Excel Network Communities

MSU Theatre Presents ‘What if Wilhelmina,’ a Sensory-Friendly, Interactive Musical

February 20, 2024

The public is invited to come experience What If Wilhelmina, the latest production of the Michigan State University Department of Theatre’s Sense-Ability Ensemble, which creates multi-sensory, interactive theatrical performances specifically designed for audiences that are neurodiverse. Nine performances of this production are scheduled March 8-17 at the Arena Theatre in the MSU Auditorium Building.

AAHD / Grant / News / Student / Student / Visual Arts, Arts Administration, and Performing Arts

CREATE! Micro-Grant Project Explores Familial Obligation, Estrangement, and Generational Trauma

February 2, 2024

As a recipient of a 2023 CREATE Micro-Grant, Rachael Grain, a Studio Art major with a minor in Business, created a series of oil paintings that focus on the intimate relationship between parents and children and the impacts of generational trauma. Spanning three canvases, these paintings explore how we treat and mistreat each other over time and eventually pass those…

A group of actors on stage wearing a variety of different costumes.

News / Performance / Production / Student / Theatre / Visual Arts, Arts Administration, and Performing Arts

MSU Theatre Premieres Original Work Showcasing Diverse Cohort of MFA Candidates

January 31, 2024

When Michigan State University’s Department of Theatre announced a call for emerging playwrights of the global majority to write a new play for its diverse cohort of Master of Fine Arts Acting and Design candidates, they received more than 300 submissions. That call, which went out in summer 2022, has led to the creation of Stevie and the Real World,…

Award / Scholarship / Student / Visual Arts, Arts Administration, and Performing Arts

CREATE! Micro-Grant Sculpture: A Symbol of Persistence and Importance

December 6, 2023

As a recipient of a 2023 CREATE! Micro-Grant, Mackenzie Sheehan-D’Arrigo, a senior Studio Art major, spent this semester creating a sculpture that symbolizes the developing possibilities of younger generations as well as their potential to create change as they take on leadership roles in the workforce. Mackenzie Sheehan-D'Arrigo Offered by MSU’s College of Arts & Letters and facilitated by the…

News / Performance / Student / Student / Theatre / Visual Arts, Arts Administration, and Performing Arts

MSU Theatre Presents ‘UnScripted’ Improv Comedy

November 22, 2023

Michigan State University’s Department of Theatre will feature the largest cast in the history of the department's first-year student showcase when MSU Unscripted takes the Studio 60 Theatre stage in the MSU Auditorium building Nov. 30-Dec. 3. This year's MSU Unscripted cast includes 30 first-year Theatre students, the most ever for the first-year showcase, which began 17 years ago. Team…

Michigan Impact / News / Performance / Theatre / Visual Arts, Arts Administration, and Performing Arts

Making a Case for STEAM Over STEM with New Musical Production

November 21, 2023

A new musical by Department of Theatre Professor Rob Roznowski explores the relationship between the arts and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), focusing on how important creativity and artistic expression are to innovation in STEM fields.The STEAM Plays: Using the Arts to Talk About STEM makes the case for STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) over STEM education…

Photo collage of nine different people smiling and posing.

Faculty / News / Performance / Theatre / Visual Arts, Arts Administration, and Performing Arts

Mina Loy’s Trailblazing Feminism Takes Center Stage in World Premiere at MSU

November 9, 2023

A team of interdisciplinary artists will present a cross-institutional staging of the feminist futuristic poetic dramas of Mina Loy on Thursday, Dec. 7, and Friday, Dec. 8, at the MSU Broad Art Museum and at the University of Michigan-Flint North Bank Dance Studio, respectively. This world premiere is free and open to the public.  Mina Loy dressed for the Blindman’s Ball at Webster…

Photo of three people sitting in chairs on a raised floor.

Faculty / News / Theatre / Visual Arts, Arts Administration, and Performing Arts

Faculty Voice: What goes on behind the stage

November 8, 2023

Scene Shop Supervisor Levi Galloway, Technical Director D.J. Selmeyer, and Assistant Technical Director Marc White, from the Department of Theatre at Michigan State University, write about the technical seminar they hosted Oct. 12 for Theatre students. The seminar took place on the set of “Clue” at the Pasant Theatre in the Wharton Center for the Performing Arts. Scene Shop Supervisor…

Faculty / News / Publication / Publishing, Editing, and Authorship / Religious Studies / Research / Scholarship / U.S. Impact

Research Shines New Light on Role of Women in Founding Jewish American Education

November 6, 2023

Laura Yares has spent “years sitting in archives” researching a period of Jewish American education that historians have largely overlooked as insignificant, a period in which very little had been written about up until the release of Yares’ recently published book, Jewish Sunday Schools: Teaching Religion in Nineteenth-Century America. An Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies with a…

Person smiling in front of nature background.

International Impact / News / Research / Spanish / Student / Student / Theatre / Visual Arts, Arts Administration, and Performing Arts

Doctoral Student Researching Female Representation in Latin American Horror Films

October 31, 2023

Since she was a kid, Ana Patricia Ponce Castañeda has loved horror films and fondly remembers watching scary movies with her mom as she was growing up in Mexico. Now, a second-year Ph.D. student in the Hispanic Cultural Studies program at Michigan State University, Castañeda has found a way to merge her childhood love of horror with her adult interests…