A Visual and Dramatic Difference

Beginning this fall, the Rice Theatre Program takes a dramatic turn with its merger with visual arts in the newly named Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts.

The move is an obvious one, according to Karin Broker, professor of visual arts and chair of the department. “Artists typically embrace fellow artists who explore, who create, and who, at their core, are basically fearless,” Broker says. “The Department of Visual Arts was quick to realize that the Theatre Program would benefit our visual art students. If a program could better educate our young artists to be more creative and ‘see’ better or ‘see’ differently, then we have a responsibility to make it happen.”

For the time being, the merged department will no longer offer a five-year bachelor of fine arts degree but instead a four-year bachelor’s, with plans to augment that at some time in the future by a master of fine arts degree. Under the bachelor’s program, students can choose a track in studio arts—painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, photography, or digital video and film production—or a track in theatre. The theatre track offers a solid foundation in all aspects of theatrical production—from acting and directing to technology and design—for students who wish to pursue a professional career in theatre or continue on to a graduate program. The theatre courses also are open to nonmajors who want to gain a greater appreciation for the art of theatre.

The former Department of Visual Arts already mounted several art and photography exhibitions annually in addition to a graduating senior art exhibit at the Rice Gallery, and these will continue. Also ongoing will be the department’s partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Glassell School of Art in which up to six postgraduate artists and art educators from the Glassell Core Fellowship Residency Program teach studio practice and critical theory to Rice students.

The Theatre Program will significantly augment the new department’s offerings, says program director Trish Rigdon. “This merger is a significant step toward meeting the university’s mission statement to provide unsurpassed undergraduate education in the arts,” Rigdon says. “The desire to express stories and to understand what it means to be human through theatrical performance is an ancient inheritance, and theatre is one of the foundations of culture. The merger recognizes the important place that theatre holds in the arts and in everyone’s life.”

Rice theatre faculty are involved in professional theatre and film locally, nationally, and internationally and actively pursue opportunities to involve advanced students in that work. Rice students have been accepted into competitive internships at the Alley Theatre, the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and the Peter Hall Company, and students are encouraged to study theatre abroad.

Each year, the department will produce two main-stage productions and two end-of-semester student showcases in Hamman Hall’s 500-seat proscenium theatre. In even-number years, the Theatre Program will continue to host the Actors from the London Stage, one of the oldest established touring Shakespeare theatre companies in the world, for a weeklong residency of workshops, performances, and lectures. Each tour, sponsored by the Alan and Shirley Grob Endowment for Shakespeare in Performance, presents a full-length play by Shakespeare performed by five classically trained actors from such prestigious companies as the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain, and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

The Rice Media Center and the 35-year-old Rice Cinema also are parts of the merged department. A public alternative film program, Rice Cinema offers an alternative to the monolithic commercial cinema of Hollywood by exhibiting alternative cinema and media as well as films from around the world and by presenting guest lecturers and panel discussions on film and media.

“Members of Houston’s hip elite often have told me about the exciting early days of Rice theater and cinema,” says Brian Huberman, associate professor of visual arts and assistant to the department chair. “Great days when Sandy Havens’s Rice Players performed Marat Sade to sold-out audiences and when the late Academy Award-nominated filmmaker James Blue electrified cinemagoers and students with programs of regional film at the Rice Media Center. Healthy theater and cinema programs speak to the general health and well-being of the community they represent.”

Through the Rice Media Center facilities, students have access to state-of-the-art screening facilities to examine and study the historical and methodological aspects of movies in 16, 35, and 70 millimeter with Dolby Digital Sound. Film production students showcase their work during the year in the Rice Cinema theater.

—Christopher Dow