The Arts department has once again put together a diverse and exciting calendar of events for the upcoming year. The popular staples of Arts at Wheaton, including the Wheaton College Dance Company, the Ten-Minute Play Festival, and Jazz Band, will continue to be hosted, along with a number of visiting artists and performers.
This semester, instead of one play, the main stage theatre production will consist of four plays — three of Samuel Beckett’s short works, followed by The Bald Soprano by Eugene Ionesco. These absurdist plays will expand upon the diversity of last year’s performances, one modern and one ancient Greek play. Performances will be held from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1 and from Nov. 6 to Nov. 8.
Among the many visiting artists is Johnny Blazes, a drag performer who uses a combination of comedy, dancing, and singing to comment on the performance of gender in society.
Wheaton Alumni will also be returning to campus later this semester. On Dec. 1, Stephanie Loeb Stepanek ’65, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Museum of Fine Arts, will be hosting a talk on the largest Goya exhibition in the country in the past twenty-five years, which she will be co-curating. The exhibit, Goya: Order and Disorder, opens on Oct. 12 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Wheaton will also welcome Clenét Verdi-Rose ’04 on Oct. 6, who will host a viewing of Sand Castles, a story of a family coping with the sudden return of their kidnapped child, Lauren. The film has won multiple awards at film festivals both in the United States and abroad.
Until the end of October, the already popular art gallery is displaying pieces by Wheaton professors Andrew K. Howard, Patricia Stone, Patrick Johnson, Kelly Goff, and Claudia Fieo. The galleries will then switch over to feature a student exhibit titled Tracing the Thread, which explores the versatility of fibers, as well as an exhibition for a course on Goya that is taught by Professor of Art History Evelyn Staudinger.
For more information, check out the Arts Department at facebook.com/wheaton.college.arts, or on Twitter: @artsatwheaton.