Wed, Jul 19, 2006
July 17-21, 2006
3 YEAR EXTENSION TOTALS $1.4 MILLION
Midwest Service-Learning Consortium at UNL Receives Additional Grant
The Midwest Consortium for Service-Learning in Higher Education, hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, was awarded a three year extension grant totaling $1.4 million from the Corporation for National and Community Service. UNL's consortium was one of only eight current grantees to receive continued funding, and one of 27 awards out of 297 submissions from across the United States.
The new funding will bring the consortium into its ninth year of operation offering sub-grants to support service-learning projects in 24 colleges and universities in Nebraska, South Dakota and Iowa. Consortium funds have been used for a variety of large and small service-learning projects for college students across the three states, including alternative spring break trips and research service-learning projects addressing immigrants and poverty.
MCSLHE
LIED CENTER JOHNNY CARSON THEATRE
Repertory Theatre Continues 39th Season With Ominum Gatherum
The Nebraska Repertory Theatre, the professional wing of the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film, continues its 39th season July 19 with a piping hot slice of satire: Ominum Gatherum. By Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros, Ominum Gatherum is a lavish gourmet dinner party engineered by a dithery hostess, not unlike Martha Stewart, in a city not unlike New York, where "a collection of peculiar souls" gather to enjoy wit and incendiary conversation, spiced with chutney encrusted seared salmon (catered by Lincoln's own Chez Hay). Omnium Gatherum, defined as a ̉miscellaneous collection (as of things or persons)", features eight people, all with very different opinions, from very different places in life. They have been brought together by Suzie (Judith K. Hart), who is determined to host the perfect dinner party with the perfect food, the perfect table, and the perfect topics of conversation.
There is Roger, the novelist, played by UNL graduate actor Jim Hopkins; Lydia, a staunch feminist and vegan, played by Lincoln's own Melissa Lewis; Julia, devoted to her vision, played by Katherine Nora LeRoy, an actress with a UNL MFA who now lives in New York City; Khalid, the party's Arab guest, played by professional actor Dale Westgaard; Terence, a proper English pundit, played by Omaha's Paul R. Coate; Jeff, a firefighter, played by UNL graduate actor Greg Parmeter, and a surprise guest, played by UNL senior theatre major William Heafer. This collection of people will have you debating with your friends for several days.
Performances are July 19, 20, 21, 28, 29, August 1, 2, 3 at 7:30 pm, and July 30 at 2:00 pm in the Lied Cener's Johnny Carson Theater, 11th & Q in Lincoln. Season Passes, which allow the purchaser unlimited attendance at NRT 2006 performances and each of the Destinations performances, are available for $45, $40 faculty/staff and senior citizens, and $25 students. Individual tickets are $20, $18 faculty/staff and seniors, and $10 students. Tickets and passes may be purchased at the Lied Center Ticket Office, 301 N 12th St. in Lincoln, 11 am to 5:30 pm Monday through Friday, and one hour prior to performances in the designated theatre lobby. Via Telephone: 402-472-4747 or toll free 800-432-3231.
NEBRASKA REPERTORY THEATRE
Repertory Theatre Continues 39th Season With Ominum Gatherum
There is Roger, the novelist, played by UNL graduate actor Jim Hopkins; Lydia, a staunch feminist and vegan, played by Lincoln's own Melissa Lewis; Julia, devoted to her vision, played by Katherine Nora LeRoy, an actress with a UNL MFA who now lives in New York City; Khalid, the party's Arab guest, played by professional actor Dale Westgaard; Terence, a proper English pundit, played by Omaha's Paul R. Coate; Jeff, a firefighter, played by UNL graduate actor Greg Parmeter, and a surprise guest, played by UNL senior theatre major William Heafer. This collection of people will have you debating with your friends for several days.
Performances are July 19, 20, 21, 28, 29, August 1, 2, 3 at 7:30 pm, and July 30 at 2:00 pm in the Lied Cener's Johnny Carson Theater, 11th & Q in Lincoln. Season Passes, which allow the purchaser unlimited attendance at NRT 2006 performances and each of the Destinations performances, are available for $45, $40 faculty/staff and senior citizens, and $25 students. Individual tickets are $20, $18 faculty/staff and seniors, and $10 students. Tickets and passes may be purchased at the Lied Center Ticket Office, 301 N 12th St. in Lincoln, 11 am to 5:30 pm Monday through Friday, and one hour prior to performances in the designated theatre lobby. Via Telephone: 402-472-4747 or toll free 800-432-3231.
NEBRASKA REPERTORY THEATRE
MARY RIEPMA ROSS MEDIA ARTS CENTER
A Prairie Home Companion, Twelve And Holding, Water Play at the Ross
UNL's Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center presents A Prairie Home Companion, Twelve And Holding, and Water. All three films will be showing through July 20.
Director Robert Altman and writer Garrison Keillor join forces with an all-star cast to create a comic backstage fable, A Prairie Home Companion, about a fictitious radio variety show that has managed to survive in the age of television. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin star as the Johnson Sisters, Yolanda and Rhonda, a country duet act that has survived the county-fair circuit, and Lindsey Lohan plays Meryl's daughter, Lola, who gets her big chance to sing on the show and then forgets the words. Kevin Kline is Guy Noir, a private eye down on his luck who works as a backstage doorkeeper, and Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly are Dusty and Lefty, the Old Trailhands, a singing cowboy act. Add Virginia Madsen as an angel and Tommy Lee Jones as the Axeman and Maya Rudolph as a pregnant stagehand and Keillor in the role of a hangdog emcee, and you have a playful story set on a rainy Saturday night in St. Paul, Minnesota, where fans file into the Fitzgerald Theater to see "A Prairie Home Companion," a staple of radio station WLT, not knowing that WLT has been sold to a Texas conglomerate and that tonight's show will be the last.
Director Michael Cuesta follows up his debut film L.I.E. with another harrowing coming-of-age tale in Twelve And Holding. Cuesta casts young Conor Donovan as his lead, with the impressive actor playing twins--the sociable athlete Rudy and the distinctly introspective Jacob. Joining Donovan in the cast are Jesse Camacho as Leonard, a paunchy kid reminiscent of Jerry O'Connell's Vern in Stand By Me and Zoe Weizenbaum as Malee, a quietly disturbed young girl with a fractured family life. The five 12-year-olds are close friends, but their lives are thrown into turmoil when a prank by local bullies goes horribly wrong and Rudy is burned alive in a tree house. As Jacob's parents fall apart at the news, the rudderless surviving twin realizes he can't rely on them for support, so he makes the surprising decision to make regular visits to the two brothers who killed Rudy as they languish in a juvenile detention center. Meanwhile, Malee copes with the tragedy by obsessing over an attractive older guy named Gus (Jeremy Renner) and Leonard gets on a health kick despite his overweight parents' protestations. But Twelve And Holding is not a facile reproduction of other work; instead it's a startling kids'-eye view of poor parenting and woeful neglect. The four leads give astonishingly mature performances, and Cuesta manages to surpass his meager budget by creating a stylistic tour-de-force that may leave anxious parents wondering what their kids are doing in their spare time.
When Deepa Mehta first began filming Water in 2000, angry fundamentalist mobs burned her sets and threatened her life. Her film has raised the ire of extremists because it challenges the Hindu customs that dictate that widows, considered half-dead after the loss of their husbands, must be closeted in holy ashrams--a practice that still exists today. Set in the 1930s, the film tells the story of eight-year old Chuyia, whose husband dies before she even meets him. Her parents shave her head and whisk her away to a house of widows where the women sleep on the ground and beg in the streets to earn their puny portion of rice. Chuyia, feisty and resilient, comes into this world like a ray of light, and soon the women are rethinking their mute acceptance of their fate. Her closest friend and ally is the lovely Kalyani, and soon a forbidden romance begins to develop between Kalyani and Narayana, a young Brahmin man who, following the teachings of Gandhi, has denounced injustice. The film is sumptuously beautiful, Chuyia is utterly winsome, and despite the harsh social issues at its heart, it often feels light and lively: Chuyia and Kalyani play games and dance, Chuyia steals sweets for a dying old widow, the women dance and paint each other's faces during a color festival, and the Cinderella-story romance between Kalyani and Narayana shimmers with the promise of salvation and happiness. Mehta, however, knows it would be disingenuous to allow such an easy resolution to such a dire situation, and the final chapter of Water takes a tragic turn.
More information is available at the Ross website.
MRRMAC | A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION | TWELVE AND HOLDING | WATER
A Prairie Home Companion, Twelve And Holding, Water Play at the Ross
UNL's Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center presents A Prairie Home Companion, Twelve And Holding, and Water. All three films will be showing through July 20.
Director Michael Cuesta follows up his debut film L.I.E. with another harrowing coming-of-age tale in Twelve And Holding. Cuesta casts young Conor Donovan as his lead, with the impressive actor playing twins--the sociable athlete Rudy and the distinctly introspective Jacob. Joining Donovan in the cast are Jesse Camacho as Leonard, a paunchy kid reminiscent of Jerry O'Connell's Vern in Stand By Me and Zoe Weizenbaum as Malee, a quietly disturbed young girl with a fractured family life. The five 12-year-olds are close friends, but their lives are thrown into turmoil when a prank by local bullies goes horribly wrong and Rudy is burned alive in a tree house. As Jacob's parents fall apart at the news, the rudderless surviving twin realizes he can't rely on them for support, so he makes the surprising decision to make regular visits to the two brothers who killed Rudy as they languish in a juvenile detention center. Meanwhile, Malee copes with the tragedy by obsessing over an attractive older guy named Gus (Jeremy Renner) and Leonard gets on a health kick despite his overweight parents' protestations. But Twelve And Holding is not a facile reproduction of other work; instead it's a startling kids'-eye view of poor parenting and woeful neglect. The four leads give astonishingly mature performances, and Cuesta manages to surpass his meager budget by creating a stylistic tour-de-force that may leave anxious parents wondering what their kids are doing in their spare time.
When Deepa Mehta first began filming Water in 2000, angry fundamentalist mobs burned her sets and threatened her life. Her film has raised the ire of extremists because it challenges the Hindu customs that dictate that widows, considered half-dead after the loss of their husbands, must be closeted in holy ashrams--a practice that still exists today. Set in the 1930s, the film tells the story of eight-year old Chuyia, whose husband dies before she even meets him. Her parents shave her head and whisk her away to a house of widows where the women sleep on the ground and beg in the streets to earn their puny portion of rice. Chuyia, feisty and resilient, comes into this world like a ray of light, and soon the women are rethinking their mute acceptance of their fate. Her closest friend and ally is the lovely Kalyani, and soon a forbidden romance begins to develop between Kalyani and Narayana, a young Brahmin man who, following the teachings of Gandhi, has denounced injustice. The film is sumptuously beautiful, Chuyia is utterly winsome, and despite the harsh social issues at its heart, it often feels light and lively: Chuyia and Kalyani play games and dance, Chuyia steals sweets for a dying old widow, the women dance and paint each other's faces during a color festival, and the Cinderella-story romance between Kalyani and Narayana shimmers with the promise of salvation and happiness. Mehta, however, knows it would be disingenuous to allow such an easy resolution to such a dire situation, and the final chapter of Water takes a tragic turn.
More information is available at the Ross website.
MRRMAC | A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION | TWELVE AND HOLDING | WATER
