TMA News Archive

The BYU Young Company celebrated it's 40th anniversary on Wednesday, February 4, 2015 with the opening of A Mid-summer Night's Dream, directed by Nat Reed. Julia Ashworth and Becky Wallin planned a wonderful event honoring Harold Oaks, the founder of Young Company. Haley Flanders, the dramaturg for The Fisherman's Wife, put together a slide show that featured photos from most of the touring Young Company shows from past years, including slides of George and Leslie Nelson, when they met on Rumplestilskin, David Morgan, Teresa Love, and Becky Wallin. Over a 100 people attended, including many company members from past shows. After the show, Julia, Amy Jensen, and Harold Oaks spoke, and then the audience moved to Studio A where refreshments were served. Rodger Sorensen, Teresa Love, and Deb Tholen Escalante performed a delightful number reminiscent of their days as touring company members, "Into the Van." Megan Ann Rasmussen, another past president of the national TYA organization and TMA alum, also spoke to the group. Kudos to our outstanding Young Company! Be sure you get a chance to bring a young friend to the delightful puppeted production of A Mid-summer Night's Dream.

Saturday (Feb. 12 –14), the TMA department hosted a Video Game Studies Symposium, the brainchild of our own Benjamin Thevenin. More than ten different academic departments were represented at the symposium, with over forty presenters including many undergraduate media arts students. Presentations were well attended. Over sixty students volunteered their services the days of the symposium to help things run smoothly, and over a hundred people attended the symposium opening social on Thursday evening. You may have noticed all the living room sofas from different decades assembled around video game consoles. Attendees of the symposium had a great time experiencing what it was like in the 1970s, 80s, or 90s to play the games of that era. Saturday morning, Jason Anthony, an Associate Editor with Time, Inc.who is also a game designer and scholar, gave the keynote address of the symposium following a delicious breakfast. Benjamin met Jason when he was in graduate school, studying the intersection of religion and gaming. Jason's presentation was titled, "ImMortal Kombat: Conflict, Chaos and Redemption through (Better) Gaming," which explored some of those intersections. Benjamin observed, "It was great to see our media arts students present along side professors." The symposium, thanks to the contributions of so many people, including the conference committee, Bronte Campbell, Seth Holladay, Kelyn Ikegami, Hunter Philips, Jennessa Smith and Sharon Swenson, was a huge success!

KCACTF 2015 Results This past week, over forty TMA theatre students and fourteen faculty, staff, and administrators participated in the Region VIII Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, which took place at SUU in St. George.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (10)

THE WINTER'S TALE

FALL MARGETTS:

The Fisherman and His Wife

BYU animators Dan Clark and Wesley Tippets won first place at the Student Academy Awards on June 7 for their animation project, Owned. Media arts alum Christian Jensen, who has also received his MFA from Stanford, took second in Documentary Film for his project, White Earth. Dan is the on the top row in the middle in front of the statue, Wesley is on the bottom row fourth from the left, right in front of Dan, and Christian is to the left of Wesley with the beard.

The Playbill magazine announced that Frank Wildhorn and Jack Murphy's musical drama The Count of Monte Cristo will make its U.S. debut on January 22-31, 2015 in the de Jong Concert Hall. The BYU workshop marks the musical's first production in the United States and will feature a cast of students from our BFA musical theatre and acting programs. We are especially excited that our students will have the opportunity to participate in workshopping a show from this caliber of playwright and composer. Tim Threlfall will helm the workshop, and Jeffrey Martin serves as creative producer. Additional members of the production team include choreographer Nathan Balser (Legally Blonde; Promises, Promises), musical director Gayle Lockwood, costume designer Lara Beene, set designer Rory R. Scanlon, lighting designer Michael Kraczek, sound designer Jeff Carter, production manager Jennifer Reed and stage manager Crysta May Powell. "The show has enjoyed incredible success in Europe and Asia, and I wanted to establish the piece there before bringing the piece to American audiences," said Wildhorn in a statement. "Now that we have done that, I felt the time was right. I thought it would be a fun way to get it started here in the U.S. with my great relationship with BYU, and I'm excited to see what will happen now."