News release
Public Information Office   SLU 10880   Hammond, LA 70402   phone: 985-549-2341   fax: 985-549-2061
publicinfo@selu.edu Summer  2005 news releases Public Information home News archive


Contact: Christina Chapple
Date: 10/7/05

Additional Fanfare 2005 pictures are available at www.columbiatheatre.org/fanfarephotos05.html
 

Michael KurtzClick on image for publication quality photo 

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FANFARE LECTURE – Veteran Southeastern Louisiana University history professor Michael Kurtz, dean of the Graduate School, will present “The Depths of Human Depravity” Serial Killers in American History” on Monday, Oct. 19, at 1 p.m. in the Pottle Music Building Auditorium. The free lecture is part of Fanfare’s popular “Then and Now” lecture series.

Alison PelegrinJack BedellNorman GermanSLU_Fan05_AlisonPelegrin.jpg, SLU_Fan05_JackBedell.jpg and SLU_Fan05_NormanGerman.jpg
READINGS BY WRITERS – The debut of “High Noon Fiction,” a new Southeastern Louisiana University Fanfare series sponsored by the Southeastern English Department,” will feature three award-winning faculty writers, from left, poets Alison Pelegrin and Jack Bedell, and short story writer Norman German. The free series begins at noon, Monday, Oct. 17, at Vonnie Borden Theatre. 

HamletDr. Jekyll and Mr. HydeSLU_Fan05_Hamlet.jpg and SLU_Fan05_JeckylHydeLogo.jpg
A DOUBLE DIP OF AQUILA – The critically-acclaimed Aquila Theatre Company will return to Southeastern Louisiana University’s Fanfare for the arts festival’s 20th season with two productions – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” on Oct. 18 and “Hamlet” on Oct. 20. Curtain is 7:30 p.m. in the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts. Tickets are available at online at www.columbiatheatre.org or by calling the Columbia box office, 985-543-4371. 

Coach Carter -- the movieSLU_Fan05_CoachCarterMovie.jpg
COACH CARTER, THE MOVIE – As a warm-up for the Oct. 25 Southeastern Louisiana University Fanfare guest appearance by Coach Ken Carter, the Campus Activities Board is hosting a free outdoor, big screen showing of the biopic based on the life of the high school coach who benched his championship basketball team until their grades improved. “Coach Carter” will be shown on Wednesday, Oct. 19, at 8 p.m. in the War Memorial Student Union parking lot. 

Andrew GarlandSLU_Fan05_AndrewGarland.jpg
OPERA CLASSICS – Up and coming young baritone Andrew Garland will present a concert on Friday, Oct. 21, at 7:30 p.m. at Southeastern Louisiana University’s Pottle Music Building Auditorium as part of the university’s annual Fanfare festival of the arts. Tickets are available at online at www.columbiatheatre.org or by calling the Columbia box office, 985-543-4371. 


FANFARE’S THIRD WEEK FEATURES DOUBLE DIP OF FANFARE FAVORITE AQUILA THEATRE COMPANY
HAMMOND – Audiences can enjoy a double-dip of a Fanfare favorite during the third week of Southeastern Louisiana University’s annual festival of the arts.
       In honor of Fanfare’s 20th season, the festival is bringing back the popular Aquila Theatre Company for two servings of drama -- Shakespeare’s incomparable “Hamlet” and “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” a stage adaptation of the Robert Louis Stephenson novel that virtually invented the horror fiction genre.
       Fanfare’s third week will also include concerts by Andrew Garland, an acclaimed young baritone, and Trio Sonaçion, a Southeastern ensemble with a Latin flare; a veteran history professor’s lecture on American serial killers; readings by award-winning Southeastern authors; a French foreign film, and a screening of the hit biopic “Coach Carter” as a warm-up to the real-life Coach Ken Carter’s appearance later in October.
       “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is scheduled for Oct. 18 at Southeastern’s downtown Hammond theater, while “Hamlet” follows, also at the Columbia, on Oct. 20. Curtain for both performances is 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $22, adults; $20, senior citizens, Southeastern faculty, staff, alumni; $18, group rate; and $10, non-SLU students. Southeastern students will be admitted free with their university I.D. 
       Aquila's new production of  “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” draws on the company's long tradition of adapting for the stage important classic stories such as Homer's “The Iliad,” Rudyard Kipling's “The Man Who Would Be King,” and H. G. Wells' “The Invisible Man.”
       Set in Victorian London, a city of fog, dark alleyways, creaking doors and suspicious inhabitants, the play offers compelling views of the nature of human emotion and the bounds of scientific research. It is also a fascinating detective story and a fictional parallel for the unsolved murders of “Jack the Ripper.” 
Using original music and choreography and the best actors from London and New York, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” promises to be an unforgettable evening of spine tingling, thoughtful and exciting theatre.
       One of Shakespeare's greatest plays, “Hamlet” is also one of western literature’s most complete portrayals of the human psyche, a compelling tale of familial discord, personal ambition, love and revenge that has enthralled audiences for 400 years. 
       “The New Yorker” has acclaimed Aquila’s productions of Shakespeare as "beautifully spoken, dramatically revealing and crystalline in effect.” “The New York Times” says that Aquila “makes Shakespeare perfectly comprehensible” and hails the company as “an extraordinarily inventive and disciplined outfit.”
       Directed by Robert Richmond, and featuring some of the company's finest actors, Aquila's “Hamlet” will seek to shed new light on this vitally important play for a 21st century audience in a production that will prove exciting, innovative and accessible. 
       Young opera singer Andrew Garland, a recent graduate of the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, will present a Fanfare concert on Friday, Oct. 21, at 7:30 p.m. at the Pottle Music Building Auditorium. Garland, a baritone, is a member of the acclaimed Seattle Opera’s Young Artists Program. At CCM he sang roles in Mozart’s “Nozze di Figaro” and “Così fan tutte” and Ravel’s “Heure Espagnole.” A finalist in the 2002 Metropolitan Opera National Council regional auditions, he also has appeared with Dayton Opera in Puccini’s “La Bohème” and with Cincinnati Opera as the Motorcycle Cop in Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking.” 
       Tickets for Garland’s concert are $10, adults; $8, senior citizens, Southeastern faculty, staff and alumni; $7, group rate; and $5, non-Southeastern students. Admission is free for Southeastern students with their university I.D. 
       Also during Fanfare’s third week 
Trio Sonaçion will present an afternoon of guitar duets and art songs at Mandeville’s New Covenant Presbyterian Church on Sunday, Oct. 16, as part of Fanfare’s free “Sunday With the Arts” series. The trio includes Southeastern guitar faculty Patrick Kerber and Jeff Rogers -- who is also music director of the host church -- and soprano Patricia Ramirez, a Southeastern alumnus originally from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, who is now studying vocal performance and conducting at the University of Southern Mississippi. 
       The trio’s program, which will begin at 3 p.m., will include Manuel de Falla's “Seven Spanish Folk Songs” and excerpts from his flamenco inspired ballet, “El Amor Brujo”; Enrique Granados' elegant “Tonadillas” and “Danzas Espanolas”; songs and guitar duets by Joaquin Rodrigo and Fernando Sor. The church is located at 4375 Hwy. 22.
The works of talented and writers-in-residence of the Southeastern English Department will be showcased in “High Noon Fiction,” a new Fanfare series featuring personal readings by the award-winning authors. The first of two free readings, scheduled for Monday, Oct. 17, at noon in Vonnie Borden Theatre, will feature poets Jack Bedell and Alison Pelegrin and short story writer and novelist Norman German.
       Highlights will include Pelegrin’s “Song for Gretna,” an elegiac poem from her poetry collection, “The Zydeco Tablets,” and German’s "Call Forwarding," a story about a fish that swallows a cell phone with an important message on it. Bedell, editor of Southeastern's literary journal "Louisiana Literature," will read from his newest work, “Come Rain, Come Shine."
The Department of History and Political Sciences’ popular lecture series, “Then and Now,” will feature a lecture on American serial killers by Michael Kurtz, dean of Southeastern’s Graduate School and an authority on the history of crime in America. The free lecture is scheduled for on Monday, Oct. 19, at 1 p.m. in the Pottle Music Building Auditorium. Kurtz has earned national praise and recognition for his book and Southeastern course on one of the cruelest and most controversial of crimes, the Kennedy assassination. Now the co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominee “Earl K. Long: The Saga of Uncle Earl and Louisiana Politics” will discuss some of America’s worst criminals. 
Fanfare’s Foreign Film Festival will continue on Wednesday, Oct. 19, at 3:30 p.m. in the Music Recital Hall with “Ponette,” winner of the 1997 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The captivating movie, which will be subtitled in English, portrays how a little girl copes with her mother’s death. 
Audiences can warm up for the Oct. 25 Fanfare guest appearance by Ken Carter, the California high school basketball coach who in 1999 famously locked his championship team out of the gym until their grades improved, by viewing “Coach Carter,” the movie starring Samuel L. Jackson. A free outdoor big screen showing of the hit film is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 19, at 8 p.m. in the parking lot of the War Memorial Student Union. Carter will be Fanfare’s 2005 headline speaker on Tuesday, Oct. 25, at 7:30 p.m., at the Columbia Theatre.
       Fanfare tickets are available at the Columbia box office, 220 East Thomas St., Hammond, 985-54304371. Online ticket ordering is available at www.columbiatheatre.org. Box office hours are noon to 5 p.m., weekdays. The box office is open until performance time for events at the Columbia Theatre. For additional information, contact the Columbia Theatre at 985-543-4366.