The Chicago production of a play written and directed by Dr. Matt Foss and designed by Stephen Sakowski, both associate professors of theatre at The University of Toledo, has won six out of the seven nominations it received for the prestigious 2020 Non-Equity Jeff Awards.

Similar to the Tony Awards in New York, the Jeff Awards recognize Chicago’s top theater each year.

“This is the first time a production that began in this department has ever gone on to a professional version and several professional awards,” said Dr. Edmund Lingan, professor and chair of UToledo’s Department of Theatre and Film. “We are extremely proud of Matt Foss and his team.”

“All Quiet on the Western Front” won for Best Production of a Play and for Best Ensemble —two of the top awards in Chicago theater each year. Two UToledo alumni, Austin Rambo (Theatre 2019) and Bianca Caniglia (Environmental Science and Women’s Studies 2018), were part of the Chicago production’s ensemble cast.

The production also was won awards for Best Choreography (Leah Urzendowski) and Sound Design (Dan Poppen).

Sakowski received the award for Best Lighting Design of the year, and Foss the prize for Best New Work.

Dr. Matt Foss, associate professor of theatre at The University of Toledo

Foss adapted Erich Maria Remarque’s historic novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” for the stage, and it premiered at The University of Toledo with a student cast in fall 2018 in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I, the war in which the novel is set.

The professional premiere of the play featured a unique collaboration between The University of Toledo co-producing the production with Red Tape Theatre and the Greenhouse Theatre Center — two professional companies in Chicago. UToledo’s support resulted in an extension of classroom learning in a professional setting, with Sakowski and a number of former students also participating in the project. The opening of the production culminated in a showcase event highlighting the UToledo College of Arts and Letters’ commitment to the arts, student experiences and innovation.

In 2019, the play received the Kennedy Center’s David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award, recognizing the year’s outstanding new work premiered at a college or university.

More information about the 47th Annual Non-Equity Jeff Awards can be found at jeffawards.org.

Dr. Matt Foss, and cast members from his play, “Faithful Friends” (left to right) Sarah West as Julia, Erik Pearson as Valentine, Emily Hawkins as Silvia, and Crabbe as Himself

Dr. Matt Foss, an assistant professor of theatre with The University of Toledo Department of Theatre and Film, wrote and directed a play that was originally intended to be performed live and taken on the road to elementary schools. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic shutting down performances, he had to successfully translate the production to the online performance space and lesson plan to help those learners now at home. The play premiered online today.

Foss originally created the play, “Faithful Friends: An Adaptation of the Two Gentlemen of Verona,” in late January and has been working with the company’s staff and leadership to build the interactive modules and workshops that accompany it over the past week. The work was created for PreK-6 grade students and to tour to elementary schools. It was created in partnership with Montana Shakespeare in the Parks (MSIP), a theatre he has worked with in the past, and its Montana Shakes! program, an elementary school outreach tour seeks to make Shakespeare and other classic works accessible to young people.

Scene from the online production of “Faithful Friends” by Dr. Matt Foss, assistant professor of theatre at The University of Toledo

“Working with Montana Shakespeare in the Parks was a foundational experience early in my career. They provide free and public art across the mountain west and their mission relates closely to what I have found and seek to do here in Toledo” says Foss.

Four of Montana Shakespeare in the Parks’ teaching artists, who are safely quarantined together, filmed the play and created lesson plans through the interactive learning platform FlipGrid. To convert the project to online, Foss enlisted the help of UToledo film student, Jarrett Cunningham.

“I’ve been teaching myself to edit as fast as I can the past week, but Jarrett was able to work remotely and close my learning and ability gap to help get the performance out to students and their families as quickly as possible”

The play and lessons will be available on Montana Shakespeare in the Parks’ YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBdb7l5OuPc. Teachers who want to use the Flipgrid materials at https://flipgrid.com/montanashakes will need to have an account on the app. More information can be found on the MSIP website: https://www.shakespeareintheparks.org/

Cast and Production Crew

• Samual Cheeseman……………Proteus
• Emily Hawkins……………………..Silvia
• Erik Pearson………………………..Valentine
• Sarah West…………………………..Julia
• Crabbe……………………………….…Himself

Written and Directed By Matt Foss

Special Thanks to: Our Student Volunteers who submitted videos -Paul Heitt-Rennie and Montana PBS -Christus Collegium

PRODUCTION TEAM

• Claudia Boddy…………….Costume Designer
• Stacy Hostetter……………Properties Designer
• Matthew Foss……………..Sound Designer
• Gordon Carpenter…………Technical Director
• Anna Neikirk……………….Production Manager
• Jesse Mooney-Bullock……Puppet Designer
• Jarrett Cunningham……….Video Editor
• Katherine Norman…………Education Director
• Sarah Stanek………………Stage Manager
• Emily Cowles………………Stitcher

Congratulations to CAL/SVPA faculty, Dan Hernandez, Thor Mednick, Denise Ritter-Bernardini, Stephen Sakowski, and Matt Yockey on being recognized in 2018 as faculty making Outstanding Contributions in Scholarly and Creative Activity. President Sharon Gaber and Provost Andrew Hsu sponsor the special recognition and the arts faculty received 20% of the University-wide awards.

Daniel Hernandez, MFA, Art Studio

Daniel Hernandez is represented by Kim Foster Gallery in New York, New York. Dan’s work is also found in Private and gallery collections nationally and internationally, including: Private Collection, Beth Rudin DeWoody, New York, Florida; Coleccion SOLO, Madrid, Spain – Colección SOLO is a dynamic and passionate quest to champion contemporary art. It is a vibrant, international collection, driven by a genuine commitment to creativity and the desire to bring inspirational artworks to the widest possible audience; Private Collection, Pierre Donnersberg, Paris, France; Gary Snyder Fine Art, New York; Private Collection, Phillippe Escaravage and Charlotte Forbes, New Jersey; Private Collection, Richard and Nadine Woldenberg, Chicago; Private Collection, Eric & Staci Flatt, New York; and Private Collection, Joseph & Beth DiProspero, London.

Hernandez’s paintings explore the visual dialog between religion, mythology, and pop culture. He is represented by Kim Foster Gallery in New York City. His work is exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions and has been written about in a number of publications including ARTnews, HyperAllergic, Artillery Magazine, Arte Fuse, Gizmodo, Der Spiegel. Dan was selected for an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellency Award in 2011 and in 2015.  Dan Hernandez creates intricate tableaux that blend religious iconography with the contemporary visual language of video games, two genres which somehow collapse seamlessly together in farcical send-ups of culture and society.

Thor Mednick, PhD, Art History

Thor Mednick specializes in the art of nineteenth-century Denmark, he has published on painters such as P.S. Krøyer and Vilhelm Hammershøi, and on the relationship of agricultural reform to nineteenth-century Danish landscape painting. He is the co-curator of From the Golden Age to the Modern Breakthrough: Danish Paintings from the Collection of Ambassador John L. Loeb, Jr. (New York, 2013) and Jorforbindelser: Dansk maleri 1780-1920 og det antropocene landskab (Denmark, 2017-2019).He is a former Fellow of the American-Scandinavian Foundation, the Ambassador John L Loeb, Jr Foundation, and the American Philosophical Society, and a legatee of the Danish Ministry of Culture. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Copenhagen and the University of California at Los Angeles, and a Visiting Professor at Fuglsang Museum and Faaborg Museum, in Denmark.

In 2017, Mednick was invited by Dr. Karina Lykke Grand, Assistant Professor of Art History at Aarhus University, to be the international consultant on a major research project on art and national identity in nineteenth-century Denmark. The project has been given a grant of more than $1,000,000 (US) to support Dr. Grand, a doctoral student, a post-doc, and travel and research expenses for Mednick and another scholar from the University of Copenhagen. The grant comes from The Independent Research Fund, within the Danish Ministry for Higher Education and Science.

Dr. Denise Ritter Bernardini, PhD, Voice

Denise appears on both the concert and opera stage in music of many periods.  She is known for her ability to sing a variety of styles, her brilliant high notes, pure tone, communicative warmth and musical intelligence.  She has been a performer throughout the US with extensive Oratorio experience under the batons of world renowned conductors such as Robert Shaw and John Rutter. Her recent oratorio performances have included Verdi’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Pergolesi’s Magnificat, Bach’s Missa in A Major, Dvorak’s Te Deum, and Mozart’s Requiem.

In addition, she has performed with orchestras such as Fort Worth Symphony, Tulsa Symphony, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, the Symphony of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Oklahoma City Symphony as well as many other symphonic organizations. Denise’s operatic roles include her recently performed  Mother in Amahl and The Night Visitors, La Traviata in Charlottesville Virginia as Violetta as well as with Master Works Festival.

Denise has been a soloist in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall with the New York Pops as well as the Actor’s Club in New York. A recent performance of her one-woman classical cabaret show took her to Leibnitz, Austria where she performed for the International University of Global Theater to an audience representing thirty-two different countries.

Stephen Sakowski, MFA, Theatrical Lighting

Stephen Sakowski has worked as the Lighting Director or Assistant Lighting Director for the major entertainment/arts events listed above. His event and television lighting work, recognized at the highest level of production, is transferred to his university productions as well. 

Stephen has served as the Lighting Director/Assistant Director for the NBA All-Star Games. The National Basketball Association, (NBA) is a leading sports organization with an All-Star Game viewing audience of 7.175M in 2015, 7.614M in 2016 and 7.751M in 2017, respectively. Lighting for these half-time performances have been for some of the most internationally-known performers, including: Cirque du Soleil, Sting, The Roots, and John Legend.

Stephen has also won awards for his lighting design associated with The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, (KCACTF). KCACTF is a national theater program involving 20,000 students from colleges and universities nationwide annually. For 47 years, the organization has served as a catalyst in improving the quality of college theater in the United States. KCACTF has grown into a network of more than 700 academic institutions throughout the country. The regional groups are funded and administratively support by the Kennedy Center.

Matt Yockey,  PhD, Film Studies

Yockey’s research focus is on Hollywood genres and fan studies. His essays on these topics have appeared in journals such as The Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, The Velvet Light Trap, CineAction, Transformative Works and Cultures, Journal of Fandom Studies, The European Journal of American Studies, and Studies in Comics, as well as the anthologies Critical Approaches to the Films of M. Night Shyamalan (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), Superhero Synergies: Comic Book Characters Go Digital (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), and The X-Men Films: A Cultural Analysis (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). His monograph on the 1960s Batman television series was published by Wayne State University Press in 2014. He is the editor of the anthology Make Ours Marvel: Media Convergence and a Comics Universe (University of Texas Press, 2017).
Matt’s writings on culture and film can be found journals such as, the European Journal of American Studies and the Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, and in book chapters published by such notable presses as, the University of Texas Press, Wiley Blackwell, Rowman & Littlefied, and Palgrave Macmillan. Matt also has an extensive listing of professional paper presentations.

Toledo, OH, July 18th, 2018 – The National Educational Telecommunications Association (“NETA”) has contracted with Professor Holly Hey, Head of the Film/Video program at the University of Toledo for exclusive public television distribution rights of Hey’s film “Crossing Water – Flint Michigan – 2017,” a documentary about the ongoing water crisis in Flint, MI. Hey worked with the non-profit service organization Crossing Water to highlight the continuing needs and challenges facing the residents of Flint and the social service volunteers who help them. The film will broadcast regionally for the first time on WNED Buffalo, NY on Saturday August 11 at 5 p.m. Katherine Larsen senior director of Radio/TV programming for WNED says Hey’s film is a, “great program on an ongoing issue. Clean water is vital to our communities, especially in the Great Lakes region.”

Holly Hey, Professor of Film – The University of Toledo

Flint, Michigan made national news in 2014 when the city’s emergency manager switched the source of the city’s water, plaguing residents with a host of immediate and toxic problems, including: deadly bacteria, outbreaks and deaths from Legionnaires’ disease, and the wide-spread presence of lead in the city’s drinking water. In the film, Hey highlights the work of Crossing Water, a nonprofit organization that brings together social workers and other volunteers to bring water, services, and access to resources to the hardest hit residents of Flint. Hey weaves together multiple stories of Crossing Water volunteers, staff, and Flint residents, creating a portrait of what it is like to live within an ongoing systemic disaster. Crossing Water Executive Director Michael Hood called the film “a sobering story of the Flint water crisis.” Hey believes that all Americans should care about Flint because it’s a crisis that is indicative of the future for many US communities. According to CNN, over 5,300 municipalities around the country are in violation of lead rules. Hey says, “eventually systems will fail in any community, systems essential to human life like water and power. We can’t ignore that we are all vulnerable to such collapse, wherever we live in America.”

ABOUT THE MOVIE

Holly Hey, Associate Professor of Film, The University of Toledo

Holly Hey, a filmmaker and faculty member of The University of Toledo Department of Theatre & Film, will screen one of her films in the internationally recognized Aesthetica Short Film Festival in November. The Aesthetica Film Festival, accredited by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), is a celebration of independent film, and an outlet for championing and supporting short filmmaking. The festival includes a rich selection of films from across the world, in genres including advertising, artists’ film, music video, drama and documentary. Her film emerged successfully after two highly competitive rounds of selection review.
Ms. Hey says that “the dum dum capitol of the world” is a first person experimental documentary and a moving image meditation that contemplates landscape, home, recollection, queerness, and time.

From Holly Hey’s short film “dum dum capitol of the world”

The project uses personal history to reflect on universal themes about home, life, love, parenting, memory, and death. Professor Hey began the project in 2005 when she received major funding from LEF Moving Image Foundation. She later received major funding from the University of Toledo in 2012 and completed the film in 2014.

To date, “the dum dum capitol of the world” has also screened in several U.S. festivals including The Ann Arbor Film Festival (the largest and longest running annual celebration of independent and experimental film and video in North America), the Athens Film Festival in Athens, Ohio, The Queens World Film Festival in New York, as well as The Moon Rise Film Festival in British Columbia.

Ms. Hey is currently an Associate Professor and Head of the Film Program within the Department of Theatre and Film. She holds a MFA in filmmaking from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She makes a broad range of work that can be seen in galleries, film festivals, live performances, and on television. Her works have screened both nationally and internationally, and The National Educational Telecommunications Association (N.E.T.A.) distributes her last major release “Rat Stories” that has been aired on PBS affiliates within the United States, British Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

The Aesthetica Short Film Festival – 2015 http://www.asff.co.uk/

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.

The College of Communication and the Arts (CoCA) celebrated its annual Arts & 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. More on those in another post.

Midsummer Night Mysteries with TSO

Mendelssohn’s ethereal Overture, effervescent Scherzo, and iconic Wedding March highlight the first half of “Midsummer Night Mysteries.” The North American premiere of Volker David Kirchner’s Labyrinthos presented the Bard’s fairies, lovers and comic sidekicks, alongside music inspired by the Italian Baroque master Claudio Monteverdi. Stephan Sanderling conducted and Cornel Gabara, associate professor of Theatre and Head of Acting at UT, directed and portrayed the dual character Egeus/Bottom.

A number of UT students and faculty participated in the performance. UT faculty who acted in the show included Irene Alby, Lecturer in the Department of Theatre and Film, who played Hippolyta/Titania and as mentioned above, Gabara played Egeus/Bottom.

UT Theatre students involved in the production included Ian Davis as Demetrius; Jeffrey Burden as Oberon/Theseus; Nolan Thomaswick as Lysander; Victoria Zajac as Hermia; Keely-Rain Battle as Puck; and Elif Ertürk as Helena. Students also doubled up and played other roles, such as the mechanicals and fairies.

Set design was done by Gabara; costume design was done by Daniel Thobias, Assistant Professor of Theatre and Head of Design in the Department of Theatre and Film; and lighting was handled by James S. Hill, retired chair of UT Department of Theatre & Film.

A still from Holly Hey’s film “the dumdum capitol of the world”

Congratulations to Associate Professor Holly Hey, who screened her film The Dum Dum Capitol of the World at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Athens Film Festival, and the Queens World Film Festival.

A brief synopsis: The Dum Dum Capitol of the World (Holly Hey, 2014) 21 minutes.
An experimental documentary that contemplates landscape, home, memory, queerness, and time. The project illuminates social constructs about sexuality, self, and human instinct. Visible and latent hostilities directed towards queerness surface.

Celebrating the Genius of Mozart – January through February 2014

The University of Toledo College of Communication and the Arts is collaborating with the Toledo Symphony on a number of events connected with celebrating Mozart, January through February.

For two years, The University of Toledo and the TSO have been proud to collaborate on an arts and humanities festival. Centered on themes inspired by Symphony programs, these lectures, movie screenings and performances have covered diverse topics from the pain of the Civil War to modern day film culture.

This year’s festival celebrates the genius of Mozart, the fascinating time period of the 18th century and the ways it continues to intrigue us today. The series culminates on February 7 & 8 when the Symphony performs the original Peter Shaffer play, “Amadeus,” accompanied by music from the film—all performed live.

Cornel Gabara
Associate Professor of Theatre, Head of Acting at The University of Toledo

Cornel Gabara, associate professor of theatre and head of acting at UT, will direct the theatrical production. Gabara has also directed two previous productions with the TSO, including “Every Good Boy Deserves Favour,” which was taken to Carnegie Hall.The following week, the UT Symphony Orchestra and Choirs perform an All Mozart Concert in the University’s newly-renovated Doermann Theatre.

Most events are free.

FREE LECTURES
Light refreshments will be provided at all Libbey Hall lectures, and we encourage a robust Q&A following each talk.

“Mozart’s Mysterious Demise: Freemasonic Revenge Legends and Shaffer’s Amadeus” with Dr. Edmund Lingan, Associate Professor and Interim Chair of the UT Department of Theatre & Film
Tuesday, January 7 at 7 p.m.
Libbey Hall, UT Main Campus

“Mozart, Genius and the Popular Imagination” with UT musicologist Ashley Mirakian
Tuesday, January 14 at 7 p.m.
Libbey Hall, UT Main Campus

“Under Mozart’s Petticoat: Period Costuming”
With UT’s Erica Frank, Theatre Lecturer and Costume Designer, and Daniel Thobias, Assistant Professor of Theatre & Costume Design
Tuesday, January 21 at 7 p.m.
Libbey Hall, UT Main Campus

“Mozart from a Performer’s Perspective” with conductor Robert Mirakian and violinist, Merwin Siu
Tuesday, January 28 at 7 p.m.
Libbey Hall, UT Main Campus

CONCERTS

AMADEUS: IN CONCERT
Toledo Symphony Classics Series
Friday and Saturday, February 7 & 8
8 p.m.| Peristyle at the Toledo Museum of Art
$22-$55 | The Toledo Symphony performs music from the film, while actors perform the original Peter Shaffer play—a dazzling, multi-sensory experience! Selections from Mozart’s “Requiem,” operas, piano concertos and much more.
For tickets call 419.246.8000 or visit www.ToledoSymphony.com

ALL MOZART CONCERT
UT Symphony Orchestra and Choirs
Saturday, February 15
3 p.m. | Doermann Theatre, UT Main Campus
FREE
Read More About It…

http://www.toledoblade.com/Music-Theater-Dance/2014/01/02/Symphony-UT-collaborate-to-celebrate-Mozart.html

http://www.toledosymphony.com/news/2014/01/03/main/symphony-ut-collaborate-to-celebrate-mozart/

http://www.toledosymphony.com/events/amadeus/

TJ Gerckens, Lighting Lecturer, University of Toledo Department of Theatre & Film

Congratulations to UT Department of Theatre & Film Lecturer, Professor TJ Gerckens, for receiving the prestigious 2013 Jefferson Award for “Outstanding Lighting Design-Large Theatre” for his design for Mary Zimmerman’s “Metamorphoses” at the Lookingglass in Chicago last fall. Gerckens also designed the lighting for the original 2001 off-Broadway production of “Metamorphoses.” Interim Chair of the UT Department of Theatre & Film, Dr. Edmund Lingan adds, “TJ’s accomplishment raises the prestige and visibility of the department, the College of Communication and the Arts, and the University of Toledo.”

The Joseph Jefferson Awards, a.k.a The Jeff’ Awards, “fosters the artistic growth of area theatres and theatre artists and promotes educational opportunities, audience appreciation, and civic pride in the achievements of the theatre community. The Jeff Awards evaluates over 250 theatrical productions and holds two awards ceremonies annually.

T.J. Gerckens, who joined the UT Department of Theatre and Film faculty September 2012, is a professional lighting designer and member of United Scenic Artist, the union of professional designers in the entertainment field.  He has worked professionally in dance, opera, and theatre lighting for over 17 years.  He is best known for his collaborations with international playwright/director, Mary Zimmerman, in over 14 professional production that extend from Broadway, Off-Broadway, Metropolitan Opera, Chicago Opera Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, Washington, D.C., Goodman  and Court Theatres in Chicago.

Lawrence E. DiStasi and Anjali Bhimani in Lookingglass Theatre Company’s production of “Metamorphoses.”
The Theater Loop with Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

About the Jeff Awards | http://www.jeffawards.org/home/index.cfm