FGCU's annual melee of time-sensitive art is back again for the seventh consecutive year. Creative and sleep-deprived students churn up the minutes in a mad race against the clock to produce the best stage play, film, music, or artwork completely within 24 hours. For each of the past six years, students at FGCU have meet in a creative competition that draws from their unique capacity for procrastination and their tremendously dynamic creativity. At 6:00 p.m. on Friday, September 6, the students are given a list of items that have to appear in their film, stage play, visual or performance art, dance or music. At 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 7, the students submit their finished product. The public is invited to see the results at 8:00 p.m. on September 7, in an event that is as unexpected as it is entertaining.
Winners receive a $500 scholarship in each of the creative categories. Each year we have a distinguished panel of judges to choose one artist or team to receive the scholarship for best film, best play, or best live performance.
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Come to the Pre-24 meeting on Thursday, August 22 at 5:00 p.m. in room AC 111.
With special Guest Director, Dominic Missimi (Professor Emeritus and founder of Northwestern University's musical theatre program and Jeff Award recipient) and featuring Gerritt VanderMeer (FGCU's Assistant Professor of Theatre and musical theatre professional) as the Leading Player, FGCU's Center for the Arts proudly announces its first musical featuring local and internationally-renowned talent!
"With music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (Wicked), and a book by Roger O. Hirson, Pippin is the classic story, loosely based on historical figures, about a prince (Pippin) and his journey to find meaning and his self-identity. After 40 years of not being on the stage, it has been revived to critical acclaim and has nabbed 10 Tony nomincations. Pippin in entralling with its energetic numbers about adventure, love, faith, and self-discovery." -- Brittany Rodrigues for Broadway World
"Pippin" is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI, 421 West 54th Street, NY, NY 10019.
Tickets: $7.00 Tickets will go on sale January 31, 2014. Due to limited seating, please consider buying your tickets online prior to the show. Please click on "Tickets" listed above in order to be directed to our online ticket service. The Box Office is located in the Arts Complex and will be open one-hour prior to the start of each performance. You may pick up your pre-purchased tickets or purchase tickets at our Box Office
On October 6, 1998, Matthew Shepard was beaten and left to die tied to a fence in the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. Matthew died six days later. His torture and murder became a watershed historical moment in America that highlighted many of the fault lines in our culture. A month after the murder, the members of Tectonic Theatre Production traveled to Laramie and conducted interviews with people from that town. From these interviews they wrote the play The Laramie Project. -- laramieproject.org
"The Laramie Project portrays an American town with grace, truth, theatrical economy, compassion, wit, despair and love. It proves that theatre can serve as witness to our deeds. It's we who must answer one by one, for what we all create and what we destroy together." -- from a San Francisco Chronical review of the original Laramie Project
Free tickets will go on sale on Thursday, February 6, 2014. A Sense of Wonder is a one-woman play written and performed by Kaiulani Lee based on the life and works of legendary environmental activist Rachel Carson. This campus performance is held in conjunction with the 2013 Rachel Carson Distinguished Lecture Series, and is co-sponsored by the Bower School of Music and the Arts and FGCU's Center for Environment and Society. This will be a one-hour performance, followed by a discussion with Kaiulani Lee and FGCU faculty.
This performance is free and open to the campus community, with required tickets available from the Theatre Lab Box Office.
Tickets: $7.00 Due to limited seating, please consider buying your tickets online prior to the show. Please click on "Tickets" listed above in order to be directed to our online ticket service. The Box Office is located in the Arts Complex and will be open one-hour prior to the start of each performance. You may pick up your pre-purchased tickets or purchase tickets at our Box Office.
Led by Lynn Neuman, an instructor in the Bower School of Music & the Arts, students in the “Repertory and Performance” class studied scientific models and principles of water flow to create a performance piece called “Monami” that addresses the disappearance of sea grass and other urgent water issues. The title is a Japanese word that means “grass waves”; but it also could be interpreted as French for “my friend,” implying a responsibility to take care of the waterways, Neuman said.
As part of a nationwide project, National Water Dances Day, the class performed “Monami” on April 12 at the downtown Fort Myers water basin at the corner of Hendry Street and Edwards Drive. Groups across the country performed simultaneously to bring attention to the fragility of water systems.
The destruction of sea grass in the Caloosahatchee River has been a hot topic in Southwest Florida, as it affects the ecological balance of the river, other marine life and water quality at local beaches.
“This is a local issue that affects not only the health of the waterways but the quality of life in Fort Myers, and can have significant impact on local tourism,” Neuman said.
Assistant Professor James Douglass of FGCU’s Division of Ecological Studies has documented the disappearance of sea grasses upriver over the last several years. “That’s worrying because the upper part of the estuary is where manatees hang out in wintertime and there should be more food for them there,” he said.
As artistic director and co-founder of Artichoke Dance Company in New York, Neuman has created other performance works focusing on ecological issues and has been leading volunteer coastal cleanup efforts since 2010.
Tickets: $7.00 Tickets go on sale May 29, 2014. Due to limited seating, please consider buying your tickets online prior to the show. Please click on "Tickets" listed above in order to be directed to our online ticket service. The Box Office is located in the Arts Complex and will open one-hour prior to the start of each performance. You may pick up your pre-purchased tickets or purchase tickets at our Box Office.
Shakespeare's tragic romance of the Montagues versus the Capulets, with the star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet caught in the middle. This play begins with Emily, a young contemporary girl who discovers a book of Romeo and Juliet. As she begins to read, the characters come out of the book to enact the story. Emily thinks that the tale will end like all of her well-loved Disney movies, but she learns that not all stories have a happy ending.
"Few have come up with (a Shakespeare adaptation) that works better, or even nearly as well as this adaptation by Toby Hulse . . . this production brings much enjoyment to the audience, and provides them with an admirable introduction to a great play." -- This Is Bristol, UK
