Puget Sound Theatre Department

It’s Homecoming Weekend; yesterday was apparently National Boyfriend Day; and we’re having fun rehearsing Oscar Wilde’s classic!
Opens November 1

First ever costume sale!
Come one, come all!
September 28 10am-4pm
Basement of Jones Hall!

Professor Sara Freeman ‘95 and stellar alumna Kate Johnson ‘75 got to together in Evanston to conspire——
Kate is working on the summer 2025 reunion planning committee for the 50th reunion of her class YES, AND it’s apparently going to be to be a theatre affinity group reunion too!!!

All you theatre people mark your calendars for June 7, 2025, and especially if you graduated in a year that ended in 5?!
Where are those 85, 2005, 2015 superstars?

We’ve had an absolutely world class set of guests with is the last two weeks during our technical residency with Philadelphia’s Pig Iron theatre.

We were doing so much devising and effects creation we couldn’t keep up with bios after the first day, but we’ll post them in the comments here.

Pics are (left to right, top to bottom): Anna Kiraly, Amith Chandrashaker, Jacinta Lee Yellend, Brad K. Wrenn, Maiko Matsushima, Sara Walsh, Dave Tennent, Kate Sparacio, Rosie Langabeer, Carolyn Mraz, Quill Camp and Dan Rothenberg.

Alumni of the 1990s: this residency with Pig Iron has us digging through costume storage for fun stuff to play with —- remember these pieces from Equus c. 1994??!! They’ve been part of the fun this week!

We’re getting to work with two dozen amazing artists during our technical residency, all of thrm on the team for Franklin’s Key by Quill Camp and Dan Rothenberg.

First up is Special Effects Designer Skylar Fox. Read about him in the comments!

It was purposeful that we scheduled our production of FAIRVIEW to coincide with reunion weekend and close right before Juneteenth. We wanted to mark the moments, grappling with legacies on campus and in the country. As Director Chevi Chung says, we are trying to liberate the arts and increase freedom through theatre. Here’a to Juneteenth everyone!

Our second weekend of Fairview performances is kicking back in on Friday!
Please join us!
PLEASE NOTE: the closing matinee on Sunday has been listed in different places as starting at different times. We are going with the 2:30 start time to minimize late seating.
Closing matinee is getting quite booked!!
Still good availability on Friday and Saturday!
Reserve here: https://ups.universitytickets.com

Who is playing what roles? Who is watching and being watched? What happens when we change our vantage point?

OPENS TOMORROW!!

Please reserve your FREE tickets here:
https://ups.universitytickets.com

Seating is limited. Running time is 2 hours with one 15-minute intermission. We are producing this work on the Norton Clapp Theatre's stage inside Jones Hall, 1500 N Warner St, Tacoma, WA 98416.

Friday, June 7, at 7:30 PM
Saturday, June 8, at 7:30 PM
Sunday, June 9 at 2:00 PM
Friday, June 14, at 7:30 PM
Saturday, June 15, at 7:30 PM
Sunday, June 16 at 2:00 PM

Support for Fairview includes funding from the Tacoma Arts Commission's Community Arts Projects, the Mellon Foundation Northwest 5 Community Engagement Grants, and from the University of Puget Sound Matthew Norton Clapp Visiting Artists Endowment, Interdisciplinary Humanities Program, and the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity.

Friends!

Please see what we, the University of Puget Sound Department of Theatre Arts, empathos company, and an intergenerational company of alumni, recent graduates, students, faculty, staff, and local theatre artists, are presenting next month!

Fairview, written by Jackie Sibblies Drury, is a challenging play about the contemporary Black experience, inventively presents the dilemmas of race, perception, and representation. In the play, one family’s birthday celebration for their matriarch becomes the occasion for appropriation by characters who want the satisfaction of stereotypes. The violence at the heart of racialized imaginations emerges in theatrical ways. How do the things we watch on television and in movies make us think we know about marginalization and identity? Who is playing what roles? Who is watching and being watched? What happens when we change our vantage point?

Please reserve your FREE tickets here:
https://ups.universitytickets.com

Seating is limited. Running time is 2 hours with one 15-minute intermission. We are producing this work on the Norton Clapp Theatre's stage inside Jones Hall, 1500 N Warner St, Tacoma, WA 98416. This venue is wheelchair accessible. You can use this Pierce Transit Trip Planner to find the nearest bus routes: https://tripplanner.piercetransit.org/ #/app/tripplanning

Friday, June 7, at 7:30 PM
Saturday, June 8, at 7:30 PM
Sunday, June 9 at 2:00 PM
Friday, June 14, at 7:30 PM
Saturday, June 15, at 7:30 PM
Sunday, June 16 at 2:00 PM

This project includes dramaturgical and artistic installations with pre- and post-play experiences.

Support for Fairview includes funding from the City of Tacoma Government Arts Commission's Community Arts Projects, the Mellon Foundation Northwest 5 Community Engagement Grants, and from the University of Puget Sound Matthew Norton Clapp Visiting Artists Endowment and Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity.

Look at this gallery of incredible young actors! One more weekend of Measure for Measure!

This is an appreciation post about dramaturg, adaptor, and playwright Claire F Martin— an alumna who joined us as a guest artist and edited and adapted the text of Measure for Measure for this production.

It is a brilliant, fleet, and sculpted version of Measure she provided us that really helped me emphasize not just the questions “must Claudio die” and “what the heck is the Duke’s game” but most important: “how can Isabella survive or escape being in the crosshairs?”

The actors are savoring every bit of it and it is AMAZING to get to work with talented students and former students across decades.

Sneak peaks of Measure for Measure!

Tickets here: https://ups.universitytickets.com/w/event.aspx?SeriesID=18

Measure for Measure opens tomorrow night at the Norton Clapp Theatre!

Join us: https://ups.universitytickets.com/w/event.aspx?SeriesID=18

Join us for a foray into one of Shakespeare’s
Troubling Tragicomedies!

Tickets here: https://ups.universitytickets.com/w/event.aspx?SeriesID=18

Theatre alum Eric Ray Anderson ‘81 — who is currently text coach for our production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure directed by Sara Freeman — is also shooting a web series called The Uncertain Detective and working with class of 2015 alum Will Putnam who is the assistant to the Director of Photography! A great Logger convergence!! They met when Eray was text coaching Goeff Proehl’s production of As You Like It. We love it!

We are excited to share a little about what we do in the Department of Theatre Arts through this beautiful video.
https://vimeo.com/906476367?share=copy
University of Puget Sound

Theatre Arts This is "Theatre Arts" by University of Puget Sound on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

Did you know Professor Jess Smith has an essay out in Howlround’s first collection of essays? Congratulations Professor Smith!

Auditions November 6!!
Come one, come all!

Low-tech and high-touch: Folk schools boom as more crave working with their hands The North House Folk School in Grand Marais is undergoing a $5 million campus expansion, part of a growth in traditional folk schools around the state as more people yearn for off-screen experiences working with their hands.

Wednesday at lunch! We have things to plan for!

Dr. Adrienne Mackey will be joining us next Monday in the Tahoma room for a workshop on Theatre & Game Design!

We’ve got a guest artist in town next week! So excited that Ken Cerniglia will be with us

Join is for a free workshop tomorrow, Monday, Feb 27 4pm in Jones 203 about the work of “Cultivating Feedback” for creative processes

A few sneak peek photos from Game of Love and Chance, which opens Friday and runs for two weekends only! Get your tickets now.

It's an exciting upcoming week in Theatre, featuring our Spring Mainstage Play:

The Game of Love and Chance
opening this Friday in the Norton Clapp Theatre at 7:30 pm.
Performances are Feb 24, 25, Mar 2, 3, and 4 at 7:30, with a matinee at 2pm on March 4.

This frothy French romantic comedy period piece has it all. Love, life, and laughter...disguise and mistaken identities, social commentary and commedia dell'arte hijinks! The faculty-directed production marries classical text with modern pop aesthetics in the service of farce and frolic.

Get Tickets now ($20/general, $10/students, seniors, etc)
https://ups.universitytickets.com/w/event.aspx?SeriesID=13