| Long Wharf Theatre News Release Steven Scarpa, Public Relations Manager 203-772-8224 / steven.scarpa@longwharf.org Date: Feb. 25, 2008 LONG WHARF THEATRE AND QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY LAUNCH FIVE-YEAR PARTNERSHIP NEW HAVEN, CT - Long Wharf Theatre and Quinnipiac University have announced the formation of a new relationship that will allow drama students access to the theatre's vast array of professional resources while Long Wharf Theatre further solidifies its deep connections to the community. Quinnipiac University and Long Wharf Theatre have entered into a five-year agreement that will create a partnership between the two institutions. Quinnipiac, located in Hamden, CT, will mount three or four productions a year at Long Wharf Theatre, using the theatre's shops for technical production of those plays. "We are excited about the opportunities that this new partnership will provide our students and the delighted to be working with such a highly regarded New Haven institution as Long Wharf Theatre," said Kathleen McCourt, senior vice president for academic and student affairs at Quinnipiac University. Mary Pepe, chair of Long Wharf Theatre's Board of Trustees said, "We are delighted to be in partnership with Quinnipiac University. This relationship embodies values that are the core of Long Wharf - the making of theatre, education and community. We are also excited about the future possibilities this collaboration affords to both organizations." Professor Crystal Brian, chair of Visual and Performing Arts in the College of Liberal Arts at Quinnipiac said, "The opportunity to work with Long Wharf Theatre, and to bring our work to the community of New Haven, will help us to serve and broaden our mission, as well as offering our students the benefit of working within a professional theatre context. We are delighted at this new partnership with an institution as renowned as Long Wharf Theatre." In addition, Long Wharf production staff will lend their expertise, supervising technical production through internships and classes. Quinnipiac students will have the opportunity to work side by side, for credit, with Long Wharf professionals in all aspects of the theatre business - technical, administrative, artistic and educational. "Long Wharf Theatre has a long tradition as an incubator of talent, and we look forward to working with Quinnipiac University's theatre department in training the next generation of theatre professionals," said Joan Channick, Long Wharf Theatre's managing director. "Having these students in our midst will add a wonderful new dimension to the life of this theatre." In addition, Long Wharf will advise Quinnipiac concerning the creation of artist-in-residence programs, special lecture series, master classes and workshops, creating diverse opportunities for students to learn from theatre professionals at the highest rank of the industry. The goal of Quinnipiac's newly minted Theater for Community major is to immerse students in all aspects of the art - from acting and directing to lighting and stage design. The program's productions seek to create a forum for discussion that promotes awareness and change. The guiding conviction is that theatre can be a tool to foster student engagement with the local, national and global community. "The Quinnipiac University Theater for Community is committed to creating original and adapted scripts that focus on the process of building community," Brian said. "Our productions strive to bring people of diverse background and perspective together in order to explore our common humanity." The first production to be staged under the agreement will be Euripides' Medea, an ancient Greek tragedy of jealousy and revenge, starring Mary Vreeland. The play, which will run from Feb. 27 to March 2 on the Mainstage at Long Wharf Theatre, will be directed by Kelly Morgan, a theatre professor at Quinnipiac. This will be the first Theater for Community production to be performed on Long Wharf Theatre's Mainstage. "This is a classical Greek tragedy with a contemporary approach," Morgan said. "Men seeking power, wives betrayed, cultural prejudices exacted and revenge taken are aspects of life we can relate to today. This is a wonderful approach to a well-known myth that will engage high school students and teachers and will deeply move all audiences who seek bold and emotional theatre." Vreeland will star in the title role with Quinnipiac students. Vreeland,
who is deaf, will incorporate sign language into the play as an aspect
of the cultural clashes between deaf and hearing cultures. ABOUT THE THEATRE GORDON EDELSTEIN Gordon Edelstein has been working as a director/artistic director in theatre for nearly 30 years, directing over 100 plays, musicals and operas across the United States and Europe. He is currently in his sixth season as Long Wharf Theatre's Artistic Director. Under his artistic leadership, Long Wharf Theatre has received 14 additional Connecticut Critics Circle Awards, including six best actor or actress awards in plays that he directed. His recent productions of Arthur Miller's The Price and Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (which he also adapted) were on numerous best of 2007 lists including the Wall Street Journal. As a director, he has garnered three Connecticut Critics Circle Awards and during his tenure at Long Wharf, the theatre has produced world premieres by Craig Lucas, Julia Cho, Noah Haidle, Dael Orlandersmith, and Anna Deavere Smith. Over the course of his career, he has also directed and/or produced premieres by Philip Glass, Arthur Miller, Paula Vogel, Donald Margulies, James Lapine, Charles Mee, Mac Wellman, and Martin McDonagh, among many others, and has directed an extremely diverse body of work from Sophocles to Pinter, and from Shakespeare to Beckett. He has also directed work in England, Poland, and Romania. For television, Mr. Edelstein received an Emmy nomination for "Abby My Love" (Emmy Award for Best Actor Josh Hamilton) for CBS, directed "Notes For My Daughter" (Emmy Award for Best Actress Kate Burton) for ABC, and for HBO he directed "Street Smart." Mr. Edelstein has served on the boards of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation and the Seattle Fringe Company, House of Dames. He has taught and guest lectured at the Yale School of Drama, Yale Department of Bioethics, University of Iowa, Grinnell College, and Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in History and Religious Studies from Grinnell College in 1976 and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Grinnell College in 2003. JOAN CHANNICK Joan Channick is in her second season as Managing Director of Long Wharf Theatre. She worked previously as Managing Director of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national service organization for the not-for-profit professional theatre field, and Director of the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute; as Associate Managing Director of Center Stage in Baltimore; and as Marketing Director of the Yale Repertory Theatre. Preceding her theatre career, she practiced securities litigation with the Boston law firm of Gaston Snow & Ely Bartlett. She is a board member of the National Corporate Theatre Fund and has served on the boards of the League of Professional Theatre Women, the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, the American Theatre Exchange Initiative, the Summer Cabaret at Yale, and Chase Brexton Health Services. She has also been a member of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, the International Theatre Institute executive council, the League of Resident Theatres executive committee, and a panelist for the Maryland State Arts Council. She has written for American Theatre magazine and is the author of "The Changing Legal Environment for the Arts," a chapter in the book The Art of Governance, published by TCG. Ms. Channick is a graduate of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and the Yale School of Drama. She has taught at Goucher College and is on the faculty of Yale School of Drama's theatre management program, where she teaches a course on legal issues in the arts. ABOUT QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY Quinnipiac University is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian institution located 90 minutes north of New York City and two hours from Boston. The university enrolls 5,400 full-time undergraduate and 2,000 graduate students in more than 51 undergraduate and 17 graduate programs of study in its School of Business, School of Communications, School of Health Sciences, School of Law, College of Liberal Arts, Division of Education and College of Professional Studies. Quinnipiac consistently ranks among the top universities with master's programs in the Northern region in U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges. Quinnipiac also is recognized in Princeton Review's The Best 366 Colleges. PROFESSOR CRYSTAL BRIAN Dr. Brian received her M.F.A. and Ph.D. in theatre from U.C.L.A. and worked professionally as an actress, theatre critic, director and theatre manager before completing her dissertation on the life and work of Horton Foote. Dr. Brian has directed critically acclaimed, Los Angeles productions of Tennessee Williams' Kingdom of Earth; Foote's Lily Dale, Laura Dennis, The Habitation of Dragons, and the world premiere of The Day Emily Married. She also directed West Coast premieres of Tina Howe's One Shoe Off and Naomi Wallace's One Flea Spare. She is a former literary consultant for the A.S.K. Theatre Project, visiting director at the Pacific Resident Theater and the artistic director of The Lost World. She is currently completing "The Roads to Home," the biography of Foote, a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright. KELLY C. MORGAN Mr. Morgan founded the Mint Theater Company and associate directed the Riverside Shakespeare Company in New York City. Mr. Morgan has performed at such theatres as the New York Shakespeare Festival, Women's Theater Project, Cleveland Playhouse, Champlain Shakespeare Festival and Syracuse Stage. He has directed at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, The Cleveland Play House, Lost Tribe Theater Company, and served as master teacher of acting at the State University of New York in Fredonia, chair of theatre at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, chair of theatre at Case Western Reserve University and on faculty of Princeton University and Fitchburg State College, where he founded the AmeriCulture Arts Program and still directs. Mr. Morgan has received the National Chair of Excellence in the Arts Award and the Massachusetts Commendation for Arts Service to the Commonwealth. He serves as the New England chair of The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and is a former Kennedy Center Directing Fellow. # # # LONG WHARF THEATRE, founded in 1965, is recognized as a leader in American theater, producing fresh and imaginative revivals of classics and modern plays, rediscoveries of neglected works and a variety of world and American premieres. More than 30 Long Wharf productions have transferred virtually intact to Broadway or off-Broadway, including the 2005 production of BFE by Julia Cho, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays Wit by Margaret Edson, The Shadow Box by Michael Cristofer, and The Gin Game by D.L. Coburn. Long Wharf has received New York Drama Critics Awards, Obie Awards, the Margo Jefferson Award for Production of New Works, a Special Citation from the Outer Critics Circle, and the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. ~ End of Release ~ Steven Scarpa Close window Long Wharf News Home
|