Department of Theatre and Dance
UT Shield

, Filed Under: On Stage

Decrypting Cyborg Realities: A Closer Look at the Themes of IN THE ETHER

Choreographer Erica Gionfriddo has spent years researching technology and identity, investigating how social media and emergent technologies affect our perceptions of ourselves by putting the mind over the body. In the Ether was born out of this research, evolving through many iterations in the Ether series through Gionfriddo’s work with ARCOS Dance. The goal of this series, however, has remained the same: to warp (or, “hack”) the use of technology to provide a deeper understanding of our multiple identities, rather than letting its influence cause us to conform to structures that don’t serve us.

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, Filed Under: Beyond the Stage

Meet the Cast of Wyeth Airlines Flight Thirteen, Then and Now

Wyeth Airlines Flight Thirteen, by M.F.A. in Playwriting candidate Lena Barnard, follows a tight-knit group of middle school friends as they lose sight of the imagined world that has kept them together. Surrounded by the pressure to fit in and find love, they struggle to hold onto the things that once gave them comfort, adjusting to new ways of viewing the world around them. In order to portray these young adolescence in a truthful and meaningful way, the cast of Wyeth Airlines Flight Thirteen has been reminiscing on their own middle school years; an awkward time that also served as an important time for self-discovery. We spoke with each of them to learn more about the process of working on Wyeth Airlines Flight Thirteen and how it has reminded them of their own middle school experiences.

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, Filed Under: Beyond the Stage

An Interview with poolboy00

At the end of the spring 2020 semester, preliminary plans were being laid to stage one of Sam Mayer’s (M.F.A. in Playwriting candidate) scripts as part of UTNT (UT New Theatre), Part One in fall 2020. However, with the hopes of in-person theatre in the fall waning away, Mayer and director Mike Steele made a bold and brave choice to create a completely different work that was born from and lived through its virtual medium, rather than having to mold a theatrical production to a digital space. What resulted was eight weeks of experimentation and devising on the platform Twitch, leading to a retrospective, dramatic and cathartic virtual performance that examines the lives of real people when they are consciously performing in front of a screen.

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