March 11 marked the beginning of a new collaboration between the Department of Art and The Stranahan Theater. A show of photographs by Eric Ziegler, called “From the Middle of Nowhere” was unveiled as it was announced that faculty from the Department of Art will be displaying their work at the Stranahan, in rotating exhibitions. Ziegler is the Lecturer of Multidisciplinary Art and Foundations in the Department of Art.

“The Stranahan Theater, widely known for its presentation of all forms of live performances, draws countless guests, both locally and regionally. As a result of this ability, our theater can, at any given event, have thousands of people within our four walls. What an opportunity to allow our blank walls to be a platform for visual arts, and, in the process, enhance our patrons’ experience! We recently contacted the University of Toledo about partnering with us for this very purpose and couldn’t have received a more willing and excited response. What a great venture for the two of us and for the public not only to see the great forms of art, but also to have the chance to purchase them!” – Stephen Hyman, Executive Director, Stranahan Theater & Great Hall

“I am excited to be partnering with the Stranahan Theater for this exhibition of three photographs, selected from my series “From the Middle of Nowhere.” This exhibition marks the start of what will certainly be a beneficial collaboration between two centers of creativity in Toledo. The theater will provide the University of Toledo’s College of Communication and Arts with a new platform to harness our creative power. I am looking forward to what may be possible in the future through this partnering.” – Eric Zeigler, Lecturer of Multidisciplinary Art and Foundations

“The Department of Art in the College of Communication and the Arts at UT is now partnering with the Stranahan Theater. We are bringing the visuals arts to this wonderful, landmark performing arts center. On a rotational basis, our faculty will be exhibiting their works in the halls of the Stanahan. We are excited that the exceptional work of our faculty will be highlighted at the Stranahan, giving audiences a chance to engage in our multi-sensory artistic offerings.” – Debra A. Davis, Dean – College of Communication and the Arts, School of Visual & Performing Arts, University of Toledo

Zeigler’s “From the Middle of Nowhere” photograph collection is currently on display in the upper balcony lobby of the Stranahan Theatre, located at 4645 Heatherdowns Blvd., in Toledo.

Midsummer Borrowings events on campus

The College of Communication and the Arts (CoCA) celebrated its annual Arts and Humanities Festival with a series of events in collaboration with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra (TSO) and its production of “Midsummer Night Mysteries,” March 27-28. UT students and faculty took part in the Symphony production at the Peristyle. Leading up to the performances, CoCA presented related lectures, a concert and a film screening on campus.

Friday film screening
On Friday, March 20 in the Haigh Auditorium of the Center for Visual Arts, a screening of the 1935 Max Reinhardt film A Midsummer Night’s Dream was introduced by Dr. Matt Yockey, Assistant Professor of Film in the UT Department of Theatre & Film.

Nominated for Best Picture, this film adaptation of Reinhardt’s successful Hollywood Bowl production of the Shakespeare play includes extensive use of Felix Mendelssohn’s music as re-orchestrated by Erich Wolfgang Korngold and ballet sequences choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska. The cast includes Mickey Rooney, Olivia DeHavilland and James Cagney, among many other familiar names and faces.

Sunday Great Gallery concert by Bezonian Trio
On Sunday, March 22, the Bezonian Trio featuring Antonina Chekhovskaya, soprano, performed in the Toledo Museum of Art’s Great Gallery. The concert featured pieces that recall two of Shakespeare’s most famous plays – Macbeth (Beethoven’s Piano Trio in D major, Op.70 #1 “Ghost”) and Hamlet (Ophelia’s Song by Dimitri Shostakovich). The Bezonian Trio is comprised of Merwin Siu (violin) and Damon Coleman (cello) of the Toledo Symphony, and Dr. Michael Boyd (piano), professor of piano at The University of Toledo.

Mendelssohn’s Music, Reinhardt’s Diaphanous Damsels, Shakespeare’s Fairies
On Wednesday March 25, Matthew Wikander, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of the UT Department of English, presented a lecture about fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“We are spirits of another sort,” the fairy king Oberon reminds Puck as Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dreamers awaken into morning. Puck has just been describing the dawn as a time when “damned spirits” return to their “wormy beds”—a kind of reverse zombie apocalypse. Oberon’s and Puck’s disagreements do not begin or end here, but this interchange raises the question of what kind of fairies the fairies in Shakespeare’s plays are, and, by extension, the further question of how to represent them. This talk focused on the problem of representing fairies musically, in Mendelssohn’s incidental score, cinematically, in Max Reinhardt’s film version of his famous stage production, and poetically, as the fairies appear in Shakespeare’s text.