Marianne Kubik: A Practical Immersion into Commedia dell'Arte in Italy
As part of U.Va.’s January Term, Assistant Professor Marianne Kubik will take U.Va. students to Arezzo, Italy to study the history, cultural significance and performance technique of commedia dell'arte (or "theater of the professional artist"), a traditional street theater of the Italian Renaissance. Students will spend the majority of the course at the Accademia dell'Arte in Arezzo, where they will participate with students from Wagner College (in N.Y.) in master classes in movement, voice, commedia dell'arte and mask technique. Please visit www.virginia.edu/januaryterm for more information.

Bob Chapel, Professor of Drama, will be taking a cabaret show which feature classic Broadway music to Russia for a two-week tour of four to six cities, including two performances in Moscow.  The small company of singers/actors/dancers features Heritage Repertory Theatre veterans Rob Marnell, Kelly Schmidt and Sarah Stevens.  The project is sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.  Bob directed Sweeney Todd in Moscow last year which was underwritten by a Fulbright Senior Specialists Grant.  The production ran in central Moscow until June 25 of this year.  This past summer, Bob taught two theatre courses on the MV Explorer for the U.Va. sponsored "Semester at Sea," traveling to eight Central and South American countries.  He is also busy planning the re-opening of the Heritage Repertory Theatre for the summer 2008 season.  HRT was forced to be dark this past summer due to construction around the Drama Building.  Betwixt and between, he is currently teaching three courses, one of which is new -- Musical Theatre History.  He will be directing The Voysey Inheritance, written by Harley Granville Barker and adapted by David Mamet, for the Drama Department next spring.

John Frick, Professor of Theatre History and Dramatic Literature, recently completed his first year as President of the American Theatre and Dramatic Society – a year in which ATDS sponsored an international conference on the late African American playwright August Wilson and a two-day conference exclusively for graduate students, in addition to participation in the annual Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference in New Orleans.  During the same time period, John spent a sabbatical leave in London conducting research for a book titled The Theatre And The City: Representations Of The Metropolis On The American Stage; published articles in The New England Theatre Journal, The Journal Of American Drama And Theatre, Theatre Symposium and The Encyclopedia Of American Urban History;contributed an article ("A Second Glance at New York; or, New York as it Really Is") to a book titled  Edwin Forrest’s New York: Drama And Politics In The 19th Century City; and began a second book, Staging Tom: Uncle Tom's Cabin On The American Stage And Screen.   An article on Uncle Tom on stage appears on the Uncle Tom’s Cabin & American Culture website, click Interpret Mode, then Interpretative Exhibits).