A Introvert’s Midterm Report

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We’re past the midway point of the semester. While I enjoy my much needed week long vacation, I must reflect on the progress I have made so far this semester and look forward to where I will go in the second half of this semester. In my previous entries, I looked at my experiences doing […]

Theater Opportunities in Erie for College Students

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When I was in high school I came up with the brilliant idea of double majoring in Middle Level Education and Theater. When searching for schools, I wanted to find a school which had a lot of theater opportunities. On Gannon’s website, it said that there were a ton of theater opportunities in the Erie […]

Playlist: Music as a Form of Therapy

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During my freshman year, I took Theater and Culture with Fr. Shawn Clerkin. In that class we learned about different functions of art. One of those functions is therapy. While many plays and other works of theater have a therapeutic effect for the audience members, music and song lyrics also have the potential to be […]

Crafting My First Script

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As previous articles may have mentioned, Gannon Universtiy offered a screenwriting course this semester. A big part of the class has been learning how to create a full script. We’ve been working our way up to it, from a few sample scenes, to 6 full pages, to our final 30 page script at the end […]

Dramashop’s ‘Dorian Grey’ sparks renewed interest in theater

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My number of theater visits is much, much lower than I ever anticipated coming to college. In fact, it’s been a big, fat zero since I arrived at Gannon University. This is a shame for many reasons, primarily because we have one of the best theater departments in the area. Additionally, theater is something I […]

The secret utilities of Gannon University

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As a tour guide, I get to show both potential and accepted students how I see Gannon and Erie. One way I do that is by mentioning all the “secrets” and “life hacks” I’ve discovered in my time here, the best things about Gannon that few people know about or utilize; some include: Courtyard Café: […]

Bringing “Melancholy” to the Schuster Theatre

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Featured photo courtesy of Rick Klein. As defined by Webster’s dictionary, a farce is a comic, dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay, and typically includes crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.  Sarah Ruhl’s “The Melancholy Play,” directed by Alaina Manchester, is no exception to this definition. “The Melancholy Play” opens with Tilly (played by Brianna […]

Lewis Black: Bringing the rant back to Erie

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My regular column, Upfront, has been appearing in the Erie Reader for almost 2 years now; after writing so many of them, I’ve found that there are some good ones, and some bad ones. According to Reader reader response, the most popular are those in which I stick to a certain format, and a certain […]

In the Classroom: Musical Theatre

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Students studying theatre at Gannon study many aspects of stagecraft, from set construction to writing and directing. In one of Fr. Shawn Clerkin’s classes, students delve into the purely American form of theatre: musical theatre. Find out exactly what each of Fr. Shawn’s students get into when they take his class. [youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wClCXtcmUwE&feature=plcp”]  

1,000 Words: Best seat in the house

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As “The Cherry Orchard” closes, seven more shows are about to open. The theater department is continuing a miniature replica of the International Scotland Fringe Festival – at which we in the department were privileged to perform last August – called the Schuster Fringe Festival. Fringe was created during World War II to bring the […]