An Invitation to Dream: Staging THE BREATH OF STARS — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

Presenter photographs should be head and shoulder shots comparable to passport photos.

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

An Invitation to Dream: Staging THE BREATH OF STARS

Name: Neil Scharnick
Department: Fine Arts
Type of research: Independent research

Abstract

"An Invitation to Dream": Staging THE BREATH OF STARS

When I first approached Caridad Svich about participating in Carthage Theatre’s New Play Initiative, I knew she would provide a play script for us that would challenge our students, stretching even our understanding of what a play is and how it works. The demands of her play were even greater than anticipated: the script gave little indication who should speak what lines, how many actors were needed or how the play should look. The openness of the script was expressed as follows:

“The world of this piece for performance may be but is not limited to:

A piece with a backing band/score,

A live film for the stage,

A stage where projections, video, animation and holograms interact with live and pre-recorded performers.

All of the text may be spoken live (in solos, duets and unison/choral moments) or some of it may be projected.”

Svich labeled the play “An invitation to dream.” Enabling ourselves to realize this dream required advanced research and preparation by faculty and students alike, within and without the curriculum, making the extraordinary physical and technological requirements of the production we “dreamed” possible. Two j-term courses were developed; students were engaged to design, choreograph, and apply technologies; collaborations were initiated with music and computer science faculty; and the result was a production unlike anything Carthage had seen before.

Poster file