Willamette University Presents Shoebox Shakespeare

Willamette University Theatre presents Shoebox Shakespeare, its first show of the 2006-07 season, Oct. 13 and 14 at 8 p.m. and Oct. 15 at 2 p.m., with a preview Oct. 12 at 8 p.m. The performance will be in the Kresge Theatre at Willamette University.

“Eighty percent of Shakespeare’s plays require nothing more than actors and a playing space,” said Theatre Professor Jonathan Cole. “They rely on the power of the spoken word to indicate time, place and passion.”

Shoebox Shakespeare, he said, presents Shakespeare at his most vital — no elaborate sets, no fancy costumes, just great acting and inventive staging. The performance, which is a collection of the Bard’s best-loved scenes and monologues, is presented in a minimalist style that brings out the vivacity of Shakespeare’s language. Cole and Willamette University students Laura Hoff and Laura Wheatman adapted the scenes and direct.

“This project is near and dear to my heart,” Cole said. “One way to enable theatre to live and thrive is to help young people fall in love with plays. Shakespeare is boring to many high school students and doesn't have anything to do with their real lives. To combat that assumption, we have assembled some of Willamette University's finest actors to bring the Bard from the page to the stage.

“The rough and ready presentation style and the fight scenes, combined with the sheer dramatic and emotional range of the content, should delight even the most jaded audience member,” said Cole, who is an Advanced Actor Combatant certified through the Society of American Fight Directors.

Shoebox Shakespeare presents a remarkable opportunity for artists behind the scenes. Hoff, a junior theatre major from Fresno, Calif., and Wheatman, a senior theatre major from Pleasanton, Calif., serve as assistant directors. They helped adapt and cast the show and will direct a selection of scenes.

The company features Lesli Okorn, a senior theatre major from Tigard, Ore.; Sarah Hamilton, a senior theatre major from Salt Lake City, Utah; Eliza Leoni, a senior theatre major from San Francisco, Calif.; Kyle McBroom, a senior theatre and rhetoric major from Hillsboro, Ore.; Ben Nockles, a senior theatre and math major from Gresham, Ore.; Karen Johnson, a junior history major from Pleasant Hill, Calif.; Annie Rimmer, a junior theatre major from Portland, Ore.; Cory Goble, a sophomore theatre major from Las Vegas, Nev.; Tara McLauchlan, a sophomore theatre and psychology major from Woodinville, Wash.; and Olivia Saccomanno, a freshman psychology major from Grass Valley, Calif.

To purchase tickets, contact the Willamette University Box Office at 503-370-6221 or reserve tickets by email at thtr-tix@willamette.edu. Tickets are $5 for Oct. 12, 14, and 15 performances, and $7 for opening night on Oct. 13. The Willamette campus is at 900 State Street in Salem. For more information contact the Theatre Department at 503-370-6222 or visit the website at www.willamette.edu/cla/theatre/.

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Lectures to Address Cultural Heritage Controversies

Two lectures on cultural heritage issues will be given in October as part of an international Cultural Heritage Conference held at Willamette University. Both lectures are free to the public.

Kwame Anthony Appiah will give a lecture titled, “Who Owns Culture?” Thursday, Oct. 12, at 7:30 p.m. in Hudson Hall in the Rogers Music Center at Willamette. Appiah is the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. His books include Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers.

“Thieves of Baghdad: The Investigation into the Looting of the Iraq National Museum” will be presented by Matthew Bogdanos Friday, Oct. 13, at 7:30 p.m. in Hudson Hall. Bogdanos served as deputy director of the Joint Interagency Coordination Group that led the investigation into the 2003 theft and looting of the Baghdad museum. Under his direction, a U.S. multi-agency task force was deployed to Afghanistan, the first time a U.S. team had gone into a war zone. Although 7,000 to 10,000 artifacts are missing, including major pieces considered irreplaceable, the team has recovered thousands of priceless antiquities. A slide lecture will outline the flourishing black market in stolen antiquities that is funding the insurgency in Iraq.

Cultural Heritage Issues: The Legacy of Conquest, Colonization and Commerce is open to the public and brings internationally recognized experts in archaeology, anthropology, museum studies and law for a critical dialogue about the legal and ethical dimensions of cultural heritage issues.

“The 2003 looting of the Iraqi National Museum generated international discussion about the policies of cultural heritage management,” said Ortwin Knorr, coordinator for the Salem branch of the Archaeological Institute of America and classical studies professor at Willamette. “There has also been intense debate about the disposition of artifacts acquired by the Nazis during World War II, the repatriation of classical treasures like the Elgin Marbles, the final disposition of the 9,000-year-old Kennewick Man skeleton and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act,” Knorr said.

Other conference speakers include James Pepper Henry, an associate program director with the National Museum of the American Indian and tribal member of the Kaw/Muscogee Nation; John Jelderks, the judge who wrote the decision in the Kennewick Man case; Richard Leventhal, director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; leading experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. State Department; as well as numerous scholars, legal experts and museum curators from Australia, Canada, Germany, Iraq, Italy, Nigeria and the United States.

Registration for the conference is free for members of the Archaeological Institute of America and Willamette students, faculty and staff. For all others, registration is $90 for the entire conference, including receptions and lunches. Registration per day is $20, or $35 with lunch. Interested community members are invited to attend. Registration is due Oct. 9. For information go to www.willamette.edu/events/chc/ or contact Knorr at 503-370-6029.

This conference is made possible with the generous support of the Archaeological Institute of America; the Oregon Council for the Humanities; Willamette University’s Lilly Project, College of Law and College of Liberal Arts; and a Willamette University Canadian Studies Program Enhancement Grant.

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Pianist to Perform Music with Roots in Africa

The Grace Goudy Distinguished Artist Series will feature pianist William Chapman Nyaho Monday, Oct.16, at 7:30 p.m. in Hudson Hall at the Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center at Willamette University.

Nyaho, a West African native who often performs in traditional Ghana dress, will perform music by composers of African descent from Ghana, Nigeria, Cuba, Jamaica, Egypt, Great Britain and the United States. The compositions are influenced by African tribal music, European classical music and American jazz, blues and spirituals.

“Nyaho’s playing is delicate and exuberant,” said Anita King, Goudy Distinguished Artists Series director. “He treats the piano as an orchestra, and the compositions he plays, although new to most listeners, are masterpieces.”

“Many African compositions have tribal influence but are not primitive in the sense of being ‘simple’ pieces,” Nyaho said. “The harmonies and rhythms are highly intricate.” Many rhythms are written in unusual time signatures, such as 19/8. And unlike Western music, which typically has a destination or climax, African music is often not supposed to go anywhere, but to be in the present moment.

Nyaho has performed in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and North America. The Oxford University–trained musician has been featured on National Public Radio and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. His CD, “Senku: Piano Music by Composers of African Descent,” was named one of the Best of the Year by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which called it “altogether enthralling.” A Gramophone Magazine reviewer said, “The humanity of the music and Nyaho’s gripping performances kept my ears glued to this disc.”

Nyaho will offer a master class Sunday, Oct. 15, at 7 p.m. in Hudson Hall. The class is free and open to the public.

Concert tickets are $20 for adults and $12 for students and seniors, and are available at the door or at the Pentacle Theatre Ticket Office, 145 Liberty St. NE, 503-485-4300. There is a service charge added. Discounted tickets are available on campus for Willamette students and staff. For more information contact the Department of Music at 503-370-6255.

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Joan Didion Opens Atkinson Series at Willamette

Novelist, essayist and screenwriter Joan Didion will deliver the fall 2006 Atkinson Lecture at Willamette University Friday, Nov. 10, at 8 p.m. in Smith Auditorium.

Tickets for University students, faculty and staff are available Oct. 16 at the University Center. The first ticket is free with a University ID, and subsequent tickets are $10. Tickets for the general public are $10 and will be available at the University Center on campus beginning Oct. 26.

In May 2005 Didion received the Gold Medal for Belles Lettres from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which is the highest honor the academy awards to a writer and is given once every six years. She was awarded the 1996 Edward MacDowell Medal and the 1999 Columbia Journalism Award. In 2005 she won the National Book Award for The Year of Magical Thinking, which is now in its 20th printing.

Didion’s novels include Run River (1963), Play It as It Lays (1970), A Book of Common Prayer (1977), Democracy (1984), and The Last Thing He Wanted (1996). Her nonfiction includes Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968), The White Album (1978), Salvador (1983), Miami (1987), After Henry (1992), Political Fictions (2001), and Where I Was From (2003).

Didion and her late husband, John Gregory Dunne, co-authored the screenplays The Panic in Needle Park (1971), Play It as It Lays (1973), A Star Is Born (1977), True Confessions (1982), Hills Like White Elephants (1990) and Up Close and Personal (1995). She has lectured at colleges and universities across the country including the University of California at Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, Bard, Yale and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

Didion currently lives in New York and is a contributor to The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. Her latest book, The Year of Magical Thinking, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in October 2005. She is now adapting the book for Broadway.

She was born in Sacramento and earned her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley.

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Museum Plans Artist Demonstration and Family Activity Workshop

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University has planned an artist demonstration and family activity workshop in conjunction with its Recycled Art exhibition, which is on display until Nov. 4.

On Sept. 23 from noon to 4 p.m., mixed media artist Ross Palmer Beecher will make traditional quilts and flags from aluminum cans and other found objects. Beecher attended the Rhode Island School of Design and has lived and worked in Seattle since the late 1970s. She has been featured in numerous one-person and group exhibitions and was the recipient of the Betty Bowen Award in 2002, which is given by the Seattle Art Museum to visual artists in the Northwest.

Recycling artist and “Dumpster Diving Diva” Diane Kurzyna will lead a family activity workshop entitled “Curious Creatures” from noon to 4 p.m. Oct. 7. Participants will create interesting and unusual beasts from telephone wire, fabric scraps, bottle caps, candy wrappers and other junk. Kurzyna is a graduate of Rutgers University and an artist-in-residence with the Washington State Arts Commission. Learn more about Kurzyna at www.rubyreusable.com.

Both the artist demonstration and family activity workshop will be held in the lobby of the museum. Admission to both is free.

Recycled Art has been supported in part by grants from the City of Salem Transient Occupancy Tax funds and the Oregon Arts Commission.

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art is located at 700 State St. (corner of State and Cottage streets) in downtown Salem near the campus of Willamette University. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The galleries are closed Sunday and Monday. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for seniors and students. Children younger than 12 are free, and Tuesday is an admission-free day. For more information, please call (503) 370-6855.

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Willamette University Coffee Shop Celebrates 20 Years

Wanting a fun place to hang out on campus, in 1986 two Willamette University students approached then-President Jerry Hudson about opening a coffee shop. Twenty years later, the Bistro is thriving as the ultimate place for students, faculty, staff and even community members to sip a latte, talk with friends, listen to music or meet for a class.

The Bistro, located on the first floor of Putnam University Center, will celebrate its 20th anniversary Sept. 29 and 30 with a series of reunion activities. Alumni who have worked there over the years will return to share their memories. Some will even hop behind the counter from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 29 to relive their days of serving up joe. Folk band Garett Brennan and the EbGbs will perform a free concert that evening from 7:30 to 11 p.m. Brennan is a Willamette alumnus whose college band was a fixture at the Bistro in the early 2000s.

Other alumni visitors will include John Donovan and Eric Friedenwald-Fishman, the students who started the shop. As freshmen at Willamette, they decided students needed a late-night place to meet for coffee. They spent much of their sophomore year presenting various coffee shop plans to the college president. After getting approval, they spent a work-filled summer getting the place ready to open.

Donovan and Friedenwald-Fishman, both Portland residents, went on to start Metropolitan Group, one of the country’s leading social issue marketing firms.

“Whenever I walk into the Bistro, there are people studying together, tables of students and faculty interacting or people playing music,” Friedenwald-Fishman said. “It seems like it still draws a diverse group of students from all parts of campus who might not have otherwise interacted.”

Since its opening, the Bistro has become a meeting place for the campus community. Many faculty members stop by in the morning for a scone or coffee, and some hold classes there and have specific chairs they call their own. Students often hang out there, and regular concerts and open-mic nights also bring in community members looking for live music.

Students who work at the Bistro prepare all the food themselves — including cookies, scones, burritos and sandwiches, often based on family recipes passed down from former employees. They also run the entire business themselves, giving them experience in entrepreneurship, said Bob Hawkinson, dean of campus life and the Bistro’s first faculty advisor.

“The Bistro is a central meeting place, and it’s a place to relax,” Hawkinson said. “It meets a need of students, faculty and staff for a nice, friendly, cohesive coffeehouse atmosphere.”

For more information about the reunion, go to www.willamettealumni.com/bistroreunion.

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