Second Annual Summer Drama/Theatre Workshop – June 26-29, 2003 – Birmingham Southern College

Ad lib, the ACS drama/theatre program, held its second annual workshop June 26-29 at Birmingham Southern College. Eleven participants representing eight ACS institutions attended. Among the goals of the original group that met in June, 2002 were building an ACS drama website, looking for ways to promote faculty exchanges, and exploring other possibilities for collaboration. During the 2002-2003 academic year the website was launched (www.colleges.org/~drama). The faculty guest appearance exchange began in April when theatre chair Doug Cummins of Furman came to Rhodes College to give a one man show Shakespeare Lives and to visit theatre classes. Rhodes chair Cookie Ewing is scheduled to be a guest artist at Furman in the fall of 2003.
This year’s workshop focused on the third goal, that of sharing resources and furthering collaboration. Each of the presenters showed projects that had been successfully completed on their home campuses and now have the potential of growing and being shared with others. These included:

• Matthew Hallock, Centre College: “Online History of Theatre Production”
• Tony Haigh, Centre College: “Planning Students Tours to English Regional Theatres”
• Tim Francis, Trinity University, “Online Resources on Tools, Set Building, and Safety.”
• John Ore, Southwestern University, “A Comparison of Stage Lighting Software Programs.”
• Alan Litsey, Birmingham Southern, “Potential Collaboration for Playwriting Classes.”
• Rhett Bryson, Furman University, with recent graduate Will Lowry, “Furman Drama Department Image Database: Building a Wizard.”

The group decided on several projects that can be started immediately. Matthew Hallock’s multimedia product will be online at the theatre website in the fall and will be the core of a Learning Object that can be used by any interested theatre history classes. He will serve as editor for supervising the addition of new materials contributed by faculty from other institutions. Tony Haigh’s English Regional Theatre site is already available at: http://www.colleges.org/~drama/engreg.html. He will be adding more specific information about venues, hotels, and travel arrangements during the fall. Tim Francis (Trinity) and John Orr (Southwestern) will be sharing the materials they and their students have created in the areas of set construction and lighting. Alan Litsey (BSC), Ann Muse (Hendrix), and Tony Haigh (Centre) have begun looking at ways that their playwriting classes can participate in some joint assignments. The group discussed the possibility of more organized group projects in the summer that might bring in active student participation.

The workshop ended with the group attending a Birmingham Festival Theatre performance of Shirley Valentine directed by Michael Flowers, chair of the BSC drama department.

Further information about the group’s activities is available at the drama website mentioned above.