There was no shortage of creativity and ingenuity in this year’s Evolution showcase, an annual collaboration between student designers and choreographers from the Department of Theatre and Dance and the School of Design and Creative Technologies. Though students didn’t have the B. Iden Payne Theatre to house their larger-than-life creations, in the true spirit of Evolution, they experimented with new forms and innovations, reimagining their performances for the virtual sphere. We’ve collected performances from this year’s month-long virtual showcase, which took place July 30-August 20, 2020, featuring selections of Evolution (Virtual Edition) performances that exhibited the resilience and adaptability of our students, as well as insight into the process of remote collaboration.
New Work
An Interview with Libby Carr on Attending the M.F.A. Playwrights’ Workshop
We recently spoke with undergraduate student Libby Carr, who attended National New Play Network’s M.F.A. Playwrights’ Workshop this year. As one of only two undergraduate student playwrights selected nationwide, Carr participated in a virtual workshop of their play sad girl hours with a professional director, dramaturg and a collection of established actors. Carr shared their inspiration and goals for the play, the origins of this work in Patrick Shaw’s playwriting course and the lessons they have learned from working within a collaborative theatre community.
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An Interview with Keene Prize Winner Jaymes Sanchez
We recently interviewed M.F.A. in Playwriting candidate Jaymes Sanchez about winning the prestigious Keene Prize for Literature (College of Liberal Arts, The University of Texas at Austin). Sanchez was recognized for his script The Cucuy Will Find You, a play that incorporates Mexican-American folklore to address the tensions between traditional and individual identity faced by Latinx millennials. The Keene Prize, awarded to an undergraduate or graduate student every year, earned Sanchez $50,000 for his creation of a work that exemplified the future of American literature and, as Mr. E. L. Keene said when establishing this prize, provided a “vital portrayal of the American experience in microcosm.”
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