MIDSUMMER Makes Storytime Magic Inside ISU's Westhoff Theatre

Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream has been changed up and spun around so many different ways -- trapezes and swings, puppets, steam punk, plantation, zombies, Cajun, theme park, bikers -- you might think there's nothing new that can be done to it. But director Vanessa Stalling's Midsummer takes a different tack, one completely new to me, in her Illinois State University production at Westhoff Theatre.

Stalling's Midsummer begins and ends with a young girl, a beat-up, battered little thing, who runs away from her troubles into a mysterious warehouse of the imagination. I actually guessed "attic" when I saw it, but the program notes are clear -- it's a warehouse. You get the idea fairly quickly that this Midsummer is some parts nightmare and some parts flight of imagination, as well as a coping device for our runaway child. She pulls things down from the cluttered shelves and cubbyholes looming over the playing space, as drawers magically open and close, lights appear and fade, and fantasy figures drop in and out of her dreamscape.

That means we can jump among the three overlapping stories of Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of the fairies; the quartet of Athenian lovers; and a group of Mechanicals, working men attempting to put on a play, with carefree abandon, just like they might appear during playtime for a child. And they all seem to play with an odd and slightly warped perspective.

The little girl who provides the framing device, here played with energy and spirit by Cydney Moody, steps into the action herself, taking on the role of Puck when the time comes, giving herself some of the power and control we can guess she didn't possess in real life. That extends to a sort of Superman cape near the end, protecting her, we hope, from whatever drove her here in the first place. It's to the credit of Moody's performance that we do actually worry about our little Puck when all is said and done.

Puck's vision includes fizzy, oddball songs and dances, including one to introduce our Rude Mechanicals after they pop out of the sewer where they work, another cheeky tune about a woodpecker, and an exuberant number I find impossible to describe, with the fairies frolicking in the forest and sweeping around with the lengthy train on Titania's vest, including flapping it like clean sheets on laundry day and bouncing on it like a trampoline.

There are a whole lot of inventive and creative bits of staging like that, especially when the fairies are around. That's aided by Jen Kazmierczak's nifty scenic design with all its attendant doors and hideyholes (and the surprises that keep poking out) and Caisa Sanburg's moody and atmospheric lighting design that extends the fantasy feel. Jamie Jones' costume design combines snazzy modern-dress for the court, an early 60s Dick-and-Jane look for the wayward Athenians, and some Victorian linens for the fairies, giving us the idea that Puck is mixing different sets of dolls and books in her imagination.

This is a reduced version of the play, with, for example, only four Mechanicals instead of the usual six, with Robin Starveling and Tom Snout right out, and some changes to the script to get it to come in, complete with new opening scene, at just about two hours. Stalling also uses the same actors -- Devon Nimerfroh and Abby Vombrack -- to play both Oberon and Titania and the Duke and his bride, Titania, which is not an unusual move. It underlines the tie between the two battling sets of lovers and in this subconscious world, gives Puck a way to work out that battle in Fairyland. Nimerfroh and Vombrack are strong in both pairings, but I especially enjoyed Nimerfroh's warmth as the sentimental-at-heart Oberon and Vombrack's tempestuous yet bright-eyed take on Titania. Her Titania reminded me a bit of Madeline Kahn's Bride of Frankenstein; let it be noted that conjuring up Kahn is a huge compliment to any actress.

Alex Strzelecki makes Bottom the weaver pretty darn cute (even if he is a smudged-up sewer rat) and not such a come-down for Titania, which is a welcome development, while the mismatched lovers are energetic and fun as a unit and Fiona Stephens' engaging Helena stands out among them. I also enjoyed the coterie of fairies, a sunny bunch of free spirits, with Mary DeWitt and Omar Shammaa coming off especially charming.

In the end, Stalling's Midsummer is bright and boisterous, as well as affecting. It's something people do and have always done, telling ourselves stories to take us out of life's dark and scary corners. But I'm still worried about Little Miss Puck. At the end of the play, we can only hope she's okay in the hard, cold world outside her imagination.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.
by William Shakespeare

The School of Theatre and Dance at Illinois State University
Westhoff Theatre

Director: Vanessa Stalling
Scenic Designer: Jen Kazmierczak
Costume Designer:Jamie Jones
Lighting Designer: Caisa Sanburg
Sound Designer: Shannon O'Neill
Text Coach: Kevin Rich
Prop Master: Matt Black
Stage Manager: Nicole Pressner

Cast: Mary DeWitt, Elizabeth Dillard, Garrett Douglas, Angela Geis, Caitlin Graham, Kate Klemchuk, David Link, Dan Machalinski, Brandon Miller, Cydney Moody, Devon Nimerfroh, Austin Peed, Andrew Piechota, Omar Shammaa, Fiona Stephens, Alex Strzelecki, Abby Vombrack.

Remaining Performances: April 13 and 16-20 at 7:30 pm, April 14 and 20 at 2 pm.

Running time: 2:10, including one 15-minute intermission

For ticket information, click here.

ISU's KCACTF Entry MOTHER COURAGE Cleans Up in National Honors

As you may recall, Illinois State University's production of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children, directed by Sandra Zielinski, was selected to be performed at the regional level of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. That regional festival was held in January in Michigan.

Mother Courage was a very successful production, one that earned its cast and production staff all kinds of accolades when it first played Westhoff Theatre last October, and again when Mother Courage dragged her cart to Michigan. During the Michigan performance, a national panel of adjudicators watched and evaluated Mother Courage, as they did all the regional selections at all eight regional college theatre festivals. After viewing all of those college productions from all over the country, the national panel selected which shows they wanted to single out for praise and awards, with Mother Courage singled out for some very special honors.

Here's are the awards handed to ISU's Mother Courage by the national Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival judges:

OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION OF A MODERN CLASSIC

DISTINGUISHED DIRECTOR OF A PLAY: Sandra Zielinski

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS: Abby Vombrack

DISTINGUISHED COSTUME DESIGN: Brittany Powers

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN COMPOSITION: Zack Powell

Vombrack portrayed Mother Courage herself, while Powell created new music for this production of the play. Congratulatons to Zielinski, Vombrack, Powers and Powell, along with everyone else who contributed to this fierce and ferocious production of Mother Courage and Her Children. The cast (with Vombrack pictured inside Mother Courage's iconic cart) is pictured below.

To see the complete list of KCACTF national honors, click here.

Keeping Up with Casting: MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM at ISU

To catch up... We've already talked about the casts for four of Illinois State University's upcoming shows, from Archibald MacLeish's J.B, opening February 21 in Westhoff Theatre, to Rodgers' and Hammerstein's Oklahoma, in the Center for the Performing Arts from February 22, Tales of the Lost Formicans, a play by Constance Congdon, starting March 28 in Centennial West 207, and The Adding Machine, a classic from Elmer Rice, with performances beginning April 5 in the CPA. If you want to see which actors are playing which roles in those plays, click on the link under the show titles just above.

So what does that leave? Shakespeare, of course! A Midsummer Night's Dream is the last show of ISU's theatre season, taking the stage in Westhoff Theatre from April 11 to 20. Vanessa Stalling, the MFA directing candidate who worked on Jean Genet's The Maids last season, will direct this Midsummer for ISU.

Stallings has cast Devon Nimerfroh, memorable as Howard the salesman in Picnic and one of the onstage musicians in Mother Courage, as Theseus and Oberon, with Abby Vombrack, Mother Courage herself, opposite him as both Hippolyta and Titania.

Duke Theseus and his tempestuous Amazon bride-to-be, Hippolyta, form the framing device for the play. Their wedding offers an opportunity for aristocrats like the young Athenian lovers to gather as guests. It also gets the troupe of "mechanicals," regular working folk, together to attempt to put on a play in honor of the nuptials. The third plot thread in Midsummer involves a band of fairies and their king and queen, Oberon and Titania, who are up to some mischievous magical tricks in the same forest as the lovers and the mechanicals.

Nimerfroh and Vombrack will have more to do as Oberon and Titania, since their romantic battles create all sorts of havoc, what with misguided love potions mixing up the four lovers and Titania falling in love with Bottom, one of the actors in the amateur troupe, after he's been turned into a donkey by Puck, Oberon's right-hand fairy minion.

Michelle Pfeiffer and Kevin Kline as Titania and Bottom

For ISU, Cydney Moody will step in as Puck, while Thomas Howie (who happens to be the son of Mike Howie, my very first editor at the Champaign New-Gazette when I started as a theater critic) will play Bottom, the amateur actor who falls afoul of Oberon, with Garrett Douglas, Andrew Piechota and Brandon Miller as his fellow mechnicals.

Elizabeth Dillard and Fiona Stephens, who were together in Stallings' production of The Maids, will play Hermia and Helena, the Athenian girls who play mix-and-match with their romantic partners. The objects of their affections, Athenian youths Demetrius and Lysander, will be played by Dan Machalinski and Austin Peed.

Omar Shammaa, who was so good as Pascal in Anon(ymous) last fall, takes on Hermia's dad, Egeus, the one whose refusal to allow his daughter to chose her own boyfriend sends everybody on the lam, as well as other roles, which I hope include Robin Starveling, since otherwise we're missing a mechanical. Others in the cast include Kate Klemchuck and Mary DeWitt as fairies Peaseblossom and Mustardseed, along with Angela Geiss, Caitlin Graham and David Link in the ensemble.

Note that both images accompanying this post are from the 1999 film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Michael Hoffman and starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Everett as Titania and Oberon, Kevin Kline as Bottom, Anna Friel, Calista Flockhart, Christian Bale and Dominic West as the four lovers, and Stanley Tucci as Puck.

There were a lot of things to like about that movie version, including my favorite group of mechanicals ever, with Kline as the leading man and Roger Rees, Bill Irwin, Gregory Jbara, Sam Rockwell and Max Wright rounding out the group. They came across as a band of brothers with sincere loyalty and affection for each other, giving Midsummer a different feel and making Bottom feel achingly real and his dream achingly lovely. (I never will like Rockwell's over-the-top Thisbe in the play-within-the-play, but I can always avert my eyes during that part.)

In any event, a good Midsummer is something to look forward to in any season. Bring it on, ISU!

ISU's MOTHER COURAGE Headed to KC/ACTF Regionals in Michigan

Illinois State University's School of Theatre and Dance has announced that their "fierce and ferocious" October production of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage, directed by Professor Sandra Zielinski, has been invited to perform at the regional level of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. That means ISU will be taking their entire production of Mother Courage up to Saginaw, Michigan, in early January to showcase their show and their program. And you can help!

As they take their act on the road, you can contribute a dollar or two (or a hundred or two) and ISU's Friends of the Arts will match your gift. I suggest you go big and make Friends of the Arts match your generosity!

ISU's Mother Courage was really terrific, with exceptional performances from Abby Vombrack as Mother Courage and Michele Stine as her mute daughter Kattrin, among others in the talented cast. Zielinski's use of music and on-stage musicians helped keep it properly epic, while the actors made it affecting and powerful. If you'd like to refresh your recollection of the production, you can see a cast photo, a couple of sketches of the scenic design, and a cast list here.

The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival was created in 1969 to connect theatre students from universities all over the country, allowing them to network, perform, and hear opinions from voices outside their own departments, with the overall goal of improving the quality of college theatre across the United States.

Every fall, colleges and universities enter their productions for consideration, with the finest among them chosen to attend regional festivals held annually in January and February. In addition to handing out awards to excellent productions and scholarships to worthy students, the regionl fFestivals offer programs, workshops and symposia on acting, directing, design, playwriting, criticism, dramaturgy and stage management. Regional festival productions like Mother Courage are judged by a panel of three judges selected by the Kennedy Center and the KCACTF national committee. These judges select four to six of the "best and most diverse regional festival productions" to travel to the national festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.

ISU's Mother Courage will be performed at the Region III festival in Saginaw along with Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel, as performed by cast and crew from the University of Wisconsin -- Parkside, Ghost Bike, a new play from Laura Jacqmin, produced by Wisconsin's Carthage College, a production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest from the University of Wisconsin -- Whitewater, In the Soundless Awe, from Chicago's Concordia College, co-written by Concordia professors Andrew Pederson and Jayme McGhan, and another new play, Three Generations of Imbeciles, by Bill Baer, presented by Cuyahoga Community College.

To help ISU and Mother Courage get to Saginaw, you can find contribution information here, or proceed directly to the ISU Foundation online giving page.

Fierce and Ferocious: MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN at ISU

Everybody knows Brecht isn't easy. His plays are uncompromising, political and harsh. The power of Brecht's message makes his work as difficult to watch as it is important.

Mother Courage and Her Children, his 1939 play about a woman who pulls a cart around Europe during the Thirty Years War, selling booze and bread and belt buckles to soldiers of every stripe, was Brecht's reaction to the rise of Hitler and Fascism in his own Europe. The message is clear: War never goes away. War is an economic necessity, dug so deeply into our pockets that we will never be rid of it. And you may think you can build your empire on its pile of corpses, but it will destroy you in the end, the same way it destroys everything else.

Illinois State University's production of Mother Courage, directed with clarity and strength by Sandra Zielinski, broadcasts that message every time Mother Courage's cart is dragged in circles around the stage. The cart moves in an endless cycle. Courage herself, plus her children and anybody who gets pulled into her orbit, are no more than workhorses, beaten down and savaged by the very war they plan to profit from.

It's a natural for playwright Tony Kushner, who is also concerned with Marxism, the economics and politics of culture, and how the proletariat gets stomped, to take on a translation of Mother Courage. Kushner's voice is perfect for the material, with a contemporary sound and forceful language that never strays too far from the heart of Brecht.

Zielinski's staging and stage pictures are sharp and arresting, with Brechtian effects like supertitles framing the action and voiceovers (courtesy an uncredited Patrick O'Gara) offering a cynical commentary. The theatricality of the staging, a folk-music-meets-70s-soft-rock score from recent MFA grad Zack Powell, and ferocious performances, especially from Abby Vombrack as Courage herself and Michelle Stine as her mute daughter, Kattrin, give this Mother Courage a powerful punch.

Vombrack is all fire and muscle, pushing the play along from beginning to end by sheer force of will, while Stine has a haunted quality and an expressive, luminous face that speaks volumes about the horrors of war.

Courage's other children -- Tommy Malouf as the brash, violent Eilif and Alex Kostner as pale, sad Swiss Cheese -- are also good, as are Matthew Scott Campbell as the boisterous Cook, Andrew Rogalny, Jr., as a vacillating Chaplain, David Fisch as a cigar-chomping general, and Hayley Camire, whose camp-following hooker Yvette makes a vivid impression.

Malouf and Kostner join Devon Nimerfroh and Pat Boylan in a quartet of musicians that pops up to accompany the singers and add music at interludes, making Powell's music sound lively and on-target.

Delia and Linnea Kerr-Dennhardt also contribute to the tableau as Children of War; Linnea has a charming bit with an umbrella and both stand on the sidelines, as mute as Kattrin, near the end, to bear witness. It's a telling image, as we see how the violence and bloodshed around them have robbed so many of any voice at all.

And Zielinski's choice of a final freeze, as Mother Courage struggles to hoist her wagon one last time, twists Brecht's knife one last time.

MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN
By Bertolt Brecht
Translated by Tony Kushner
Original Music by Zack Powell

Illinois State University School of Theatre and Dance
Westhoff Theatre

Director: Sandra Zielinski
Scenic Designer: Jake Wasson
Costume Designer: Brittany Powers
Lighting Designer: Joanna Szewczuk
Sound Designer: Aaron Paolucci
Media Designer: Shannon O'Neill
Hair and Makeup Designer: Mary Rose
Voice and Dialect Coach: Connie de Veer
Music Vocal Coach: Cristen Susong
Dramaturg: Gloria Clark
Fight Director: Paul Dennhardt
Stage Manager: Matthew T. Black

Cast: 
Abby Vombrack (Mother Courage)
Alex Kostner (Swiss Cheese)
Tommy Malouf (Eilif)
Michelle Stine (Kattrin)
Matthew Scott Campbell (Cook)
Andrew Rogalny, Jr. (Chaplain)
Hayley Camire (Yvette)
Carlos Kmet (Army Recruiter, Soldier)
Storm Angone (Sergeant, Soldier)
Devon Nimerfroh (Farmer, Soldier, The One with the Eye Patch)
Pat Boylan (Farmer's Son)
David Fisch (General, Lieutenant, Soldier)
Eduardo Curley (Quartermaster, Young Man, Soldier)
Ashley Donahue (Soldier)
Tyler Riggin (Soldier)
Lauren Pfeiffer (Old Woman, Voice Inside, Clerk, Soldier)
Becky Solomon (Young Woman/Soldier)
Randolph Schmaltz (Colonel, Regimental Secretary, Soldier)
Jenna Liddle (Farmer's Wife)
Delia Kerr-Dennhardt (Child of War)
Linnea Kerr-Dennhardt (Child of War)

Running time: 3:10, with one 15-minute intermission

Remaining performances:  Tonight at 7:30 pm and tomorrow at 2 pm, October 23-27 at 7:30 pm

For information about the show, click here or here. For ticket info, click here.

Opening Tonight -- Brecht's MOTHER COURAGE at ISU's Westhoff Theatre

The title of Brecht's play is really Mother Courage and Her Children, although people often forget the kids are there. That's how indelible a character Mother Courage is. Fierce, hard, practical and cynical... She's a woman who does what she needs to do, changes sides as often as she needs to, keeps pulling her cart, keeps selling trinkets to both sides in an endless war, and mostly just finds a way to survive.

But her children -- Eilif, son of a thief, Swiss Cheese, whose father was a Swiss (of course) engineer, and mute Katrin, with a German dad -- don't survive. They're the price she pays for building her life around war.

Mother Courage isn't her real name, of course. She's called that because she once drove her cart through the middle of a battle just to sell moldy bread. "I'm not courageous," she tells us in Tony Kushner's version of the script. "Only the poor have courage. Why? Because they're hopeless."

Brecht wrote his play in 1939, with Hitler and fascism threatening all of Europe. The play isn't set in anything 20th century, however. Instead, Brecht went with the Thirty Years War, a particularly devastating and prolonged conflict that raged all over Europe in the 17th century. But Mother Courage has been done all over the world, against the backdrop of just about every war imaginable. Some productions, like the one with Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline at the Public Theatre in 2006, mix bits and pieces of uniforms and weapons from different parts of history, just to illustrate how little things change and how closely tied to human existence (and economics) war is tied.

Sandi Zielinski directs Mother Courage and her Children in Westhoff Theatre for Illinois State University, opening tonight with a 7:30 pm performance, and running through October 27. Because Westhoff is not a large space, its shows tend to sell out, so you are advised to get your tickets early and arrive early, as well.

This production is using Tony Kushner's script, which played to good effect in New York (as discussed above, with Meryl Streep) as well as in London with Fiona Shaw in the title role.

For ISU, Abby Vombrack steps into Mother Courage's boots, with Tommy Malouf, Alex Kostner and Michelle Stine as her ill-fated children. Matt Campbell, MFA directing candidate who just finished up The Glory of Living, plays the Cook, another character out for the main chance, while Andrew Rogalny takes on the role of the cowardly, hypocritical Chaplain.

Although there are songs in the show (expected with Mother Courage), this production is not using the score Jeanine Tesori wrote for Kushner's adaptation. Rumor has they're looking for more of a rock edge, with guitars on stage instead of the usual piano.

For more information on ISU's production, check out this Facebook page for Mother Courage and Her Children or ISU's productions page.

Quirky and Tart, "Cloud 9" Pushes the Right Buttons at ISU

Bending gender, time, age, skin color and everything else you can think of, Caryl Churchill's "Cloud 9," on stage at Illinois State University's Westhoff Theatre, is all at once political, sexual and very, very tart.

Churchill begins "Cloud 9" in Colonial Africa in the 19th century, with Victoria on the throne of England and a whole lot of white male domination going on. We see the household of Clive, a pip pip cheerio British type, complete with pith helmet, sent by the Queen to rule over this small piece of her empire.

The biggest quirk of the play (and there are a lot of quirky bits in "Cloud 9") is the casting. In Act I in Africa, Churchill specifies that a male should play Betty, Clive's lovely wife, a female should play little Edward, Clive and Betty's son who shows traits of femininity that are disturbing to his parents, like being attached to a doll, and a white actor should play Joshua, the African servant who defers to almost anything and everything his white overlords demand. It's all part of her overall theme, to show how the rigid dictates of Colonialism create identity confusion on all levels, as Betty and Joshua have become completely defined and controlled by the white male power structure around them.

Act II takes us to England in the 1970s, showing the same characters, but only 25 years older and now played by different actors. Betty is now played by a woman (at ISU it's the actress who played the governess in Act I) and Edward is now played by a man (Clive from Act I). Meanwhile, the actor who played Joshua takes on the role of a rambunctious little girl named Kathy as well as the ghost of a soldier who died in Ireland, the new Africa in terms of British imperialism.

So not only are the genders switched up in this heady swirl of men, women and children, but they are turned around again when the actors take on new roles in Act II, and more fluid sexuality is explored, with homosexuality and bisexuality added to the mix in the less restrictive 70s.

Churchill paints her characters in vivid colors, pushing at the boundaries of stereotypes for humor and shock value. For ISU, director Jeremy Garrett gets the message across quite nicely, keeping his actors moving as they switch identities and costumes on a dime, and in the end, creating characters who feel real against all the chaos.

The cast of "Cloud 9" has to be an ensemble or Churchill's ideas will never get off the ground, and Garrett's cast works hard to deliver. When it comes to energy and take-no-prisoners attitude, they all go for it.

Individually, Andrew Rogalny Jr. is hilarious and robust (as well as horrifying) as Clive the Lord and Master (whose mustache is like a character of its own) and then sweet and tentative as adult Edward, who finds the real him as a housewife; Danny Rice does quite well traversing the distance between languid, confused Betty and slimy pick-up artist Gerry; Hannah Brown is all perk and pep as little Edward, but quite lovely as Victoria the bisexual wife; Nicholas Spindler is decidedly odd as implacable Joshua the black servant and even odder as hyperactive Kathy who drives her mum crazy; Abby Vombrack is all stern warnings as Betty's mother, adding softness and confusion to get to Lin, the lesbian who has a thing for Victoria; and Alex Kostner gets the unenviable task of playing omnisexual Harry the Explorer, who seems to have sex with everyone and everything he can get his hands on in the wilds of Africa, and then unpleasant Martin, who blames his wife's unhappiness and his own cheating completely on her. Fiona Stephens deserves special mention for dashing on and off with split-second changes between Ellen, the governess, and Mrs. Saunders, a widow with a mind of her own, in the African section, and then playing Betty, just now trying to figure out who she is, in 1970s England. And creating whole characters for all three of them. I don't know how she managed the costume changes, let alone the character changes, between Ellen and Mrs. Saunders, but kudos to Stephens for making it work.

Andrew Sierszyn's set design, with revolving blocks of scenery at the back of the stage, is bold and fun, illustrating the turns the characters are taking, and JM Montecalvo's lighting design adds texture and color, as well. The array of costumes, designed by Sandy Childers, creates instant associations for the characters, which is very helpful when they keep switching personalities.

All in all, "Cloud 9" is a tricky show that will not be to the liking of all audiences. But for those who like their theater quirky, pointed and thought-provoking, with a huge dollop of sarcasm and sexual button-pushing, "Cloud 9" may be just the ticket.

CLOUD 9
By Caryl Churchill

Illinois State University's Westhoff Theatre

Director: Jeremy Garrett
Scenic Designer: Andrew Sierszyn
Costume Designer: Sandy Childers
Lighting Designer: JM Montecalvo
Sound Designer: Sarah Putts
Hair and Makeup Designer: Brittany Powers
Voice and Dialect Coach: Connie de Veer
Dramaturg: David Fisch
Fight Director: Zack Powell
Stage Manager: Casey Peek

Cast: Hannah Brown, Alex Kostner, Danny Rice, Andrew Rogalny, Jr., Fiona Stephens, Abby Vombrack.

Remaining performances: February 24-25, 28-29 and March 1-3 at 7:30 pm; March 3 at 2pm

Running time: 2:25, including one 15-minute intermission

For ticket information, click here.

Lori Adams Honored with Rives Award for Teaching Excellence

The 2011-2012 Stan and Sandy Rives Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Education has been awarded to Illinois State University Theatre Professor Lori Adams, who acts as head of the Undergraduate Acting Program in ISU's School of Theatre. The Rives award will be presented to Adams at the Founders Day Convocation on Thursday, February 16th, at 2 pm.

According to ISU's press release, the Stan and Sandy Rives Award was created to recognize "outstanding teaching or any significant contribution to the undergraduate experience, with special attention given to the first-year experience." That makes it a perfect match for Adams, whose position puts her in charge of more than 150 undergraduate acting majors,. She personally auditions and interviews each incoming acting undergrad, and makes it her mission to stay in touch and guide them through that crucial first year at ISU.

It is also part of Adams' responsibility to coach and prepare the student actors who will represent ISU in the Irene Ryan Award competition at the annual American College Theatre Festival. Adams' actors have done very well in the ACTF competition, with ISU's Clayton Joyner named one of two national Irene Ryan champions in 2011, and Owais Ahmed and Abby Vombrack winning at the regional level in Urbana last month, earning the right to advance to the ACTF finals at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.


Aside from her ISU responsibilities, Lori Adams is a very well-regarded director, recently earning "Best Director" honors from St. Louis Post-Dispatch critic Judith Newmark for her work on "Falling" at St. Louis's Mustard Seed Theatre, and a prominent actress, with notable credits in Alan Ayckbourn's "Woman in Mind" and Martin McDonagh's "The Beauty Queen of Lenane" at Heartland Theatre and in "Macbeth" and "Henry VIII" at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. As you can see from the poster above, Adams also starred in "Shame the Devil: An Audience with Fanny Kemble," a one-woman show written by Anne Ludlam that toured extensively around the US and Canada.