'62 Center Features Center Series Productions
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The '62 Center for Theatre and Dance at Williams College has released its CenterSeries Presents schedule for the this week through February.The series begins with the free Williams Theatre production of "The Shadow of the Glen" this week on the CenterStage and concludes with "Stalwart Originality: New Traditions in Black Performance" in February.
The schedule is below; for more information, visit '62Center.
Williams Theatre Presents: The Shadow of the Glen, written by J.M. Synge; directed by junior Ben Kaplan. Thursday, Jan. 21 and Friday, Jan. 22, 7:30 p.m.; Centerstage; freeThe one-act dark comedy premiered in 1903, and was Irish playwright Synge's first to be produced on the Dublin stage. Set in a cottage in rural Ireland in the early 1900s, it tells the story of Nora Burke, a woman struggling with her own sense of isolation and loneliness. Nora's life takes a turn when she is visited by a mysterious tramp on the night of her husband's wake.
Cap and Bells Presents: Two Chairs and a Box,Thursday, Jan. 21 and Friday, Jan. 22, 8:30 p.m.; Directing Studio; $1 at door
This is the group's Winter Study One Act Festival. This year's event features a diverse cast in four short plays. Sophomore Mario Mastromarino directs the classic David Ives comedy "Sure Thing," showing practice really does make perfect. Director Vashti Emigh, also a sophomore, uses an ordinary Sunday afternoon in Central Park for the life-changing events of Edward Albee's first play "The Zoo Story." Junior Amanda Keating directs John Cariani's play "Almost, Maine," a story about love lost and found in that remote and mythical town. The fourth play, "Santa Claus: A Morality," by e.e.cummings, is an existential tragicomedy revolving around the clashing persona of the Reaper and St. Nick, and is directed by sophomore David Daniel Phillips .
Williams College Music Presents: Williams Symphonic Winds and Opus Zero Band;Steve Dennis Bodner, director; Saturday, Feb. 20, 8 p.m.; Mainstage; free but tickets required
Presenting notions of iconography — both sacred and profane — of the 20th and 21st centuries; Louis Andriessen's "Racconto dall' Inferno"; Kathryn Salfelder's "Cathedrals"; Warren Benson's "Solitary Dancer" and the American premiere of Klas Torstensson's "Self-Portrait with Percussion," with Matthew Gold, soloist.
General admission tickets will be released starting one hour before the concert at the box office.
CenterSeries Presents: A new solo opera: Delusion, by Laurie Anderson; Friday, Feb. 26 and Saturday, Feb. 27, 8 p.m.; Mainstage; $10/$3 studentsConceived as a series of short mystery plays, "Delusion" jump cuts between the every day and the mythic.
Combining violin, electronic puppetry, music and visuals, it is full of nuns, elves, golems, rotting forests, ghost ships, archaeologists, dead relatives and unmanned tankers told in the colorful, poetic and imagistic language that has become Anderson's trademark. Inspired by Balzac, Ozu and Lawrence Sterne and employing a series of altered voices and imaginary guests, Anderson tells a complex story about longing, memory and identity. At the heart of Delusion is the pleasure of language and a terror that the world is made entirely of words.
Additional Happenings
Stalwart Originality; organized by Arif Smith and Berta Jottar; Feb. 12-14; '62 CenterThis year marks the 10th anniversary of "Stalwart Originality: New Traditions in Black Performance." Created by Annemarie Bean and Sandra Burton, Stalwart was developed to nurture artistic and academic interest in expressions informed by African traditions. Integrating practice and theory, Stalwart provides a context to explore these traditions, as well as new forms of music, dance, media, theater, literature and multidisciplinary art.
This year, Smith, assistant director of the Multicultural Center, and Berta Jottar, assistant professor of Latino Studies, are curating "New Meanings: Afro-descendant Percussion Practices," a symposium that will network those practices from West Africa, the Caribbean and the United States.
