P3
September 2013
B
efore the arts program was
reinstated at Grand Canyon
University three years ago,
in the summer of 2010, even the
Ethington Theatre workshop was
bereft of tools. Talk about your
blank canvas.
Dean
Claude Pensis
had 100 theatre, choral, dance
and film majors – most of them freshmen – and the
only resource in large supply was their enthusiasm.
And yet, from the opening night of “The Pirates of
Penzance” through eight months of productions and
concerts, it became clear: The College of Fine Arts
and Production was no ordinary start-up. GCU’s
students and instructors were abundantly talented,
and their extraordinary dedication carried them
through the year’s challenges.
Those pioneering freshmen are now seniors ready
to deliver a spectacular 2013-14 arts season for
the college, which has grown to nearly 600 majors
and added instrumental music and graphic design
programs in the past year. An unprecedented
number of arts events – many of them free to
students and the community – will take place on
campus and at nearby First Southern Baptist Church,
which continues to serve as a concert hall until the
University has its own.
“I’m pleased that we’ve become so embedded in the
University and the community this quickly,” says Pensis,
whose stellar faculty includes
Bill Symington
and
Michael Kary
(theatre);
Dr. Juan Hernandez
,
Dr.
Sheila Corley
and
Gabe Salazar
(vocal music);
Paul
Koch
(instrumental music);
Gregg Elder
(digital film);
Susannah Keita
(dance); and
Sheila Schumacher
(graphic design).
Here’s a preview of what the coming year will bring:
THEATRE
The Ethington Theatre Series opens with
Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” followed by Eugene
O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness!” and the Mozart comic
opera “Cosi Fan Tutte.” In the spring are C.S. Lewis’
“The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and
Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.” Also, there
will be at least three student-directed plays during
the year, along with performances by a student
improvisational comedy troupe. And “Arts Under
the Stars,” a community outreach event, will be back
for a second year.
The Class of 2014 “will be our first big wave of
graduates, and it will be interesting to see what
our students move on to,” says Symington, noting
a recent increase in the number of internship
opportunities for GCU theatre students. Current
partnerships include Arizona Opera, Valley Youth
Theatre, Childsplay and Phoenix Theatre.
New this year:
LED lighting in Ethington and a 30-foot
revolving stage piece that will be used for the first
time in “Ah, Wilderness!”
VOCAL MUSIC
Highlights include a Beethoven choral program on
Oct. 8, as well as a third year of Handel’s “Messiah”
with the Phoenix Symphony (Dec. 5), the annual
Christmas concert (Dec. 10) and Brahms’ “Requiem”
(March 11). The New Life Singers, coming off a year
of 100-plus performances, will release their first
CD in the fall and plan to enter an international
collegiate competition.
“We’re every bit as good as a large university
program in quality and quantity (of performances),”
Hernandez says. GCU has three times as many music
majors (120) as it did three years ago.
New this year:
GCU’s community chorus, the Choral
Union, has been renamed the Canyon Choral Society.
Three concerts will involve the Canyon Symphony
Orchestra, the new name given to the nearly four
dozen professional musicians who have accompanied
GCU’s choirs in the past.
INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC
The Thundering Heard, GCU’s high-energy pep
band directed by Koch, debuted last basketball
season with 55 members and expects to have more
than 90 this year.
New this year:
The concert and jazz bands, which
performed last spring to rave reviews, will present
their own fall and spring concerts, on Nov. 5 and
April 8.
DIGITAL FILM
The annual 48 Hour Interschool Challenge, a
competition hosted the first weekend in November
by GCU, has grown dramatically in entries and
quality. Under Elder, GCU film students have landed
internships recently with CNN, the Arizona Cardinals,
the Milwaukee Brewers, the History Channel and the
Discovery Channel.
DANCE
The department will stage its annual winter (Dec. 11
and 12) and spring (April 23 and 24) concerts, and
Sarah “Anindo” Marshall
of the Debbie Allen
Dance Academy in Los Angeles is scheduled as an
artist in residence in November.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
GCU’s program, which includes Web and animation
design, will be involved in various aspects of Phoenix
Design Week (Oct. 18-25) and also in message-
board communication on campus.
■
Fourth-year GCU program has
developed depth, variety
COME OF AGE
TheArts
– by Doug Carroll
Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard,” presented last February, was one of the
highlights of the Ethington Theatre Series for 2012-13. Photo by Darryl Webb
