The fall production of theater group NOMADS (New and Original Material Authored and Directed by Students), American Ghosts, premiered last night in the Glicker-Milstein blackbox theatre, located on LL2 of the Diana Center; the show runs through Saturday, with performances beginning at 8 pm and running a little over an hour. Bwog’s Meandering Medium Marcus Levine reviews.

“What haunts you?” The creators of this project, Lorenzo Landini (CC ’13) and Alex Katz (CC ’14), prompted prospective writers with precisely this question. An exploration in five parts of what it means to be “haunted” in America, American Ghosts presents original work from five playwrights, whose work was selected from an initial pool of fifteen applicants. Each short (10-30 minute) piece presents a fully encapsulated world, while the musical, design, and directorial elements weave the disparate plots together into a thrilling ghost story which reaches into the past for clichéd references, while remaining squarely contemporary with our ever-ironic era.

Krista White’s Ward Seven starts off the production with a Sartre-esque interplay between three clearly deranged individuals. An explosive young girl, Matilda (Carly Ginsberg, BC ’15), an insecure army officer, Lieutenant Gumble (Eric Wimer CC ’16) and a senile old woman, Gertrude (Anika Benkov, CC ’16) await the arrival of the ever-mysterious Man in Black (Jonathan Gutterman, GS ’13). Ginsberg’s genuine temper-tantrums and focus-stealing expressiveness counter the innocent reserve and calm demeanor of Benkov, while Wimer’s curt but cordial army discipline would have been strengthened by dropping the inconsistent Southern drawl.

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“You were born with wings; why prefer to crawl through life?”

In Where Art Thou? Bwog and the Brilliantly Buttoned Alex Katz bring you some of the best music, dance, theatre, and cultural happenings in the area. If you’d like your event featured, tell us at events@bwog.com.

Ongoing

• Nuclear Love Affair at Here at 7 pm. A dark and provocative pop culture spectacle set against a multimedia backdrop of war and persecution, this vision of a world gone wrong is both harsh and hysterical. Ends Saturday. $10 with CUID.

Thursday

• Tennis in Nablus: Staged Play Reading in Miller Theatre at 6:30 pm. Written by playwright and poet Ismail Khalidi, this tragipoliticomedy was nominated for a Suzi Bass Award for Best New Play and awarded the Quest for Peace Award from the Kennedy Center. Free. RSVP.

Friday

• Rumi Night of Poetry in Lerner Party Space at 7:30 pm. Join Amir Vahab and his ensemble for a night of dramatic and musical poetry by Maulan Jalauddin Rumi, $5 CUID. $15 Non-CUID.
• AXO Divas for DVAS Performance Showcase in Roone at 7:30 pm. The Culmination of AXO’s Domestic Violence Awareness Week, the night will include many performance groups’ interpretations on the theme of domestic violence. $3 CUID.

The 2012-2013 season at Miller Theatre opened last night with Venezia. It will be playing again tomorrow and is sold out, but a stand-by line will be open at 6 pm. Wannabe Venetian Alexandra Svokos checked it out.

Miller Theatre opened their season with the words “I do not know if I am awake, or if I dream still.” This sentiment could have been repeated by the audience of Venezia, a dream-like, fantastical program of Baroque opera featuring Music Hum fav Claudio Monteverdi among other composers. Venezia was performed by Le Poéme Harmonique, a musical group that focuses on 17th and early 18th century works, and was intended to create the experience of a concert  in 17th century Venice. Indeed, the six musicians played authentic Baroque instruments such as the viola da gamba (remember that from Music Hum?) and sat onstage lit by candelabras and otherwise no set. Johannes Frisch on violin provided a majority of the instrumental melodies masterfully while the other musicians were strong and kept the audience rapt with lovely pieces.

There were four singers: a soprano, two tenors, and a bass-baritone. With a dim and stark stage, the singers took on most of the weight of enlivening the performance—and did it well. They sang emphatically, with large gestures and comical bits of acting and mugging to the audience. The proximity to the musicians also allowed them to become part of the active show; singers frequently sang to the musicians, egging them on or pulling them in for a little joke. Tenor Serge Goubioud, in particular, was a playful actor, contorting his face into dramatic masks, physically succumbing to weakness during a miserable aria, and, memorably, meowing and hissing like a cat during the enjoyable comic song “Misticanza di vigna alla bergamasca” by Manelli.

This piece included all of the singers and, indeed, even solo arias featured other singers. Like the Supremes to Diana Ross, two or three singers would add harmonies and light commentary to dramatic arias. Soprano Claire Lefilliâtre held her own as the only female singer. Her voice was strong with lovely lyric coloring, pulling heartbreaking arias such as “Son ruinato” by Ferrari to even more devastating emotional depth. Another highlight was Monteverdi’s “Lamenta della Ninfa,” a haunting and hypnotizing tune featuring all four voices, with bass-baritone Geoffrey Buffière, solid through the whole night, keeping a low beat.

Jan Van Elsacker opened the night exquisitely with “Dorma ancora” from Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses to His Homeland—whattup lit hum? As his opening line introduced the blurred lines of dream and reality, this production really succeeded in bringing the audience into the dream of 17th century Venice, so much so that there was an enthusiastic call for two encores. Well, it was a dream until the woman one row back turned on the light of her cell phone to read the program. Damn, I’m still in the 21st century.

Photograph via Miller Theatre

Screenings at the second annual Athena Film Festival begin tonight at 6 pm in Miller Theatre. Student priced tickets are available for $7. Alexandra Svokos sat down with festival founders Kathryn Kolbert and Melissa Silverstein.

Kathryn Kolbert and Melissa Silverstein (a 30 Rock fan!) come from different professional worlds but have the same goal: to raise the status and image of women. Kolbert is the director of the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard while Silverstein is the renowned blogger behind Women and Hollywood. The two met at an event at Gloria Steinem’s house organized by Silverstein in honor of filmmaker Jane Campion. After a conversation about the difficulties of getting “stories of courageous women to the big screen,” the two decided to create the Athena Film Festival.

Before the Athena Festival, there was no large-scale festival for women’s film in New York City. Kolbert and Silverstein took a different approach to the idea of a women’s festival than others do – rather than focusing on women directors or producers, they chose to focus on films that show women as leaders. “We think it’s very important that our culture reflect women in leadership roles and that young women in particular be able to see the actions and activities and courage and commitment of women,” Kolbert explained. The award winners are all women.

Last year, the festival’s first, exceeded all expectations, bringing about 2500 people to Barnard, most of whom were not Barnard-affiliated. This year they hope to at least match that number. Student groups have also become more active in the festival.

Check out the rest of the interview after the jump.

Melissa Smey

It was announced today that Melissa Smey, Director of Miller Theatre, will be taking over leadership of Columbia’s Arts Initiative. In his university-wide e-mail, PrezBo praised Smey’s work in revamping Miller’s agenda — remember Sonic Youth? — which we chronicled in our profile of her in the November issue of The Blue & White. Bollinger, with generic dry enthusiasm, was pleased that the appointment “brings together Columbia’s principle resources for innovative cultural programming and those for engagement with the arts.”

We hope that Smey will breathe new life into the CUArts program, which was significantly lacklustre during 2010-11. The weekly e-mails, despite their piquant subject lines (“Get Your Sexypants On”), were woefully low on either good programming or value for money. Smey has improved both of these things during her leadership of Miller, where inspiring more student engagement with the University’s arts program was one of her main priorities. This student-oriented attitude could be just the ticket to ameliorate the common complaint that making the most of NYC’s cultural offerings is often too difficult or expensive.

Read the full press release here

Until the print edition arrives, read the November issue of The Blue and White on Bwog. Today, Sam Schube catches up with the director of Columbia’s Miller Theatre.

Miller Theatre, although regarded as a premier forum for contemporary dance and music, has struggled to carry its citywide renown into its own backyard. Despite Miller’s on-campus presence and the nearly 80 percent ticket discount it offers, Columbia students only make up a fifth of each concert audience. Even then, Miller Theatre Director Melissa Smey recognizes that those undergrads are there mainly for concerts like the Bach series–anything that furnishes a usable essay for Music Humanities.

“You should want to go to a concert, not because you have to, or because you ought to,” she says. The current season–Smey’s first since her recent promotion to director–features Miller’s trademark eclectic blend of early and new music, but Smey is eager to continue innovating the way the Theatre interacts with the University. Simply put, she is convinced that the Theatre can play a more significant role in student life.

Smey credits her predecessor George Steel with making Miller “the only game in town for new music” during his 11-year reign. After spurring Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to develop new music programming (with Carnegie Hall even building a Miller-sized space for new music), Miller, always the innovator, looked inward for inspiration. This season’s program reprises the traditional “Composer Portraits” series, but the current iteration will feature two Miller firsts: a world, U.S., or New York premiere at every concert, along with a discussion with the composer.

Miller’s ambitious, constant reinvention reflects its aim to establish a niche in the New York music scene. “There’s no point in being the third-best string quartet series,” Smey explains, “because you can go to Carnegie and hear number one and number two.”

Smey hopes to focus these aspirations to tackle one of the fine art’s biggest hurdles: programming for the everyman, or in Miller’s case, the Columbia man. Miller is a destination for music aficionados throughout the Tri-State area, but Smey admits that “in a way, it’s easier to attract the press than a wide audience of students.” Under Smey’s direction, then, audience development has become one of the Theatre’s top priorities.

Smey describes the Miller- Columbia dynamic, with its “brand-new, self-renewing potential base of audience members every year,” as a laboratory to explore strategies for audience growth. She has, for example, arranged for four sections of Music Humanities to hold class inside Miller during concert rehearsals, and the Theatre has begun analyzing ticket data to better target audiences in addition to conducting focus groups among students. Ultimately, Smey aims to “distill the principles of audience development: what is it that’s compelling, what makes it interesting?” With Columbia’s help, she hopes Miller can set yet another example to make Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall salivate: “A national model for audience development everywhere.”

It’s worth pointing out that Smey seems perfectly suited for the admittedly difficult task. She’s excitable and bubbly (she favors the adjective “awesome”), and she has a proverbial ear tuned to youth culture to broaden Miller’s experimental horizons. Last year, for example, a New York Times piece revealed her affinity for bands like Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend. To her, thinking-man’s indie rock is another avenue to attract student interest, envisioning a Miller “unplugged indie series.” “They could all be showcased here,” she says. “And then we could hang out with them–wouldn’t that be great?”

Illustration by Stephen Davan