Transy Theater opens 2018-19 season under new direction
Transylvania’s theater season kicks off Nov. 1 with an irreverent, contemporary, and very funny remix of Chekhov’s The Seagull by playwright Aaron Posner.
Academics
Transylvania launches new study abroad summer course in Ireland open to all college students
Transylvania in Ireland includes courses taught by the university’s faculty along with local and regional experts in folklore, writing, music and dance.
New program director leads Transylvania Theater’s 2018-19 season
LEXINGTON, Ky.– Transylvania University’s 2018-19 theater season will feature four productions—from the contemporary to Shakespeare—under the leadership of Tosha Fowler, the new Lucille C. Little Chair of Theater and program director. All productions will be in Little Theater and are free to the public thanks to the generous support of the Dixon-White Fund. Transylvania Theater will benefit from Fowler’s extensive professional career in theater as an actor, director, producer, teacher and playwright in both Chicago and Atlanta. Hailed as the “fearless leader” of her founding company, Cor Theatre, she was named “One of the Top People Who Really Perform” by Newcity Chicago. Additionally, Fowler has taught at The Theatre School at DePaul University, Kent State University, Green Shirt Studios and Georgia Southern University. “I could not be more excited to join the Transy faculty and to work with the Lexington theater community,” Fowler said. “It is an exciting time to create theater in this thriving city, and I am ready to get to work. I plan on collaborating with local talent and bring in colleagues from across the country to enrich the Transylvania Theater experience.” From Nov. 1-10, Fowler will direct a production of “Stupid F—ing Bird,” a heartfelt, irreverent remix of Chekhov’s “The Seagull” by Aaron Posner. Featuring an ensemble of writers, actors and those who choose to watch, it will tickle, tantalize and incite the audience to consider how art, love and revolution fuel the pursuit of happiness. On
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Learning by Design
Self-designed Majors Expand Opportunities It’s a familiar refrain for students coming into college: What major do I want to declare? But increasingly, as the world becomes more diverse and the job market becomes less specialized, Transylvania students are asking themselves a different question: What problem do I want to solve? Transy has 47 majors that, paired with a broad liberal arts curriculum, are designed to give students a breadth of knowledge and depth of preparation that empower them to take on a wide variety of careers and graduate schools. In a community like Transy’s, which is full of young explorers, there will always be those students whose education goals don’t fit neatly into one of those established major patterns. That’s why Transylvania has devoted itself to offering self-designed majors where students can tailor their individual paths to the world’s challenges they feel drawn to tackle. In close collaboration with faculty advisors and the Office of the Registrar, students can craft a curriculum built around their interests, knowing that the training they get here will uniquely prepare them for what lies ahead. “When I got to Transy, I was highly interested in biology and highly interested in computer science,” said Jerry Ramey ’11, “but the course loads of those majors didn’t work so well together for me.” Ramey met with biology professor Belinda Sly and then-computer science professor Tylene Garrett, who began working with him to craft a program that would
The Art of Problem Solving
Zoé Strecker Brings Pine Mountain to Transylvania While admiring the view atop Pine Mountain in southeastern Kentucky, you might not notice the reindeer lichen growing at your feet. Even if you happen to glance down at this pillowy plant, odds are you’ll overlook how it curls at the edges, or how it has four shades of green but appears almost silver. You’d get to know the lichen’s subtleties, though, if you were to sit down for hours at a time to embroider on a photograph of it printed onto silk. This kind of focus fosters a sense of connection—one that shows us how stitching a humble lichen can help us address big problems. In this case the problem is: How can we protect and heighten interest in wild places? Other approaches might have you sit through an eye-glazing lecture about the importance of biodiversity, or learn a fact about the amount of carbon absorbed by a certain acreage of forest. While both are well and good, Transylvania art professor Zoé Strecker takes a different approach; she and her collaborators make art that benefits both natural and human communities—from the coal fields of Kentucky to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. A project of hers called “Lavish!” takes on abstract, challenging economic and social issues through creative work. Transylvania’s Morlan Gallery this past spring featured the embroidery exhibit, which is based on organisms living on Pine Mountain, actually a 125-mile ridge running through the heart of Appalachia. Volunteer embroiderers from across the country stitched vignettes from Strecker’s photos, and she hung them within a circular, wooden structure that measured 22 feet across and 10 feet high. To