The show is directed by Eric Ruffin, an acting and directing lecturer at Howard where he received a BFA in theatre arts. Ruffin holds an MFA in directing from Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts.

“Historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) were created post-slavery to assist Africans living in the Americas who had previously been enslaved gain entrée into society,” Ruffin said. “It was also to teach western culture and give them an employable skill.”

Howard is classified as a Tier 1 national university and ranks second among HBCUs according to U.S. News & World Report. It is the only HBCU ranked in the top 40 on Bloomberg Businessweek college rankings and produces more black doctorate recipients than any other university in the U.S.

In 2007, Ruffin directed Richie Call, artistic director of the Lyric, in a production at Rutgers while Call was in graduate school. Since then, Call and Ruffin have remained in contact, which is what brought him and the rest of the cast to Logan. Other Howard alumni in the Lyric company include Kim Bey, Isaiah Reed, Jaylen Wilson, Tre’mon Mills and Amanda Morris. Current Howard student Sage Fortune also joins the Lyric company this season.

“I was nervous to come to Logan because I didn’t know what the culture would be like,” Long Island native Fortune, said. “Everyone has been very friendly so far!”

Kim Bey, professor of acting and former chair of the Department of Theatre Arts at Howard, said she loves being in an environment where her focus is on her work and she can work with her colleagues in such a lovely place.

Kansas City native Jaylen Scott Wilson says Logan reminds him of home.

“I like the open land and country feel,” Wilson said. “There aren’t as many distractions as the city has. I am fortunate to come right out of college into this company and focus on my work.”

The thing Ruffin likes the most about Logan is getting to know the people. In every restaurant and store he visits, people have been striking up conversations with him.

“There’s an openness to learn and to know more,” Ruffin said. “In turn, it has given me an opportunity to learn and know more about the people of Logan.”

Opening June 14, the Lyric 2019 season includes A Raisin in the Sun, Mamma Mia!, Clybourne Park, Murder for Two, The Great Society (Staged Reading) and Size Matters.

For more information or to purchase tickets for the 2019 season, go online to lyricrep.org or visit the Caine Lyric Theatre Box Office at 28 W. Center Street from May 15-August 3 on Mon.-Sat. from 10 a.m.-5 p.m or the Spectrum Box Office at 7600 Old Main Hill on Mon.-Fri. from 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

An actor, producer, director and educator, Spelbring is currently an associate professor in the Department of Theatre Arts at Utah State University. He is a graduate of the actor training program at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts and holds his BFA in acting from Webster University’s Conservatory of Theatre Arts and MFA in acting from the University of California, Irvine.

In 2018, Spelbring directed An Iliad at the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival, along with fight direction for Big River, The Foreigner and The Greenshow(British Isles). That same season, he joined the Lyric as fight director for Macbeth.

“After time spent as a solo artistic director, it was apparent I couldn’t do everything on my own,” Call said. “Jason has an artistic eye that I don’t have, and he complements me in many of the same ways Dennis Hassan did. Jason is tireless and his energy and drive are an important addition to our administrative team.”

Being a part of the Lyric team headed by Call was one of the main reasons Spelbring was eager to accept this new role.

“I work really well with Richie and being able to help him realize his vision for the Lyric is something I’m excited to do,” Spelbring said. “His grandfather, W. Vosco Call, founded the company in 1967 and I find it remarkable that a live theater company has been working consecutively for 52 years in this valley. To be a part of that legacy is really appealing to me.”

Call said Spelbring’s vision for growth focuses on inclusion (diversity and gender parity) in all areas of the company.

“We want to be more inclusive in how we plan a season, how we cast a season and staff and where we fit in this movement,” Spelbring said. “We are aware of it and we are not resisting.”

Spelbring has plans to increase Lyric’s individual donor base and nurture the business and corporate sponsor base as well. He would like to bring more of what the Lyric does to the people who live in Cache Valley.

“He has already begun to implement plans to help with development, fundraising and donor cultivation,” Call said. “In short, Jason is going to take us to the next level.”

As part of Lyric’s 2019 season, Spelbring directs/produces the Spotlight Concert, themed “On Broadway.” Patrons will hear numbers from shows currently playing on Broadway, along with special previews of the 2020 Lyric season.

Spelbring also directs this summer’s highly anticipated musical, Mamma Mia!

“Jason is a truly creative director and does not simply do what has already been done,” Call said. “He’s wonderful at doing the things I consider to be the most important elements of directing: identifying an author’s intent, exploring the world of the play and sharing the author’s vision with the rest of the creative team.”

Call doesn’t stop there with his praise—he said Spelbring is perhaps the best director he has ever worked with when it comes to asking what a play means to us today and adding his unique “voice” to a production.

“Jason is particularly adept at taking well established works and looking at them through a fresh, unique lens,” Call said. “I think one of the reasons for his success in this area is a genuine desire to collaborate with everyone on the team.”

Opening June 14, the Lyric 2019 season includes A Raisin in the Sun, Mamma Mia!, Clybourne Park, Murder for Two, The Great Society (Staged Reading) and Size Matters.

For more information or to purchase tickets for the 2019 season, go online to lyricrep.org or visit the Caine Lyric Theatre Box Office at 28 W. Center Street from May 15-August 3 on Mon.-Sat. from 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

“Mahler’s third is one of the grandest symphonies ever written,” said Sergio Bernal, music director of the USU Symphony Orchestra and organizer of this concert. “It is a masterwork that aims to describe nothing less than the entire universe and uses strong performance forces to do so.”

Bernal is delighted by the opportunity of bringing international artists to work with students and community musicians.

“They will have an intense week of rehearsals leading up to the concert,” Bernal said. “But preparations started much earlier. The student orchestra and choirs have been practicing for many weeks, awaiting the day they start playing and singing together as a group of more than 200 musicians on the stage of the Daines Concert Hall.”

Bernal said it has been amazing to witness this symphony come together as they rehearse as an orchestra.

“I find a new favorite moment or melody in every rehearsal,” Gianna Patchett, pianist and student in the Caine College of the Arts (CCA) at USU, said. “I am constantly amazed by Mahler’s genius.”

Guest conductor Christoph Campestrini said he is excited to visit USU and perform Mahler’s Third in Cache Valley.

“For many years, the music of Gustav Mahler has had a very special place in my heart because it connects my home city of Vienna with the world,” Campestrini said.

Maestro Campestrini was appointed Kapellmeister at Vienna’s historic Hofmusikkappelle, tasked with leading the Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna Boys Choir and Male Choir of the Vienna State Opera. He is also music director of the International Late Summer Music Festival in Croatia and the Oper Kolsterneuburg Festival Vienna. His guest conducting engagements include appearances with the London Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, German Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg and more.

“It is a unique opportunity to be conducted by Maestro Campestrini,” Bernal said. “As is to host mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford at her alma mater.”

Mumford says she is thrilled to return to USU for this special concert.

“I heard Mahler’s music for the first time while a student at USU,” Mumford said. “I have been in love with it ever since.”

Mumford studied voice under head of the Department of Music in the CCA, Cindy Dewey, and now has an international career. Upon receiving her bachelor’s from USU in vocal performance in 2003, she accepted a scholarship to Yale University to continue her studies in opera performance and was invited to become a member of the Lindeman Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera. Since then, she has been singing major roles at the Met and performing with the world’s most prominent orchestras. This season, Mumford returns to the Metropolitan Opera for Wagner’s Das Rheingold and Götterdämmerung, and appears in concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic and on tour in Asia. During her visit to Logan, Mumford will also hold a master class for CCA voice students.

Mahler’s Third is not only the longest symphony of the standard repertoire, but also one of unparalleled depth and beauty, Bernal noted.

“Of its six movements, two involve the human voice in an overall progression that portrays the development of creation: Summer Marches In as a symbol of early life, What the Flowers in the Meadow Tell Me, What the Animals in the Forest Tell Me, What Man Tells Me, What the Angels Tell Me and What Love Tells Me,” Bernal said.

Campestrini feels especially touched by What Love Tells Me, which he calls his favorite movement of all Mahler symphonies.

“It reaches into depths of the soul that only music can describe,” Campestrini said. “I am looking forward to sharing this most beautiful symphony with everybody in our audience at USU.”

Mumford also said the final movement speaks to her soul more deeply than any other piece of music.

“I get to sit on the stage with the orchestra and feel that music wash over me,” Mumford said. “It inspires me every time.”

This event is part of the Caine College of the Arts Visiting Artists and Scholars Series. It is underwritten by the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation–Russell Family, the Tanner Charitable Trust, other generous donors and Differential Tuition provided by the students of the college.

Tickets are $10 general admission, $8 seniors, $5 USU faculty and staff and free for USU students with ID and grades 3-12. For more information and tickets, visit the CCA Box Office located in room L-101 of the Chase Fine Arts Center on USU’s campus, call 435-797-8022 or go online at cca.usu.edu.

Shockheaded Peter is a “nasty picture book” of a musical, loosely based on German children’s book Struwelpeter, written by Heinrich Hoffman. The macabre and sinister production uses musical versions of the book’s poems to spin stories of naughty children and misguided parents. The show is set in a distorted Victorian toy theater and evokes a lost world of theatrical illusions including a music box spinning out of control and an advent calendar with a horrifying surprise behind every door.

Richie Call, assistant professor in the Department of Theatre Arts in the Caine College of the Arts and director of the show, said that German pediatrician Heinrich Hoffman was looking for an interesting book to buy for his son and couldn’t find anything so he wrote and illustrated Shockheaded Peter himself. Call said the book has some dark aspects to it to illustrate morals and lessons to children.

“Shockheaded Peter is no more about child abuse or killing of children than Harry Potter is about child abuse and the scarring of children,” Call said. “It is a component of the story, but the story itself is trying to teach something other than that. What we’re doing with this show isn’t the same thing the book was trying to do; we’re trying to entertain.”

As a father, Call wonders about things we tell our kids to scare them into behaving and if it’s okay to lie to them if the outcome is for their benefit. He says he’s not sure about the answer but he thinks the question is what’s really important.

The style of Shockheaded Peter is meant to be very theatrical. Call explained that having a narrator for the show is meant to break what is referred to as “the fourth wall,” a performance convention in which an invisible, imagined wall separates actors from the audience.

“There’s actors playing characters playing characters, with an element of puppets,” Call said. “It’s an automatic reminder to the audience that they’re watching a play, but sometimes it pulls you into the moment even more and you can just soak in the story.”

Call hopes Shockheaded Peter is different than anything audiences have ever seen, in a good way.

Cast includes: Blake Brundy (Emcee); Liza Shoell (Mother); Noah Gentry (Father); Addie Provost (Vondel); Porter Lance (Probe); Rachel Saltmarsh (Sitz); Jake Hansen (Hanz); Abigail Smith (Hildagard); James M. Johnson (Gunter); Hanna Speer (Gerda); Bryson LaBar (Wolfgang); Madeline Liddell (Irmengard); Trent Dahlin (Otto); Shane Wegner (Heinrich) and Timo Rasmussen (Helmut).

Tickets for Shockheaded Peter are $18 adults, $15 seniors/youth, $10 USU faculty/staff and free for USU students with ID. The show contains images that may be disturbing to some audience members. Viewer discretion is advised. No puppets were harmed during the creation of this production. For more information or tickets, contact the CCA Box Office in room L101 of the Chase Fine Arts Center on USU’s campus, call 435-797-8022, or go online to cca.usu.edu.

“Sing! 2019 features beautiful choral music, much with a romantic, valentine theme that’s perfect for the holiday,” said Cory Evans, director of choral activities at USU. “Featured works include ‘Five Hebrew Love Songs’ by Eric Whitacre, vocal jazz standards ‘Cry Me a River’ and ‘Mas Que Nada’ and Allegri’s monumental masterpiece ‘Miserere Mei,’ performed in a shortened version by the USU Chamber Singers.”

Evans said there is a special love song to end the concert, complete with valentine sentiments for the audience.

“Don’t miss this evening of excellent choral music,” Evans said.

Tickets for Sing! are $10 adults, $8 seniors and youth, $5 USU faculty and staff and free for USU students with ID and grades 3-12. For tickets or more information, visit the CCA Box Office in room L101 of the Chase Fine Arts Center on USU’s campus, call 435-797-8022 or go online to cca.usu.edu today.

After a severe incident of spousal abuse, two families’ lives are altered until the final collision point at an isolated cabin. The families are linked by the marriage of their children, Jake and Beth. Beth is recuperating at her parents’ home after Jake’s abuse sends her to the hospital. A Lie of the Mind explores the families’ dysfunction and love as they deal with Beth’s brain damage and follows Jake on his search for meaning in his life.

“Sam Shepard is one of the most significant 20th century playwrights,” Adrianne Moore, head of the Department of Theatre Arts in the Caine College of the Arts and director of the show, said. “We’re doing this as a celebration of all of his incredibly wonderful writing.”

Moore said the show is a raw and gritty play, but without on-stage violence. A Lie of the Mind is a show teenagers and adults will enjoy.

One of the difficult aspects for actors in the show is discovering anger in themselves and investigating the emotional aspects of being a violent person.

“You can abhor the crime and still find the character who is the perpetrator interesting,” Moore said. “It would be easy for us to dismiss the perpetrator as only a ‘bad guy,’ but he’s also a multifaceted character that the audience needs to meet.”

The relationship between Jake and Beth is complicated, Moore says.

“They have an intense yearning for each other,” Moore said. “Part of you wants Beth to get rid of Jake, but it’s not as straightforward as that. He is filled with an intense sorrow and seems to be only a shell of a person without Beth in his life.”

People aren’t behaving in ways that we normally view as politically correct or in ways that are good for them either. It’s painful to see Beth yearn for Jake even after what she has been through.

Audiences are used to seeing parent/child relationships and romantic relationships in theatre and film where things fall apart, but sibling relationships are typically not focused on as much.

“In A Lie of the Mind, the sibling relationships are quite fraught, but also close, detailed, adult relationships,” Moore said.

A Lie of the Mind is often called one of Shepard’s most important plays.

“It’s beautifully written,” Moore said. “It’s not super light, but it’s the intricacies of the way we relate to the people we’ve grown up with and know incredibly well. There’s no strangers in this show.”

Cast includes: Mollee Barse (Beth); Anna Bodily (Sally); Tyler Campbell (Baylor); Cameron Eastland (Jake); Rachael Hodge (Lorraine); Stacey Shorthill (Meg); Hayden Sproul (Mike) and Alex Smith (Frankie).

Tickets for A Lie of the Mind are $13 adults, $10 seniors/youth, $8 USU faculty/staff and free for USU students with ID. For more information or tickets, contact the CCA Box Office in room L101 of the Chase Fine Arts Center on USU’s campus, call 435-797-8022, or go online to cca.usu.edu.

Thursday night’s concert showcases USU graduates Allie Harris and Megan Simper, who front the band Mama Longlegs, along with USU adjunct faculty Nate Ostermiller, who will perform with USU bass professor Braun Kahn. Director of guitar studies in the Caine College of the Arts at USU and festival organizer, Corey Christiansen, will play trio with LA bassist Anna Butterss and drummer phenom Kobie Watkins.

Friday night’s concert features Mark Kroos, who plays two guitar necks at the same time, Corey Christiansen’s Afro-Cuban Fusion project and national touring group New West Guitar Trio.

There will be public master classes and panel discussions throughout both days of the festival.

Tickets are $10 general admission, $8 seniors and youth, $5 USU faculty and staff and free for USU students with ID and grades 3-12. A separate ticket must be purchased for each night. For more information and tickets, visit the CCA Box Office located in room L-101 of the Chase Fine Arts Center on USU’s campus, call 435-797-8022 or go online at cca.usu.edu.

January 17, 2019‒May 4, 2019

Logan, Utah…The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (NEHMA) at Utah State University (USU) is presenting Part II of Collecting on the Edge, a ground-breaking exhibition on view January 17,‒May 4, 2019,showcasing its exceptional collection that focuses on the history of art west of the Mississippi River since 1920. Featuring work by 114 artists, Part II of Collecting on the Edge and the publication that accompanies it provide a compelling look at NEHMA’s collection and the curatorial rigor and connoisseurship evident in its development. Part I of the exhibition was on view September 15 – December 15, 2018.

Collecting on the Edge offers a dynamic, multi-media overview of a range of important movements including abstract expressionism, abstract classicism, Beat art, pop, conceptual art, experimental photography, and contemporary studio ceramics. The exhibition also features lesser-known genres such as Funk assemblage, post Surrealism, Dynaton, Santa Fe transcendentalism, and conceptualism in San Francisco and southern California.

NEHMA Executive Director and Chief Curator Katie Lee-Koven said, “We are so pleased to be able to unveil Part II of this exhibition to further demonstrate that the history of art in the American West has been and continues to be a vital part the story of American art. Having recently re-opened after a nearly two-year $5 million-dollar expansion and renovation project lead by Sparano + Mooney Architecture, we are deeply grateful to our community and supporters for helping us to enhance the founder’s vision for the exhibition, study, and enjoyment of art of the West for students and the public alike.”

Guest curator Bolton T. Colburn, who also served as editor of the eponymous publication, said “Modern and contemporary art created in the American West, manifesting an independent spirit and embodying unique ideas, has been largely written out of the mainstream narrative of art history or placed in unhelpful contexts.Collecting on the Edge and it’s accompanying catalogue aims to correct that situation by providing illuminating insights into the works and their creators.”

Exhibition Highlights

Rarely seen installations such as Howard Fried’s seminal The Seven States of Openness (1969-2004), Ann Preston’s Expulsion (1990), Mitchell Syrop’s Mary A (1990), and Trimpin’s Klompen (1987) offer a unique chance to explore these pieces in-depth. A special major installation by Los Angeles artist George Stone titled Double Cross: 1 (picture) > 1,000 (words), 1990, will be installed as part of Part II in April, 2019.

With some exceptions the exhibition is chronological with particular attention paid to grouping artists who work(ed) together or in related styles. For example, vibrant landscape paintings by Maurice Logan (1925) and Birger Sandzen (1930) are positioned near Clayton Price’s progressive painting Plowing, c. 1926. Post-Surrealist studies by Ben Berlin and Helen Lundenberg are shown near work by the Santa Fe Transcendental Painting group members Emil Bisttram, Lawren Harris, and Agnes Pelton, creating an unexpected dialogue. Works by Dynaton Gordon Onslow Ford, Lee Mullican, and Wolfgang Paalen lead to artists such as Bruce Conner’s homage to the artist Marcel Duchamp, an abstractionist mixed-media work by Jay DeFeo, and a sculpture of found objects by George Herms.

Among the other highlights of Collecting on the Edge are Kyo Koike’s Glacier Inferno (1931), bromide print; Lee Mullican’s The Ninnekah (1951), oil on linen; Ruth Asawa’s largest sculptural work, Untitled (1967), naturally oxidized copper and brass wire; David Ireland’s Ego(1992), painted wood and glass; Adeline Kent’s Gambler (1948), magnesite (oxychloride cement); Robert Boardman Howard’s Night Watch (1949-50), fiberglass, resin and polychrome; and Robert Cumming’s Art/Life (1976), painted wood table with paper and wire.

Publication

Collecting on the Edge guest curator Bolton T. Colburn invited 81 art critics, curators, artists, and authors to provide authoritative views of the importance of each work and incorporated this material in the publication and exhibition. The result significantly broadens the narrative of American art history by recognizing the contributions of regional artists and collections west of the Mississippi.

The 288-page catalogue was published by the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art in conjunction with Utah State University Press and features 200 color images. The publication includes an interview with collector/donor George Wanlass by Colburn, foreword by NEHMA Executive Director and Chief Curator Katie Lee-Koven, and introduction by independent curator Michael Duncan. It is available at:https://upcolorado.com/university-press-of-colorado/item/3290-collecting-on-the-edge.

The Collection

NEHMA’s collection started with a gift in 1982 from Nora Eccles Harrison and her husband Richard Harrison of four hundred ceramics, highlighting studio ceramics of the 20th century in the American West. It quickly expanded to all media and has consistently sought out art practices and artists on the fringes of mainstream art history. NEHMA’s unique collecting criteria reflects the viewpoint that the significance of a work of art is not tied to its monetary value but rather to its inherent quality as well as the context in which it was created. George Wanlass, the great-nephew of NEHMA’s founder Nora Eccles Harrison, has helped guide the Museum’s acquisitions program during the last three decades. “Nearly one fifth of the over 5,000 artworks at NEHMA are a result of George’s efforts through the support of his family’s foundations, an extraordinary and rare accomplishment,” said Lee-Koven.

The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art

The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (NEHMA) is dedicated to collecting and exhibiting modern and contemporary visual art to promote dialogue about ideas fundamental to contemporary society. NEHMA provides meaningful engagement with art from the 20th and 21st centuries to support the educational mission of Utah State University, in Logan, Utah. NEHMA offers complementary public programs such as lectures, panels, tours, concerts, and symposia to

serve the University and regional community. Admission is free and open to the public. Hours are Tuesday‒Saturday from 10am to 5pm, Thursdays until 7pm and by appointment. http://artmuseum.usu.edu/

The satire revolves around a group of New York theater-folk opening a new show in Boston. As the opening night mood swings from optimistic camaraderie to terror of failure and angry recriminations, the friends start to turn against each other. It turns out, however, that in spite of the curious reception of the opening night audience, the reviews are favorable and the tables turn once again, but not before the playwright has decided that he is through with theater.

Acquainting the students with dramatic literature and films from the 40s and 50s has been one of the favorite parts of directing for Leslie Brott, head of the actor training program in the Caine College of the Arts (CCA).

“We so rarely get to intersect with that period in all its glamour and the type of comedy particular to that time,” Brott said. “This has been a splendid opportunity for the students to work their comic timing and learn how to present themselves at the height of 1940s fashion.”

Brott says working timing and operative words for jokes took some attention from the students since comedy works so differently now. Michael Shipley, voice and text coach for the show and assistant professor in the CCA, helped the students nail things down.

There is a nobility to the pursuit of theater, Brott says, and she hopes this play shows people that theater folks are as aware of their faults as their genius. The grace they afford others, as well as themselves, is an object lesson in generosity.

Brott says attending the show downtown at the Lyric is special because of the history and beauty of the theater.

“It’s the USU presence in the cultural center of town,” Brott said. “All of us feel a teensy bit of extra responsibility as we represent the university and the department in our offerings to the community.”

When asked why people should come see the show, Brott responded, “They’ll laugh. There’s no better reason than that.”

Tickets for Light up the Sky are $13 adults, $10 seniors/youth, $8 USU faculty/staff and free for USU students with ID. For more information or tickets, contact the CCA Box Office in room L101 of the Chase Fine Arts Center on USU’s campus, call 435-797-8022, or go online to cca.usu.edu.