{"id":7814,"date":"2011-08-28T11:00:38","date_gmt":"2011-08-28T16:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=7814"},"modified":"2011-08-27T23:29:14","modified_gmt":"2011-08-28T04:29:14","slug":"stellar-theater-and-dance-performers-to-visit-apsu-this-year-as-acuff-chairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2011\/08\/28\/stellar-theater-and-dance-performers-to-visit-apsu-this-year-as-acuff-chairs\/","title":{"rendered":"Stellar Theater and Dance Performers to Visit APSU this Year as Acuff Chairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AcuffClarksville, TN<\/strong> – For more than 50 years, Chicago\u2019s famed Second City Theater and School of Improvisation has produced some of the country\u2019s most beloved comedic talents. Its alumni \u2013 consisting of luminaries like Bill Murray, John Belushi, Steve Carell and Tina Fey \u2013 have gone on to successful careers in movies and television shows such as Saturday Night Live and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.<\/p>\n

At 7:30pm on October 7th, the group\u2019s touring company will visit Clarksville to perform its hilariously original works on the Austin Peay State University campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were here four years ago, and the students loved them,\u201d Darren Michael, chair of the APSU Area of Theater and Dance, said.<\/p>\n

The Second City performers are a big draw for this community, but they are only one of a handful of internationally renowned theater and dance performers visiting APSU this year as holders of the University\u2019s Roy Acuff Chair of Excellence in the Creative Arts.<\/p>\n

Established in 1985 by the legendary \u201cKing of Country Music\u201d Roy Acuff, the chair is an endowed professorship designed to bring regionally and nationally acclaimed artists together with students, faculty and community members in a creative environment. The chair, administered through the Center of Excellence in the Creative Arts, rotates each year between different creative arts department at APSU, with the Area of Theater and Dance hosting it this year. But rather than settling for one person to act as the chair holder, the area opted to split it up among several key performers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving that diversity on both sides, theater side and dance side, is important,\u201d Marcus Hayes, associate professor of dance, said. \u201cEvery time we have the opportunity to host the Acuff Chair, we\u2019re allowing the campus community and our students specifically to see what\u2019s happening out in the wide world of theater and dance performance. These are professional people doing what our students hope to be doing one day. It\u2019s a great opportunity for them to interact.\u201d<\/p>\n

In most cases, the performers will visit campus between three and five days to meet and work with students. Many will also either host public performances of their work or contribute to a show that will be open to the public.<\/p>\n

On September 17th, Rachel Keebler, an instructor at Cobalt Scene Painting Studio in New York, will stop by as the first Acuff Chair to lead a two-day intensive residency on scenic painting for APSU theater students. A week later, Sarah Hass, co-founder of EcoDance, will start her weeklong residency on creating mobile dance performance spaces. She\u2019ll end her stay with a public performance on September 30th featuring her and APSU dance students.<\/p>\n

\u201cSarah is current and uses improvisation as her basis,\u201d Hayes said. \u201cShe is traveling with a trailer that hitches to the back of a truck. It transforms into three performance spaces that can be moved around. She\u2019s going to set up the structure on campus and have students working with her all in this space. I\u2019m excited. She\u2019s going to be great.\u201d<\/p>\n

On October 7th, the Second City Touring Company will visit for a residency with students and a public performance. Then, on October 23rd, Taiwanese freelance dancer and choreographer Peiling Kao will visit the University to teach dance technique courses and create a piece of original choreography for APSU dance students. That piece will be performed at the Sixth Annual Spring Dance Concert in March.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a top notch contemporary dancer,\u201d Hayes said.<\/p>\n

The performance artist Tim Miller will hold the Acuff Chair on November 1st, and give a performance of his latest solo work, \u201cGlory Box\u201d at 7:30pm on November 2nd in the Trahern Theater. Miller was one of the \u201cNEA Four\u201d \u2013 a group of performance artists in the early 1990s who lost their National Endowment of the Arts grants because of the subject matter. The artists eventually received their grant money after a well-publicized court case.<\/p>\n

Nashville hip-hop choreographer Keith Fitzpatrick will visit the APSU campus next for an Acuff residency. He\u2019ll work with students and also compose an original work for the Spring Dance Concert.<\/p>\n

On November 16th, the APSU Area of Theater will kick off its season with the restoration play \u201cBeaux Strategem.\u201d Anne Marie Duggan, a theater lighting expert, will provide guest lighting design for the show as an Acuff Chair holder. She\u2019ll also meet with students to discuss the intricacies of theater lighting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like to build our lighting design area,\u201d Michael said. \u201cWe\u2019re bringing her in, and it\u2019s going to be great for our students to work with her.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final Acuff Chair holder of the semester, actor Anthony Zerbe, will stop by to work with both theater and English students. Zerbe has an extensive resume in film and television, appearing in movies such as The Matrix trilogy and shows such as Judging Amy and Colombo.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been in many well-known Hollywood films and television shows,\u201d Michael said. \u201cWe\u2019ll be doing two workshops with him. One with theater students and one with English students because his one-man show, \u2018It\u2019s all Done with Mirrors,\u2019 is based on the poetry of e.e. cummings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zerbe will give a public performance of his show at 7:30pm on November 30th in the Trahern Theater.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Austin Peay State University fine arts departments continue to re-envision how to use the Roy Acuff Chair of Excellence endowments to benefit our students and at the same time provide an amazing array of arts experiences for the community,\u201d Christopher Burawa, director of the Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts, said. \u201cWe are delighted to have as our corporate sponsors again this year F&M Bank and Beachaven Winery, and our new corporate sponsor State Farm Insurance\u2014Sharon Patterson’s office.”<\/p>\n

For more information about the Acuff Chair, contact the CECA at 931.221.7876 or the APSU Area of Theater and Dance at 931.221.6767.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – For more than 50 years, Chicago\u2019s famed Second City Theater and School of Improvisation has produced some of the country\u2019s most beloved comedic talents. Its alumni \u2013 consisting of luminaries like Bill Murray, John Belushi, Steve Carell and Tina Fey \u2013 have gone on to successful careers in movies and television shows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[10187,10188,23,9901,10178,262,2173,10186,10169,2509,10180,5621,80,10170,10175,10177,1436,10183,10179,4376,10176,10181,10173,10168,10182,10184,2189,10171,10174,10185,10172,4962],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-222","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7815,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7814\/revisions\/7815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}