CCM E-Media Students Receive Top Honors at National Broadcasting Society Convention

CCM alumnus Tim Neumann.

Frequent readers of The Village News are likely already familiar with the work of alumnus Tim Neumann (BFA Electronic Media, 2014), as Neumann produced several memorable promotional videos for CCM’s Mainstage and Studio Dramas with his colleague Dan Marque (BFA Electronic Media, 2014), including a stunning “trailer” for CCM’s 2013 production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (which you can view here).

We are delighted to report that Neumann won a grand prize in the “Video Instructional/ Industrial/ Promotional Production” category at last month’s National Broadcasting Society national convention in Atlanta for a promotional video he created about CCM Drama! You can watch his award winning video below.

Current E-Media major Josh Hamester also took home a top award within the category of “Video Sports Segment” at the convention! Congrats, Tim and Josh!

Learn more about CCM’s Department of Drama by visiting ccm.uc.edu/drama.

Learn more about CCM’s Division of Electronic Media by visiting ccm.uc.edu/emedia.

CCM Drama Holds Annual Senior Showcase and Dolly Awards on March 27

CCM’s Department of Drama presents its annual Senior Showcase at 2 and 7 p.m. on Friday, March 27, in UC’s Patricia Corbett Theater. The 13th annual DOLLY Awards Ceremony follows the 7 p.m. showcase performance. These events are free and open to the public. Reservations are not required.

CCM’s Class of 2015 in Drama.

The showcase performance will consist of a variety of scenes by graduating seniors in CCM’s Drama program, demonstrating the depth and breadth of the acting skills they have honed during their undergraduate training at CCM. The Senior Showcase will be the first presentation of a performance that the students will be taking on the road to exhibit their talent in New York and Los Angeles in April. You can learn more about the Drama Class of 2015 by visiting ccm.uc.edu/theatre/drama/seniorshowcase.

Hosted by Richard E. Hess, CCM’s A.B., Dolly, Ralph and Julia Cohen Chair of Dramatic Performance, the Annual CCM Drama DOLLY Awards recognize outstanding achievement and performance by students in the Department of Drama. Awards are given for Excellence in Performance and Excellence in Ensemble Performance from the 2014-15 CCM Drama season, which included the productions TRANSMIGRATION 2014, Living Dead in Denmark, Macbeth, Speech and Debate and The Heidi Chronicles.

The evening will also include tributes to CCM faculty members Diane Kvapil and R. Terrell Finney, both of whom will retire at the end of the semester. A faculty member since 1977, Professor Kvapil received the Acclaim Award for Outstanding Theatre Educator in 2011. A faculty member since 1983, Professor Finney currently serves as CCM’s Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Director of Graduate Studies. He is also currently serving as president of the National Association of Schools of Theatre.

CCM alumnus Keith Pillow.

The highlight of the ceremony will be the presentation of the 2015 Julia Winter Cohen Career Excellence Award to a graduate of CCM Drama. This year’s honoree is Keith Pillow, CCM Drama class of 1989. An accomplished film and television actor, Pillow has had recurring roles on Judging Amy, The Shield, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Awkward and Pretty Little Liars. He has made guest appearances on The Mentalist, Glee, The Goldbergs, Law & Order L.A., TheCloser, Nip/Tuck, Hot in Cleveland, 24, CSI, Cold Case, The Young and the Restless, General Hospital and The Bold and the Beautiful, to name but a few. A classically trained singer and actor, Pillow is also very much at home on the stage. His credits include the Broadway touring company of Show Boat, the role of Pontius Pilate in the European tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, the role of Hud in the European tour of Hair and the role of Jim in the national tour of Big River. He was also featured at the prestigious Theater des Westens in Berlin as Jacob in La Cage aux Folles, and in productions of My Fair Lady, Anything Goes and Evita. In addition to his television and stage credits, Pillow has appeared in over 20 national and regional commercials and numerous films.

About Diane Kvapil

CCM Associate Professor of Drama Diane Kvapil.

Diane L. Kvapil studied at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City with Sanford Meisner. She joined CCM’s faculty in 1977 and currently serves as Associate Professor of Drama. Kvapil has directed several notable productions during her time at CCM, including Trojan Woman (with original music by Richard Oberacker), Our Town, Three Sisters (which won the Acclaim Award for Outstanding Ensemble) and Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. In 2011, she received the Acclaim Award for Outstanding Theatre Educator.

Featured in numerous regional and national touring productions as well as WNET and NBC telecasts, Kvapil has also performed with National Players in Japan, Korea, Canada, North Africa and Bermuda. She is in demand for on-camera commercial work as well as voice overs for radio and television. As a writer, Kvapil has had a teleplay produced for NBC’s Young People’s Specials. She studied with American actor and acting teacher Eric Morris during the summer of 1987.

About R. Terrell Finney

CCM Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Director of Graduate Studies and Professor of Drama Terrell Finney.

R. Terrell Finney, Jr. is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Director of Graduate Studies and a Professor of Drama at CCM. A faculty member since 1983, his recent directing credits include Charley’s Aunt, Floyd Collins, Dancing at Lughnasa, The Diviners, Myths and Hymns, As You Like It,Lend Me A Tenor, Chekhov in Yalta, Blithe Spirit and the world premiere of Clever Dick for CCM/Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, among others. He has also served as a faculty member at Birmingham-Southern College and the Cincinnati School for Creative and Performing Arts.

Finney is a former artistic director of the Showboat Majestic where selected productions included Crimes of the Heart and They’re Playing Our Song. He also directed The Importance of Being Earnest for the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival. Acting credits include Nurse Nanny Fanny in ETC’s Snow White, Hysterium in the Hot Summer Nights production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Argon in CCM’sThe Imaginary Invalid. He has also served as narrator for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

A graduate of the MFA directing program at Boston University, he spent the summers of 1992 and 1995 in training programs with the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain. A past president of the Ohio Theatre Alliance, Finney previously served as the head of the Division of Opera, Musical Theatere, Drama and Arts Administration at CCM and acted as producer of CCM’s acclaimed Hot Summer Nights from 1998 to 2002. A member of Actors’ Equity Association, he is currently serving as President of the National Association of Schools of Theatre and frequently serves as a consultant to theatre programs across the United States.

Although Finney is retiring this spring, he will make a return to CCM’s Mainstage Series to direct Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness! in February of 2016. You can learn more about this production, and the rest of CCM’s upcoming season, by visiting ccm.uc.edu/about/villagenews/notations-ovations/mainstage-series-2015-2016.

Performance Times
2 & 7 p.m., Friday, March 27

Location
Patricia Corbett Theater, CCM Village
University of Cincinnati

Admission Details
Admission to the CCM Drama Senior Showcase and DOLLY Awards Ceremony is FREE and open to the general public. Reservations are not required.

Parking and Directions
Parking is available in the CCM Garage (located at the base of Corry Boulevard off Jefferson Avenue) and additional garages throughout the UC campus. Please visit uc.edu/parking for more information on parking rates.

For detailed maps and directions, please visit uc.edu/visitors. Additional parking is available off-campus at the new U Square complex on Calhoun Street and other neighboring lots.

For directions to CCM Village, visit ccm.uc.edu/about/directions.
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CCM Season Presenting Sponsor and Musical Theatre Program Sponsor: The Otto M. Budig Family Foundation

Community Partner: ArtsWave

CCM Slideshows: The Heidi Chronicles

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CCM’s 2014-15 Mainstage Series continues TONIGHT with Wendy Wasserstein’s groundbreaking comedy The Heidi Chronicles, playing through Sunday, Feb. 15, in Patricia Corbett Theater. See a complete list of performance times below.

Winner of the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play, The Heidi Chronicles is directed by CCM’s A.B., Dolly, Ralph and Julia Cohen Chair of Dramatic Performance Richard Hess.

Rick Pender takes a closer look at The Heidi Chronicles and the legacy of playwright Wendy Wasserstein for CityBeat. Read the story online here.

David Lyman previews the production for the Cincinnati Enquirer. Read the story online here.

Sexuality, feminism, education, gender equality, marriage, women’s rights – there’s no hot-button issue the play doesn’t touch. Learn more about this poignant comedy here.

Performance Times

• 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 12
• 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 13
• 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 14
• 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 15

Location
Patricia Corbett Theater, CCM Village
University of Cincinnati

Purchasing Tickets
Tickets to The Heidi Chronicles are $27-31 for adults, $17-20 for non-UC students and $15-18 for UC students with a valid ID.

Saturday matinee student rush discount tickets are available beginning at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 14 and are $12-15.

Tickets can be purchased in person at the CCM Box Office, over the telephone at 513-556-4183 or online at ccm.uc.edu/boxoffice/heidi-chronicles-mainstage.

Parking and Directions
Parking is available in the CCM Garage (located at the base of Corry Boulevard off Jefferson Avenue) and additional garages throughout the UC campus. Please visit uc.edu/parking for more information on parking rates.

For detailed maps and directions, please visit uc.edu/visitors. Additional parking is available off-campus at the new U Square complex on Calhoun Street and other neighboring lots.

For directions to CCM Village, visit ccm.uc.edu/about/directions.
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CCM Season Presenting Sponsor and Musical Theatre Program Sponsor: The Otto M. Budig Family Foundation

Mainstage Season Production Sponsor: Macy’s

Community Partner: ArtsWave

CCM’s Mainstage Series Presents the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-Winning ‘The Heidi Chronicles’ Next Week

Sarah Davenport as Heidi Holland in CCM’s THE HEIDI CHRONICLES. photography by Mark Lyons.

CCM’s Department of Drama opens its spring Mainstage Series with its debut of Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles, running Feb. 11 through Feb. 15, in the Patricia Corbett Theater.

An examination of feminism and its evolution from the 1960s through the late 1980s, The Heidi Chronicles follows Heidi Holland, a successful art historian, who tries to find her true self in a rapidly changing world as the roles of women were being redefined.

Students and audience members alike will get the chance to witness a piece of history on stage as director Richard E. Hess, A.B., Dolly, Ralph and Julia Cohen Chair of Dramatic Performance, attempts to make connections between a generation who lived through the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s and students who are now products of this age.

Hess asks a thought-provoking and timely question: “What would Wendy think of life in America in 2015, where we still must deeply question this country’s commitment to racial and gender equality?”

Wasserstein was the first woman playwright to receive a Tony Award for Best Play for The Heidi Chronicles. Her work also earned her prestigious awards including the 1989 Pulitzer Prize, a New York Drama Critics Circle Award and a Drama Desk Award, among others.

Hess says that Wasserstein liked to create characters “who struggled with the shifting demands and definitions of self, unique to a time and place.” This struggle rings true even today.

Second-year Theater Design and Production graduate student Jillian Coratti serves as costume designer for this production. She talked with Hess at the beginning of rehearsals about his vision for the look and feel of the production. “The hardest part about this production was making it look real,” she explains. “This show is dramatic and thoughtful, but very rarely flashy. The characters are real and contemporary, so I didn’t want to make anything come across as overly theatrical.”

Coratti did a great deal of research in magazines and blogs, even pulling out older family photo albums. Her uncles grew up as members of the “baby boomer” generation, so she was able to find looks from the 70s and 80s in their wedding albums. Since each scene in The Heidi Chronicles is set in a new time period, there are a lot of quick costume changes. Heidi alone has 13 changes!

But the easiest and most rewarding part has been the fittings. Coratti says, “The actors are so eager and willing to see their costumes because they can connect with these clothes. They’re very similar to what we wear everyday, yet some come from our parents closets.”

• Richard E. Hess, director
• Thomas C. Umfrid, scenic designer
• Jillian Coratti, costume designer
• Taylor Malott, wig & make-up designer
• Joe Beumer, lighting designer
• Corbin Wescott, sound designer
• k. Jenny Jones, fight choreographer
• Susan Stephenson, stage manager

The Heidi Chronicles Cast List:

• Sarah Davenport as Heidi Holland
• Clare Combest as Susan Johnston
• Colin Edgar as Peter Patron
• Connor Lawrence as Scoop Rosenbaum
• Ryan Garrett as Chris Boxer/Steve/Waiter
• Katie McDonald as Jill/Sandra Zucker-Hall
• AC Horton as Fran
• Julia Netzer as Becky
• Rachel Baumgarten as Debbie
• Owen Alderson as 1968 Hippie/Mark/Dr. Ray
• Michaela Tropeano as Molly McBride/Clara
• Alice Skok as Lisa
• Carli Rhoades as Betsy
• Sydney Ashe as Denise
• Katie Langham as April

About The Heidi Chronicles
After its initial opening in November 1988 Off-Broadway, The Heidi Chronicles was praised by the New York Daily News as “witty, hilarious…not just a funny play, but a wise one… I doubt we’ll see a better play this season.” Even Variety raved, “Not many plays manage Heidi’s feat of inducing almost continuous laughter while forcing the audience to examine its preconceptions.” In March of 1989, The Heidi Chronicles was transferred to Broadway and became a long-running success with an impressive 622 performances when it closed in September of 1990.

Comprised of a series of interrelated scenes, the play traces the coming of age of Heidi Holland, a successful art historian, as she tries to find her bearings in a rapidly changing world. Gradually distancing herself from her friends, she watches them move from the idealism and political radicalism of their college years through militant feminism and, eventually, back to the materialism that they had sought to reject in the first place. Eventually Heidi comes to accept the fact that liberation can be achieved only if one is true to oneself, with goals that come out of need rather than circumstance.

Read Rick Pender’s thoughts on the legacy of Wendy Wasserstein and the importance of The Heidi Chronicles, courtesy of CityBeat.

Performance Times

• 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 11 (preview)
• 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 12
• 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 13
• 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 14
• 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 15

Location
Patricia Corbett Theater, CCM Village
University of Cincinnati

Purchasing Tickets
Tickets to The Heidi Chronicles are $27-31 for adults, $17-20 for non-UC students and $15-18 for UC students with a valid ID. Saturday matinee student rush discount tickets are available beginning at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 14 and are $12-15. Tickets to the Feb. 11 preview performance are just $12.

Tickets can be purchased in person at the CCM Box Office, over the telephone at 513-556-4183 or online at ccm.uc.edu/boxoffice/heidi-chronicles-mainstage.

Parking and Directions
Parking is available in the CCM Garage (located at the base of Corry Boulevard off Jefferson Avenue) and additional garages throughout the UC campus. Please visit uc.edu/parking for more information on parking rates.

For detailed maps and directions, please visit uc.edu/visitors. Additional parking is available off-campus at the new U Square complex on Calhoun Street and other neighboring lots.

For directions to CCM Village, visit ccm.uc.edu/about/directions.
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CCM Season Presenting Sponsor and Musical Theatre Program Sponsor: The Otto M. Budig Family Foundation

Mainstage Season Production Sponsor: Macy’s

Community Partner: ArtsWave

CCM’s Studio Series Presents the Dark Comedy ‘Speech and Debate’ Nov. 6-8

Owen Alderson, Ryan Garrett and Katie Langham in CCM’s production of ‘Speech and Debate.’ Photo by Richard E. Hess.

CCM’s Department of Drama presents the regional premiere of Pulitzer Prize nominee Stephen Karam’s Speech and Debate as part of this fall’s Studio Series. Directed by CCM’s A.B., Dolly, Ralph and Julia Cohen Chair of Dramatic Performance Richard E. Hess, the production opens Thursday, Nov. 6, and plays through Saturday, Nov. 8.

Like all Studio Series productions, admission to Speech and Debate is free, but reservations are required. Tickets become available at noon on Monday, Nov. 3. This production features adult themes and is recommended for mature audiences.

According to Hess, Speech and Debate is “a 90 minute intermission-less romp through high school experienced by three socially awkward misfits. The play is a cry to be noticed from students on the fringe.”

“Both gender and sexual identity play a large role in this play.  [It’s] a recipe for comedy in dark and disturbing moments of angst,” Hess explains.

Sophomore Katie Langham discusses her experience playing the irreverent Diwata, a young woman who envisions her future on Broadway but can’t seem to get a part in the school play: “She keeps me on my toes and constantly surprises me. Playing this character is delightfully freeing because she’s so experimental in her own artistic life.”

“Each rehearsal is a time to play and explore, maybe regress back to the days of high school and re-discover adolescent feelings of precociousness, uncertainty and insecurity,” says Langham. It’s this attitude of discovery that makes the characters of Speech and Debate so authentic and engaging.

The play will take advantage of technology to enhance the storytelling. “A crucial plot element in the play is revealed in the very first scene,” Hess explains, “A computer conversation told entirely through projections when an 18 year old high school senior begins cruising on a gay chat line. This event sets the play in motion.”

About Richard E. Hess
Richard E. Hess has been the Chair of CCM Drama for the past 20 years. Recent directing credits at CCM include The Crucible, The Laramie Project, Coram Boy, RENT, You Can’t Take It With You (ACCLAIM Award winner Outstanding University Play), Anon(ymous) (ACCLAIM Award winner Outstanding Play), Brigadoon (Cincinnati Entertainment Award for Outstanding Musical) and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches (Cincinnati Entertainment Award for Best Ensemble Acting).

He made his New York directing debut at the Laurie Beechman Theatre on 42nd Street directing AN EVENING OF (Mostly) TRUE SONGS (with Andrea Burns), a new incarnation of Don’t Look Down, the music and lyrics of Adam Wagner, first seen in the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. Favorite directing credits at the Human Race Theatre Co., where he has been a resident artist since 1996, include Race, Red, Doubt, Proof, I Am My Own Wife and A Delicate Balance. He directed Miracle on South Division Street for the Human Race in September 2014.

Other credits include the Los Angeles staging of the one-woman show Besame Mucho, O.K. That’s Enough (with Diana Maria Riva) and the smash hits The Pages of My Diary I’d Rather Not Read and The Catholic Girl’s Guide to Losing Your Virginity, both of which enjoyed sold out runs at the Hudson Theatre in Los Angeles. For five years Hess was the artistic director of Hot Summer Nights in Cincinnati, where he directed Violet (with Ashley Brown), Hello, Dolly! (with Pamela Myers), Godspell (with Shoshana Bean and Leslie Kritzer) and the premiere of We Tell The Story: The Songs of Ahrens and Flaherty, in collaboration with Stephen Flaherty.

He studied with the internationally acclaimed director Anne Bogart and members of the Saratoga International Theatre Institute (SITI Co.) in New York and Los Angeles for the past decade. He has worked with the KNOW Theatre, the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, the Chautauqua Institution, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Pops and Cincinnati Opera Education. He is proud of fostering the new work of playwrights and has directed first productions of Richard Oberacker and Rob Taylor’s Don’t Make Me Pull This Show Over: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Parenting, Mark Halpin’s The Kid in the Dark, Ben Magnuson’s Four Minutes and Tom Korbee’s Will It Ever Stop Raining?

He made his debut as a playwright/creator in the Cincinnati Fringe Festival with (UN)Natural Disaster created with 13 actors and performed in an abandoned building in Over-the-Rhine. (UN)Natural Disaster was named the Producer’s Pick of the Fringe and subsequently re-mounted on the 2010 New York International Fringe Festival.

In June of 2011, Hess directed The Collapsible Space Between Us with the Dadaab Theater Project, comprised of five CCM Drama students, which was presented with eight refugees from the Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya for World Refugee Day sponsored by the United Nations in Nairobi, Kenya. He returned to Kenya as a Fulbright Scholar in 2014 and taught acting and directing at Kenyatta University in Nairobi and researched the creation of original works by creating KUMI NA MBILI (12), a stage show and a short film.

Hess was named Ernest Glover Outstanding Teacher at UC in 1999 and again in 2012 and was also named the ACCLAIM Award Theatre Trailblazer in 2009. He is an associate member of the Society of Directors and Choreographers (SDC).

Cast List
Ryan Garrett as Howie
Owen Alderson as Solomon
Katie Langham as Diwata
Sarah Davenport as Teacher and others
Colleen Ladrick as Reporter and others

Performance Times

• 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 6
• 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 7
• 2 & 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8

Location
Cohen Family Studio Theater, CCM Village
University of Cincinnati

Reserving Tickets
Admission is free, but reservations are required. Tickets become available at noon on Monday, November 3. Visit the CCM Box Office or call 513-556-4183 to reserve. Limit two tickets per order.

Parking and Directions
Parking is available in the CCM Garage (located at the base of Corry Boulevard off Jefferson Avenue) and additional garages throughout the UC campus. Please visit uc.edu/parking for more information on parking rates.

For detailed maps and directions, please visit uc.edu/visitors.

Additional parking is available off-campus at the new U Square complex on Calhoun Street and other neighboring lots. For directions to CCM Village, visit ccm.uc.edu/about/directions.
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CCM Season Presenting Sponsor and Musical Theatre Program Sponsor: The Otto M. Budig Family Foundation

Community Partner: ArtsWave

Drama Studio Series Sponsor: Neil Artman & Margaret Straub

CCM Video: Imagine the Possibilities with CCM Drama

Graduating CCM E-Media student Tim Neumann (BFA, 2014) has created a stunning video exploration of CCM’s acclaimed Department of Drama.

Described by Backstage magazine as a “first-rate BFA program in acting, ” CCM Drama creates graduates who go on to careers in theatre, film, television and national media. Watch the video above and imagine the possibilities.

With programs like E-Media and Drama living side-by-side, it’s easy to see why CCM is considered a preeminent institution for the performing and media arts!

Learn more about CCM’s Department of Drama by visiting ccm.uc.edu/theatre/drama.

Learn more about CCM’s Division of Electronic Media by visiting ccm.uc.edu/emedia.

LCT Awards ‘PO 11259: Sincerely Yours’ Top Prize in CCM’s TRANSMIGRATION Festival

Six teams of student actors craft and perform original 30-minute shows during the 2014 TRANSMIGRATION Festival.

Panelists for the League of Cincinnati Theatres (LCT) have recognized PO 11259: Sincerely Yours as the best production at CCM’s 2014 TRANSMIGRATION Festival, CCM Drama’s annual presentation of student written and produced work. Congratulations to that show’s creative team of Jaclyn Chantel, Hannah Halvorson, Spencer Lackey, Laura McCarthy, Fabiola Rodriguez and Anna Stapleton!

Panelists awarded second place to The 17th Annual Snipes, Arkansas, Harvest Festival, and honorable mentions to Dreams R Us: Tonight’s Answers to Tomorrow’s Questions and Complex: A Structure of Sound, An Organism of Vibrations.

The sixth-annual festival allows the audience to experience half-hour works produced by small groups of Drama majors, who create and design all aspects of their productions from start to finish. The festival is an exciting event for both guests and the presenters, as audiences get the opportunity to see up to four very different pieces of new theatre in a single night and the students premiere works that are entirely their own. This year, six shows were presented.

PO 11259 was praised for being “funny and poignant” and “a cool concept,”while The Snipes, Arkansas, Harvest Festival allowed its actors to show “a lot of dimensions in a short play.”

CCM Drama Students Present New Works in Sixth Annual TRANSMIGRATION Festival This Week

CCM TRANSMIGRATION 2014 logo.

Students in CCM’s Department of Drama flex their writing, editing, designing, directing and acting muscles with the 2014 TRANSMIGRATION Festival of Student-Created New Works, taking place March 6-8 throughout CCM Village. Admission is free, but reservations are required.

The sixth-annual festival allows audiences to experience half-hour works produced by small groups of drama majors, who create all aspects of their productions from start to finish.

“As a faculty member, I’m making an active effort to stay out of their way,” says Brant Russell, Assistant Professor of Drama and producer of this year’s TRANSMIGRATION Festival. “The audience will get a real sense of what our students are reacting to in their world, and we want that rawness to come through in each show.”

TRANSMIGRATION came into being in response to the dynamic careers of today’s professional actors. “There are two very important lessons TRANSMIGRATION gives us the opportunity to learn,” asserts Shaun Sutton, senior drama major from Overland Park, Kansas. “First, we don’t choose our groups – they’re assigned. It’s important for us to learn how to negotiate and work with new people in a medium we’re all so passionate about. Second, in the world of YouTube and Vine where anyone can be an actor, we need to develop our skills to tell a more powerful story. TRANSMIGRATION is our time to play with an unprecedented lack of structure in an intense professional training program.”

Each year, TRANSMIGRATION is different. This year’s shows include a soundscape in a dark room, a piece about dream creation, the story of a cosmic post office box and a work about community and sticking to your roots. See below for more information on this year’s original works.

CCM’s ‘The Crucible’ Earns Four Star Rating by the League of Cincinnati Theatres

CCM’s proudly presents Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible,’ running through Sunday, Oct. 6. Photography by Mark Lyons.

We are delighted to report that panelists for the League of Cincinnati Theatres (LCT) have recognized CCM’s Mainstage Series production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible with a four star rating!

Written in 1953  as a parable for McCarthyism by American playwright Arthur Miller, The Crucible tells a story of hysteria and witchcraft in colonial Salem.

Panelists praised The Crucible as “a skillful, intense, heartfelt, and nearly perfect production of The Crucible. I truly watched in wonder as the story unfolded.”

“The ensemble acting was terrific…this cast was admirable in its portrayal of a wide range of ages, young to middle-age to elderly.”

As one panelist noted: “I would recommend the production because it is a classic play that still resonates today.”

League of Cincinnati Theatre panelists evaluate productions on a five star scale and recommend shows at either a four star or five star level. Nominations for LCT awards will be determined and announced at the end of the season and winners awarded at the annual LCT gala in the spring. Learn more about The Crucible‘s four star rating here.

CCM’s 2013-14 Mainstage Series resumes at the end of this month with a joyous, graceful stage adaptation of the classic film musical Singin’ in the Rain! Learn more about that production and the rest of our current season here.

CCM Slideshows: The Crucible

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CCM’s highly anticipated 2013-14 Mainstage Series opens this week with a bold new production of the American classic The Crucible, running tonight through Sunday, Oct. 6, in Patricia Corbett Theater.

You can enjoy a preview of the Tony Award-winning play, courtesy of photographer Mark Lyons. Tickets and subscription packages are on sale now.