2016-2017 Season

Children love to watch impromptu stories unfold and come to life, especially stories they can take part in, such is the way of improvisation. As a child, I loved acting out these made up stories with my siblings and the neighborhood kids. We didn’t own a camera, so we would just pretend to take turns making the motion of “rolling a camera” to “film” our story, and whenever possible, we’d perform our show in front of neighbors. It wasn’t until later that I realized that people actually “act” out stories “live” in front of a group of people called an “audience,” that the people performing are known as “actors” and that the process is called a “play.”

Below is my interview with Calee Gardner. I first saw Calee appear on “stage” in TMA 115 Performance Studies class where we were grouped in sets of four students and required to put together a multimedia presentation of a poem for the rest of the class with only a few minutes of lead time. Drawing on her improvisational experience at ImprovBroadway, and utilizing her alluring singing voice, she created an impromptu free form jazz rendition on the spot that mesmerized! Calee is a shooting star, so catch her on campus in The Glorious Story Emporium before her rising star takes her into the stratosphere and you're left paying Broadway prices just to catch another glimpse!

The Glorious Story Emporium will whet your appetite for local improv! The following local improv shows are on my bucket list and I hope to see them in the not too distant future:

Welcome to part 1 of 2 blog posts dedicated to cast introductions. The biographies in the program will teach you a little about these talented and dedicated performers...in fifty words or less! That is just simply not enough, don't you agree? Luckily, this remarkable cast has provided behind-the-scences information about their backgrounds, majors, things they love about the show, and their goals in theatre after Argonautika. Here are 8 cast introductions. Tune in soon for part 2, with information on 8 MORE actors, equally as wonderful and gifted as the ones you see here. And don't forget to buy your tickets. The show opens June 2 and runs through June 17 in the Pardoe Theatre on BYU Campus (Harris Fine Arts Center). See you there!

Χαίρετε (Chaírete)!

Welcome back, future voyagers! To prepare to attend the show June 2-17 in the Pardoe Theater, here is a list of the show's characters, placed in the following categories:

Hello and welcome to week 2 of the Argonautika behind-the-scenes blogs! As you prepare for your voyage to see our play June 2 through June 17 in the Pardoe Theater, we would like to give you more insight into the playwright and original director of Argonautika, the one and only...Mary Zimmerman!

Welcome to the final Argonautika blog post! We cannot thank you enough for your support of our production, and taking the time to read more about it. The show closes this Saturday, June 17 and it has been one wild ride. We hope that if you were able to attend the performance, that you learned much more about Greek mythology, and enjoyed the messages, the spectacle, the humor, and the chance to experience truly extraordinary live theatre.

by Haley Flanders, dramaturg Our show opened Friday, June 2 and the audience and actors are enjoying every minute of this incredible production. To read an article about the show from BYU's newspaper, The Daily Universe, entitled, "BYU's Argonautika Displays a Creative, Collaborative Effort" click here.

We are about to set sail, and we hope that you can join us! Argonautika opens at the end of the week, Friday, June 2 at 7:30 pm. We perform in the Pardoe Theater in the Harris Fine Arts Center on Campus. See you there! For tickets, visit: http://arts.byu.edu/event/argonautika/2017-06-16/

Welcome back to our tribute to the amazing actors of Argonautika. If you haven't had a chance to see our previous blog post, "Meet the Cast of Argonautika (Part 1 of 2)" it featured the following eight actors:

Argonautika opens June 2 and runs through June 17 in the Pardoe Theater in the Harris Fine Arts Center. This blog post contains 2 EXCLUSIVE interviews with our show

by Amanda Alley, dramaturg If you were able to attend The Crucible, you may have noticed the judge's table and the church door displayed outside the Margetts Theatre.

“Sing in us, Muse, the story of Jason and his Argonauts, how he was sent away on the first voyage of the world to bring back the Golden Fleece.” (Act 1, Scene 1)

Salem was a town founded on Puritan beliefs. In fact, the settlement was designed to set an example of righteousness for the rest of humanity. Their goal was to separate themselves from the world and create a unified society centered on the principles of their faith. This Puritan community in the New World would be governed by Puritan doctrines, and all would abide in peace. Even the name of the town reflected that ideal: Salem was derived from the Hebrew word Shalom, which means “peace.” The settlement would be an example of righteous living that would shine forth to the rest of the world.

There were have been several wonderful coincidences and years of hard work that made the American Premiere of Chariots of Fire a possibility at BYU. You may be familiar with the 1981 film that was the surprise Oscar winner for Best Picture. In fact most people, whether they have seen the film or not, can hum the famous opening theme by Vangelis Papathanassiou. Here is one artist's take on the popularity of that opening number:

Chariots of Fire takes place in Britain from roughly 1920 to 1924, a time period in which established social mores were changing rapidly. Throughout the play we see the various social classes represented. As Britain emerged from the ravages of World War I (or The Great War, as it was termed then,) there was a major rift in those social classes. Throughout the twenties, the working class would see poverty growing at an alarming rate, while the middle and upper classes fought for cultural prominence.

In the last blog post I wrote, I talked a little bit about the Salem Witch trials as the primary history that The Crucible draws from. There is a second history that demands to be accounted for in a study of The Crucible: the story of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), the Red Scare, and Arthur Miller’s involvement.