The Theater Department is on the receiving end of a lot of strange requests.

One came early this summer that Professor Marie Chiment couldn’t ignore — the Fox School of Business’ Department of Legal Studies needed a dead body.

On Aug. 1, Professor Samuel Hodge will lead members of the Pennsylvania Bar Association through a crime scene investigation as part of its continuing education program.

“Dr. Hodge and I have created a based-on-real-life crime scene that we will be using as a springboard for a more general discussion of how a murder investigation is handled, from the homicide through to trial,” says Legal Studies Administrative Coordinator Nicole Saitta.

With Chiment’s dummy in the starring role, the attendees will be able to examine the crime scene at the event and view a video that recreates the scene as well.

A Playwright’s Clues

Chiment, a big fan of crime dramas, stepped up to the challenge. She uses crime scene investigation techniques in one of her design classes (which she’s dubbed “DSI: Design Scene Investigation”).

“A playwright, when they’re writing a play, they’re dropping clues,” she says. “So as a designer, I search for clues.”

As part of the design class, Chiment provides her students with the first couple of pages of a play and has them design a set and costumes using only the scripted dialogue.

For the crime scene project, Chiment put into practice the techniques she teaches. She was told that a young white male was found dead in an alley of a gunshot wound to the right temple – and that “the rats had gotten to him.”

Collecting Body Parts

Assistant Technical Director Marka Suber pulled a head and hands from Temple Theaters’ stock of props. Chiment built the body from items she found around her house – delivery boxes, paper towel rolls and plenty of fiber fluff to make it humanlike. What resulted is a six-foot male dressed in a hoodie, jeans and Converse sneakers, who ended up on the wrong end of a handgun.

She tapped into the knowledge of a make-up artist for advice on how to build a realistic gunshot wound, and studied the wounds she saw on TV crime shows.

Chiment says the biggest challenge was mimicking the nuances of a human skeleton – making sure the joints are bent at a realistic angle and that everything is proportional. She ensured everything was sewn together so the body will remain intact on its trip to the event.

“I do get to do some interesting things in my profession,” she says.

Click here to read more about the show, which runs July 24 to Sept. 15.

Associate Professor Gregg Feistman, Strategic Communication, Service Award

Associate Professor Christopher Harper, Journalism, Creative Award

Associate Professor Donnalyn Pompper, Strategic Communication, Research Award

Associate Professor Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, Theater, Service Award

The show, which ran from Jan. 26 to March 25, was directed by Assistant Professor Ed Sobel and starred Associate Professor David Ingram; Josh Tower, THEA ’95, and former theater student Maggie Lakis.

Watch the SCT-ers involved in the production talk about performing in Philadelphia and how the Theater Department prepares its students for the professional world.

Video by Ryan Geffert

Clybourne Park footage courtesy of Jorge Cousineau and Arden Theatre Company

Providing a rare analysis into the political economy of African American performance traditions, Williams-Witherspoon’s book offers a unique addition to the American Theater canon. For students of theater, anthropology, Africana and African American studies, this text offers a more in-depth history of African American theater, its African retentions and its contributions to American theater and popular culture.

Baayork Lee, one of the stars of the original cast of A Chorus Line, leads the Temple cast through an intense conditioning warm-up. (Photo by Joseph Labolito)

For more than an hour, the cast of Temple Theaters’ A Chorus Line was put through what can only be described as a dancer boot camp by one of the show’s original cast members.

Baayork Lee, who has worked with the 1974 musical since its inception, tasked the cast with an assortment of push-ups, Pilates, yoga and mind-boggling ab exercises all specifically designed to condition actors for the intensity of a long run of A Chorus Line.

“Do you want to be in the business,” Lee asked the actors nearly 45 minutes into the March 23 session. “It’s harder than this.”

Catching a break after the warm-up, the actors looked forward, albeit with a good dose of nerves, to having Lee in the audience at that evening’s performance.

“It’s intimidating having someone with such a close relationship with the show in the audience,” said Alec Moss, who plays Mark.

Even the cast member who plays the director, Zach – a character who doesn’t dance – got into the action. Shawn Hudson said the cast’s warm-up is generally just 20 minutes long and doesn’t include some of the strengthening exercises that Lee led.

Before leading the group warm-up, the effervescent Lee, who created the role of Connie, talked about some of the challenges she faced as a career dancer who was being asked to act and sing for A Chorus Line, which opened on Broadway in 1975.

“We didn’t have acting lessons, so [director Michael Bennett] would have to show us how to deliver lines,” she said.

Lee’s specialization in dance would never fly in the business today. “If I had to be hired now, I would never be hired,” she said, admiring the young actors for their dedication to becoming “triple threats” in singing, acting and dancing.

Following the warm-up, Lee led the cast through the show’s opening number, helping to tweak and perfect the dancers’ moves.

Even though Lee has worked with A Chorus Line for most of her career, it’s apparent that her love for the show hasn’t waned. “It’s been 36 years, and it doesn’t feel like it at all.”

A Chorus Line runs through March 31. CLICK HERE for ticket information.

See more images from the workshop here:

 Photos by Joseph Labolito

Click here to read the full story.

Undergraduate and graduate students will present their design work from this semester on the Tomlinson Theater stage on Dec. 15 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Students will be on hand to explain their work and answer questions. Set, costume and lighting designs will be featured.

See some of their work here and much more at the event. (Click on the “i” in the gallery to learn about the images.)

Click here to read the full story.

What does it take to start and maintain a successful career in the entertainment industry? That was the question on the minds of students from the School of Communications and Theater and the Boyer College of Music and Dance who filled Tomlinson Theater to get the inside scoop on how to break into and remain relevant in show business.

The first George and Joy Abbott Center for Musical Theater seminar, a collaborative colloquium between the Boyer College of Music and Dance and the School of Communications and Theater, brought together some of the biggest names in the business for an in-depth session on choreography, make up and more.

Hugh Panaro, MUS ’85, who is currently playing the lead role in Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, was among a panel of industry professionals who gave feedback and fielded questions on everything from diction to finding your own voice.

“It’s very tempting to mimic your role model,” said Panaro. “When I first moved to New York I unconsciously went into every audition as Mandy Patinkin.”

He stuck with his Patinkin imitation until he came across an honest pianist who offered him some important advice.

“He told me ‘you do a really good Mandy, but if you want to get hired, figure out who you are and what you can bring to the table.’ That’s when it clicked for me, that’s when I decided to be the most authentic version of myself,” said Panaro.

Panaro critiqued the vocal performances of two student singers and offered them auditioning tips. It was a conversation mirrored four other times as each Broadway pro took the spotlight. Clifford Schwartz, THEA ’80, a production supervisor for Disney Theatrical, discussed the challenges of stage managing with students doing that job on campus productions. Broadway director Thomas Kail watched two actors audition with monologues and offered them notes on how to tweak their performances. Rachel Coon, THEA, showed make-up designer Angelina Avallone her design for Temple Theaters’ production of Urinetown. And a line-up of “singers who move” (who don’t consider themselves dancers) learned a routine from choreographer Jonathan Cerullo.