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Theatre and Dance Presents First Year Student Showcase Sept. 27-29; Honors 100th Birthday of Studs Terkel

Sept. 18, 2012. The Appalachian State University Department of Theatre and Dance introduces fresh actors and dancers in its annual First Year Student Showcase in the intimate I.G. Greer Studio Theatre on campus. This combined theatre and dance performance will be presented Sept. 27-29 at 7:30 p.m.

Ticket prices start at $5. For more information, visit www.theatre.appstate.edu or call the box office at 828-262-3063 or the toll-free number 800-841-ARTS (2787).

The First Year Student Showcase is presented by faculty in the Department of Theatre and Dance in collaboration with freshmen and first-year theatre transfer students. “New relationships are formed when freshmen come into the university and perform in this show,” says Trimella Chaney, one of the three faculty directors.

This year’s theatre component uses interview excerpts from the 1974 book “Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do” by author Studs Terkel. This Pulitzer Prize winner was later turned into a Broadway musical. The First Year Student Showcase has an overlaying theme of “working 9 to 5,” and the show begins with loud industrial, mechanical noises and the opening of Whitman’s poem “I Hear America Singing.”

The dance component of the showcase will feature six original pieces that tie to the “Working” theme, choreographed by faculty members Tandrea Carter (“Moonlit”) and Holly Roark (“Out-er Space”) along with upperclassmen Dana Edwards (“Change of Heart”), Emma Holland (“Finale” from “Nine to Five”), Lydia Murrah (“Unity”) and Emily Smart (“Portraiture”).

Faculty members Trimella Chaney, Rebecca Keeter and Rebecca Quin direct this collaborative production. This showcase speaks to the current state of the economy and its workforce and endeavors to keep these new college students aware of what is happening outside of the university.

Tickets are available in person at the Valborg Theatre box office Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. or by phone at 828-262-3063. Prices are $5 for students and youth (ages 6-18) and $8 for faculty/staff, adults and seniors. More information is available online at www.theatre.appstate.edu.

I.G. Greer Studio Theatre is located on the lower level of I.G. Greer Hall, on the building’s east side. The door faces the B.B. Dougherty Administration Building. Parking on campus is available after 5 p.m. in faculty lots, the College Street deck near Belk Library and Information Commons, and the Rivers Street parking deck.

The Department of Theatre and Dance is housed in the College of Fine and Applied Arts. Its mission is to provide liberal arts educations for the B.S. degree in teaching theatre arts and the B.A. degrees in dance studies or theatre arts. The department also values the opportunity to offer coursework for integrated learning through the arts to the general university student population. Vital to the support of this mission is a dynamic co-curricular production program that provides exemplary theatre and dance experiences to departmental students, the university community and the region. The departmental philosophy is to support the university’s liberal arts environment through a balanced and integrated emphasis on teaching, creative activity, scholarship and service.