianos and the intense training that music camps bring.

Each year Illinois Wesleyan holds summer music camps that draw junior high and high school students from across the nation to the campus. During their two- or three-week stay, campers do more than learn how to perfect their performance; they discover the University.

“For many students, this is their first exposure to college life,” said Illinois Wesleyan Professor of Composition and Theory and Director of the School of Music Mario Pelusi. “Students live in the residence halls, eat in the dining hall and work closely with IWU professors and guest instructors. We have many students attending as college students specifically because they attended one of our programs.” Pelusi estimates that approximately 60 percent of the participants who attend his Summer Music Composition Institute, one of the School of Music’s three summer music programs, apply to and eventually attend Illinois Wesleyan.

“When the students come, they meet the wonderful faculty and see the beautiful campus, and they want to return,” said Associate Professor of Music Nina Gordon, who founded the Cello Camp nine years ago at Illinois Wesleyan, followed by the Illinois Chamber Music Festival and Camp three years later with adjunct faculty member Lisa Nelson. “There is a direct connection with many of the campers who choose to become students.”

The Phoenix Lives On as Haven for Student Expression

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Double the age of most current IWU students and the result will be the number of years the Phoenix, a student performance space located in the basement of the Memorial Center (104 E. University St., Bloomington), has been a part of Illinois Wesleyan’s campus.

Aptly named the Phoenix after a mythical bird that dies and is reborn out of its own ashes, the space has been through its own set of rebirths. Continuously evolving throughout its 42 years as a campus fixture from use as a coffeehouse to its current operation as a small theater, at one time the Phoenix even hosted disco-dance nights. Currently, the Phoenix is configured as an adaptable black-box theater, comprised simply of bare, black walls with minimal furnishings.

In recent years, the Phoenix has supplied a space for students of any major to stage a variety of creative presentations, particularly short plays and musicals. Unlike other performance spaces on campus, the theater is open for use by any student or faculty production, not reserved solely for use by the School of Theatre Arts.

Shows staged in the past school year have included everything from two short operas, A Hand of Bridge and Gallantry, to a musical, Edges. Other shows have included student adaptations of literary works in particular, James Billings’ The Nutley Papers and J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.

Born in 1966 as a student-run coffeehouse, the Phoenix provided entertainment including poetry readings, folk singers, speakers, and student performances. Reminiscent of the “beat” generation, the coffeehouse catered to an independent and expressive minded audience.

“It was a place for students to talk about issues and exchange their own ideas,” according to Professor Paul Bushnell, who began teaching at IWU the same year the Phoenix opened.

Lost Actor Visits Illinois Wesleyan

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Actor Terry O’Quinn is in an elite circle. Not just because millions of people tune in each week to see him on the hit ABC television series LOST, but because he can call himself that rare honor – a working actor.

“Work. Work when you can, any way you can,” said O’Quinn, sharing his insights on the acting profession to a room full of theatre students at Illinois Wesleyan University on Tuesday. The actor addressed three classes and an open forum Monday and Tuesday before returning to Hawaii to resume filming of the television show.

O’Quinn is the older brother of Illinois Wesleyan’s Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts Thomas Quinn, and offered to speak to his brother’s theatre classes during a visit. “His wife’s family lives on the East Coast, so he’s flying back and forth all the time,” said Quinn. “The trick was just getting him to land.”

Sitting in a circle with nearly two dozen students in the E. Melba Johnson Kirkpatrick Laboratory Theatre, O’Quinn fielded questions and gave honest answers about everything from entering the acting profession, to working for television verses theatre, and being recognized.

“You know you are getting more famous when people say your name or even your character, ‘Are you Terry O’Quinn?’ or ‘Are you John Locke?’” said O’Quinn, who had to change his name because another actor already has his name, Terrance Quinn, registered with Actors Equity. “I used to get people coming up to me and saying, ‘You look familiar. Do you shop at Wal Mart?’” For O’Quinn, the recognition is not the reward of acting. “Really, I think of fame as distracting, it’s something you have to get around,” he said.

Every actor looks at working on a hit show with a wary eye, said O’Quinn. “I’ve been acting for more than 30 years and this has never happened to me. And it will not happen again, I can almost guarantee it,” he said, though he joked he and fellow LOST actor Michael Emerson, who plays Ben Linus – the nemesis of O’Quinn’s character – could always spin off a show. “We could be detectives and solve really creepy crimes,” he said, alluding to the suggested supernatural elements of LOST.

A theatre actor for more than a decade before he started taking roles in television and film, O’Quinn said he loves the intimacy and immediacy of the stage. “Working in television can be fun, but theatre is so colorful and alive, with the audience reacting right there,” he said. “In theatre, you have one shot to get it right, that performance, that night.”

Stage actors can make great transitions to working in front of the camera because they understand that immediacy, said O’Quinn. “In television, hundreds of people set up a shot, you are pulled in and the director says go. Then, of course, you do the scene eight different times for camera angles. The benefit of stage training is that you are ready to go each time. There are a few actors who might think that film means you are more free to make mistakes, but mistakes just waste the time of hundreds of people.”

O’Quinn advised students to go into acting with full dedication. “Acting has to be your only alternative. You can’t go into it and have a fall-back profession waiting. If you only try halfway, you are going to fail,” he said, noting auditions have to be the same way. “If you are jumping from one building to the next, do not slow down before you jump. Jump. Jump hard.”

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