THEATRE AND DANCE - MARCH 2009

 

CRT Nominated for 4 SALT Awards: Kincaid and Self Receive Nods

Cortland Repertory Theatre (CRT) received four nominations from their 2008 summer season in the recently announced Syracuse Area Live Theatre (SALT) Awards. Hosted by the Syracuse New Times, the SALT Awards recognize outstanding achievement in Central New York theatre productions over the past year.

This is the fifth year that the awards have included a category for summer theatres, which besides CRT also includes the Hangar Theatre, Merry Go Round Playhouse, and the Kitchen Theatre's summer season.

For Best Actor of the Summer Season,... Jonathan Self, who portrayed young upstart lawyer Daniel Kaffee in CRT's A Few Good Men.

CRT's Producing Director Kerby Thompson acknowledges the hard work these nominees as well as all of CRT's actors, directors and technicians did during last summer's season. "It's great to see that our "risk" show of A Few Good Men received a nomination, since we stepped outside the so-called boundaries of the comedy/musical category in which summer seasons tend to be confined.

 

Most of the credit to the success of that show must be given to director Bill Kincaid who created a production that kept audiences on the edge of their seat.

 

The awards ceremony will be held at Syracuse Stage on Sunday, April 26. For more information and to see the entire list of nominees.

 

Alumni News

 

 

Jennifer Drew (MFA 2007) will play Miranda in THE TEMPEST and Rosalind in AS YOU LIKE IT at the Michigan Shakespeare Festival this summer.
See Jennifer's profile on nextcat

 

 

 

 

Samantha Dubina (BFA 2007) is performing at Pheasant Run in St. Charles, IL. See an interview with "Sam." She's the Homer Glen Person of the Week for March 3, 2009.

See clips and get tickets to the show!

We printed this "news" in the February enews BUT we didn’t use all the wonderful pics that Deni included. So with an apology to Deni, here is the "news" again with the pics.

News from Dennis Mayer We love hearing from alums, so you can imagine how pleased we were when we got this very interesting message from Deni Mayer (BA, Theatre, 1994). Read on.

Hi there,
I'm dropping you this quick note to share some news that might be of interest to the alumni association and paper.

I'm a 1994 graduate of the theatre department. I have a BA in directing. I retired from my fledgling theatre career a few years ago. I have, since 2001, turned my theatre degree and experience into another profession, that of a standardized patient educator.

Standardized patient education uses actors to play patients for both testing and training of medical students. I work in New York at a company called C3NY that runs programs for several medical schools in the area and helps prepare foreign medical graduates. In my position as program manager I help write cases, train actors on portraying the patient, train both actors and students on physical exam techniques, critique performances on an ongoing basis and manage projects for several of our medical schools.

It is in this role that I was invited to Taiwan in August to lecture and workshop at three different medical schools in the country (Buddhist Tzu Chi Hospital in Hualien, Chung Shan Medical University in Taichung and Taipei Medical University at Wan Fang Hospital in Taipei).

I got to present a lecture on how to train actors to play patients while judging a student's physical exam skills at all three locations. In Hualien, which was a part of a two-day international conference, I also ran workshops with medical professionals for a hands-on experience in training lay people in this kind of work.

I owe all of this success to my education in WIU's theatre department under Gene Kozlowski.

Anyway, I thought it might be an interesting experience to share with fellow alumni, as it is something of a unique way to use my training at WIU.

I'd be glad to share more if interested. I've attached a couple of pictures form the lectures/workshops.

Thanks,
Dennis (Deni) Mayer (BA, 1994)

 

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