Page 6
University Daily Kansan, August 25, 1981
Spare time
Hopeful actors will audition this week for KU Theatre's six fall productions
By BRENDA DURR
Staff Writer
The Broadway stars of tomorrow could get their big breaks auditioning for a part in this fall's University Theatre and Inge Theatre productions.
Students wanting to audition should sign up between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. today in the lobby of the Murphy Hall, Jack Wright, professor of speech and drama and theatre director, said.
For the three-minute auditions, Wright said,
the students can bring prepared dramatic materials.
In addition to the dramatic reading, students auditioning for the musical "Brigadoon,""sould
Stephina Haplen, Derby junior, said that the auditions often caused stage fright for many students.
"It's just so scary," Walz said. "It's like being front of a firing squad, but you just have to look beyond that."
Even though most of the students auditioning are Fine Arts majors, Wright said, the auditions are open to all students.
He said about 200 students would audition for approximately 60 parts in six productions.
After the open auditions, the plays' directors decide separately which students to call back for additional auditions beginning tomorrow and ending Friday.
"Each individual director makes a decision on who they're interested in seeing again." Wright said. "Once they're called back, each director goes to a separate room. His scripts are there to read from or they'll do improvisations from the play."
"They have a personality or energy quality that's perfect for a role," Wright said. "Aquality that's striking. The directors call back to see if that quality is really there."
Wright said for students to be called back, they must exhibit something special in their performances.
Even though call-back auditions became increasingly difficult, Walz said, a call back allows the student more acting freedom.
"Once you make callback, you work harder. Then you can start acting and grabbing a hold of a little bit of the character."
"You have to show your best self to the directors in your piece." Walz said about the open auditions. "You do your piece but you can't do your acting. You just have to be yourself."
After callbacks, a cast list will be posted Saturday afternoon for this semester's six productions: "Tales from Hans Christian Andersen," "Dracula," "Brigadon," "Holiday," "Evening Light" and "The Madman and the Nun."
Shipman breathes life into neon sculptures
By KAREN SCHLUETER Entertainment Editor
The twisted shapes perch on lawn chairs, tables and wheelhairs. From beneath fiberglass shells, neon tubes hiss and crackle, flashing red, blue and green.
To Kansas City, Mo., artist, William Shippman, these figures are neon men, with light tubing for bones, polyester resin cloth for skin and electric souls.
The sculptures are on display in the Kansas Union Gallery through Sept. 7 in an exhibit call by the artist.
People entering the Union are drawn to the display by the bright neon and arg lights.
"You can't get those pure colors out of pain-
ship. Shipman said Saturday. That's why I
started."
Shipman, who studied at the Kansas City Art institute, said he was trained as a painter, but he also light sculptures when he was disappointed with the way color and light were reflected in paint.
"I chose to deal with pure light, neon," he said. The Union exhibit contains more than 400 feet
of light tubing and nearly 1,000 feet of fiberglass cloth coated with polyester resin.
Shipman said that he spent anywhere from one week to one year assembling a piece, depending on his financial condition and the availability of materials.
'It's not uncommon for me to use over $100 worth of materials in an hour,' he said.
The sculptures reflect a dualistic nature that Shipman said stemmed from the method of making statues.
He first creates a mobile out of the glass
cells and then coates it with the fabricat
the fiberglass resin rejoin cell.
As the cloth dries, the fiberglass replaces the tung as the supporting structure for the scaffolding.
"These pieces are not planar-oriented like traditional neon pieces have been done in the past," he said. "They are not easily hung on the wall like neon signs."
Although all of the sculptures in the exhibit are titled, Shipman chose not to display the tiles with the works.
"I've seen too many fine museum displays run by titles to the point where I be reading
the titles instead of looking at the works," he said.
Shipman made one of the pieces in the collection, a work he called Vanties, after watching women enter a beauty salon near his home.
"I saw old women coming out of the shop with their beehive hairdos all sprayed with aerosol, thinking they look beautiful, when they looked the same as they did before they went in," he said.
The pedestal for the piece is an old wheelchair. Shipman said he asked a man in a wheelchair at the show's opening what he thought of the piece and the man told him it made him happy.
One of the other sculptures, titled Leukemia, is tribute to the hazards of working with neon and stem cells.
"He said that's the way he would look if he were on Mars and that he liked it very much," she said.
The neon men, like all men, must eventually die.
"Laws of physics dictate that light induced via electron flow must ultimately burn out," he said. "Like men of flesh and blood, neon men must die a slow but certain death."
Mark Rector, Lawrence junior, makes his bid for stardom during tryouts at the University Theatre in Murphy Hall. Rector performed a selection from "Hadian the Seventh."
On Campus
TODAY
OPEN CALL AUDITIONS for fall semester University Theatre productions will start at 7 p.m. in the University Theatre, Murphy Hall. Sign up for an audition from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Murphy Hall lobby. Auditions are open to all enrolled students.
WEDNESDAY UNIVERSITY DANCE COMPANY OPEN AUDITIONS will be at 6 p.m. in Room 242, Robinson Center.
SUNRISE FITNESS PROGRAM ORIENTATION will be at 4 p.m. in Room 202, Robinson Center.
MEETING for Recreation Services A League touch football will be at 6:45 p.m. in Gymnasium1, Robinson Center.
ENTRY DEADLINE AND MANAGERS MEETING for Recreation Services Trophy League touch football will be at 6 p.m. in Gymnasium 1, Robinson Center.
THE KU SAILING CLUB will meet at 7 p.m. in the Big Eight Room of the Kansas Union.
ENTRY DEADLINE AND MANAGERS MEETING for Recreation Services B League touch football will be at 7:30 p.m. in Gymnasium 1, Robinson Center.
TUESDAY
ENTRY DEADLINE AND MANAGERS
MEETING for Recreation Services soccer will be at 7 p.m. in Room 208, Robinson Center.
THURSDAY
ENTRY DEADLINE AND MANAGERS
ON CAMPUS welcomes announcements of events that are free and open to the public and are sponsored by campus organizations or held on campus. Submit all announcements to the Kansan newsroom, 112 Flint Hall.
Sunrise Fitness Program orientation meeting will be at 4 today in 202 Robinson.
Use Kansan Classified
Security Sale
15% Discount on all security hardware through the month of September.
All types of vehicle lock and ignition service Lock and Hardware Installations
Lock Re-keying and Repair (free estimates)
Phone 749-2499
24 hour Emergency Service
Need a solution to the career mystery?
it's elementary, my
dear Watson.
Find out about the
Administration of
Justice Program
offered by Wichita
State University.
It offers the perfect solution to your dilemma:
- Major areas include general administration of justice, agency assistance, corrections services, investigation, programs, programs, development and security
services
• Associate
bachelor's and
master's degree
programs offered
—and nondegree
bound students
For more information, contact the administration of justice coordinator in room 4C of Lippincott Hall (old Green Hall).
webcome
All courses offered
on the University
of Kansas campus.
There will be a meeting held for men and women (excluding freshmen) who are interested in being
Hosts or Hostesses for the Kansas University Athletic Department
on Tuesday Evening, Aug.25 at 7:00 PM in Room 135 of Parrott Athletic Center
You must be a K.U. student in good standing during the 1981-1982 academic year.
GO BACK TO SCHOOL
with
STORE HOURS: Mon.-Sat. 9-5:30 except Thurs. 9-8:30