Arts/Entertainment
University Daily Kansan / Thursday, November 19, 1987
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From left: Malcolm Lodwick, Lawrence senior; Kristy Keefe, Pittsburg senior; KU Free Theatre's production of the play "Picnic on the Battlefield." Loc. and Dan McLennan, Wilmette, ill., senior; have a picnic in the war zone during wick and Keefe play the soldier's father and mother.
Free theater finds the world a stage
By KIRK ADAMS Staff writer
S starving actors, be they theater students or not, are taking center stage with an alternative acting troupe, the KU Free Theater.
The company has performed "Picnic on the Battlefield," by Spanish playwright Fernando Arrabal, this week, with the last performance at 5:30 p.m. today in the wooded area east of the Military Science Building.
Because University Theatre's productions are, limited, many acting roles.
The company is financed through Student Senate, and each purchase must be approved in advance. It can afford to spend about $200 per show to cover sets, costumes, props and royalties for rights to use scripts.
Carolyn Kirkland, Wichita senior has worked on several free theater plays.
So, she said, for students who want to be more active than University Theatre allows, free theater is an option.
"It's like eating out when your mom fixed liver," she said. "It's not so much that you hate liver. Maybe you like fried chicken for a change."
Anthony Richards, Exeter, England, graduate student and director of "Picnic on the Battlefield," said he thought the company was probably the only way people who were not in the theater department could be in a KU play. Also, he said, people who do
free theater do not have to be KU students.
"I think this is probably the first time so many people outside of the theater department have been a part of a production," he said.
The aim, he said, has been to put on smaller, shorter productions.
"Free theater then becomes a forum for people of a like mind to meet and do their ideas and realize their ideas.
"I'm glad to see that something's happening, that there's some life, and that I've had something to do with it." he said.
"University Theatre wouldn't do this play," Richards said, "I only see it happening as part of a class."
But, he said, "I don't see it as being in competition with University the
Ron Willems, chairman of the theater and media arts department, said, "I certainly think it's a healthy endeavor to see it in any way that we are rivals."
The play, "Picnic on the Battlefield," is about a soldier whose parents visit him for a picnic on the battleground. An enemy soldier runs into the group and is captured.
Richards said, "It's an absurd comedy. They're two guys, more or less the same people, except they're fighting on different sides."
It doesn't really matter what countries the soldiers fight for, Richards said. And he is not concerned with the play when the play is supposed to take place.
"I'm more interested in the characters and the relationships." he
Richards should he thought the audience would be able to identify with the new program.
said.
"They can recognize things in the mother and father that they might recognize in their own mother and father," he said.
"The cause of the war is never discussed — it just is," he said. "The war is this green machine, and they want to destroy a part of it and they don't know why."
Richards said he hoped that by the end of the play, people would ask themselves why people have wars and why they have enemies.
The play has a surprise ending.
"It's funny and shocking at the same time," Richards said. "It shows you what's going on — the utility and the misunderstanding."
Kirkland, the set designer, said that she and Richards wanted to use natural surroundings for the play's set. The play is staged in a woody area with lots of leaves on the ground, a place where someone might have a picnic. Richards said
Malcolm Lodwick, Lawrence senior, said acting in the play was a lot like his work in the School of Architecture.
Kirkland said, "We found that there are a lot of places where you don't have to rent a set; they already exist."
Lodwick also said acting was a challenge.
, s like getting up and giving presentations, " he said  "I enjoy it.
"It's not so much speaking lines.
Knowing where you're supposed to stand and knowing where you are supposed to move — if you do all that they tell you, mechanical, contrived," he said.
Joseph Seuferling, Lawrence resident, said one of the reasons he wanted to act in the play was that he thought the free theater play was less commercialized than other plays he had seen.
Seuferling said he would not be interested in acting in a University Theatre play.
"It seemed like they were trying to do something that wasn't 'catering' to the other party."
"They're very creative in how they do those things, but the subject matter is old hat. I'd like to see them take more chances." he said.
Richards said that cost could be a problem in free theater, though. All of the company's productions are free.
"If you pay out of your pocket, you can't get it back." he said.
That was a problem, he said, because he could not plan everything that they would need.
Kirkland said the company would be accepting suggestions until Dec. 17 for one-act plays to perform next semester.
Richards said that the more people that were involved with free theater, the more free theater could do.
"The potential is here in free theater for anything to happen...as long as the money is there," he said.
"If you believe in something, then people's imaginations can make anything happen."
Dan McLellan, Wilmette, Ill., senior, captures an enemy soldier, Joseph Seuferling, Lawrence, during the play "Picnic on the Battlefield," performed by KU Free Theatre.
Getting the big break
KU dancers impress New York teachers, receive invitations for more performances
Staff writer
By BRIAN BARESCH
Two KU dancers who performed in New York City last month impressed dance teachers and promoters there so much that their company has been invited back for more performances.
The company, Scott Morrow Dance Theatre, is a professional company in residence at the University of Kansas composed entirely of KU dance students
and directed by Scott Douglas Morrow, assistant professor of dance.
Dancers Laura Krodinger, D esoMo, Mo. senior, and Willie Lenoir, Kansas City, Kan., graduate student, performed Morrow's dance "Muscain/Feminine" on Oct. 23 at the 92nd Street Y Dance Center in New York. Their performance earned the company an invitation to return for several more dance performances, and Morrow said the company had drawn the attention of foundations and arts administrators to KU's dance program.
"We were the only non-New York people there," Morrow said. "Laura and Willie's performance was highly competitive on
Lenoir both were able to attend classes at prestigious dance studios. Krodinger took a class from May O'Donnell, whose former students include Robert Joffrey and Eliot Feld, choreographers with dance companies named after them, and Arthur Mitchell, director of the Dance Theater of Harlem.
Courtesy of Scott Morrow Dance The
Laura Krodering, Desoto, Mo., senior and
Wille Lenoir, Kansas City, Kan.,
graduate student.
Krodinger, who has seriously studied dance for only $2\frac{1}{2}$ years, had no trouble keeping up with the more experienced
dancers, New York-trained dancers, of 15 years' experience."
Courtesy of Scott Morrow Dance Theatre
The 92nd Street Y Dance Center has been providing exposure for innovative dance companies, by invitation only, since 1936. Famous artists such as Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman and Jose Limon danced there early in their careers.
While in New York, Krodinger and
Morrow said that this offer was unusual, and that it almost guaranteed Krodinger a job upon graduation or graduation experience. New York dancers were unemployed.
O'Donnell offered Krodinger a chance to join her dance school n e x t s u m m er. Krodinger said, "She said after graduation she'd be more than happy to have me back to study with her," she said.
"I was really scared, because she's one of the great teachers living in dance," Krodinger said. "Of course it goes back to my training with Scott."
the Performing Arts, home base for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. Morrow said he recommended that Lenoir and his group minimize artist hats and minority artists had go their start there.
dancers in the class no mean feat, she said.
Dancing in a class with professionals, Lenoir performed well enough to be called upon to demonstrate a difficult step to the rest of the students. Morrow said.
Lenoir, meanwhile, danced in a class at the Clark Center for
From left: Cathy Spencer, Topeka junior; Laura Krodinger; Desoto, Mo. senior; Maribel Juillier, Overland park freshman
and Rhonda Myrick, Chicago sophomore, strike a jazz position while moving across the floor.
Jazz class attracts diverse students
BY JENNIFER ROWLAND
usan Wooding doesn't mind taking time from her studies in aerospace engineering to enroll in an intermediate jazz class for the third time this fall.
"This is two hours that my mind just goes someplace else. You can't think of anything and keep up," said Woodring, St. Louis senior.
Wooding has taken Dance 205 since fall 1986 from Scott Douglas Morrow, assistant professor of dance. Wooding also is in the faculty hall and advanced modern dance classes.
A lot of dance is real competitive," she said. "I was kind of worried about coming into a class like this and not being a dance major. This class can really build your confidence."
Morrow, also the director of the Scott Morrow Dance Theatre, in residence at KU, said each student's personal dance style was important. He said he tried to get students to help each other learn in his class.
"I make each student take responsibility for another student's learning," he said.
Morrow said his class taught appreciation of different cultures. He teaches the roots of jazz dance, which are African, Latin and European dance traditions fused together in the United States.
Sweat glistened on the bodies of the 40 students in Morrow's jazz class Monday as they formed lines and glided across the wooden floor of the Elizabeth Sherbon studio in Robinson Gymnasium.
Morrow's voice boomed the beats as he guided the students through two hours of work.
"OK, let's check this." Morrow said. "Point your toe, raise your head."
"Work those wrists now. Let's check it with the music."
Morrow said that he thought most students heard about his class through word of mouth and that about 50 percent of them returned to take the class each semester.
Laura Krodinger, Desoto, Mo., senior, is a dance major who has taken the class for four years.
"It itars meaning so much more to
than just an exercise class." Krodin-
tier the late.
"It's like a term paper. It integrates the experiences of the whole class," he said.
Krodinger said that as the semester progressed, students begin to improve their reading skills.
Morrow said that at the end of each semester, he prepared the class for a miniature version of a concert-stage-level performance.
"I treat these kids as if we were on Broadway," he said. "So far I have not had to lessen my standards at all."
Morrow said his class attracted a diverse group of students, academically,
culturally and in levels of dance experience.
He said that probably 90 percent of the students were not dance majors.
Don Wahl, Concordia, Kan., senior, is majoring in business and Spanish and has taken the class for two semesters. He is one of four men in the class.
"I think a lot of us take it because it is a challenging class, no matter how many classes we have."
"There are so many stereotypes about
what dancers are in general and especially
about male dancers. As a race, men like to
be tall, but a lot of their beauty is precisely that.
It is a big, big challenge.
"As good as you come out of this class, but know you deserve it because you bust up."
Kimberly Fears, Kansas City, Kan., freshman, said, "Everybody's working toward the same thing. We all want the same result."
Krodinger said, "No one's treated as a dance major, and no one's treated as an aerospace engineer student. Every person has a game level, everyone takes an 'qual part.'"
Students said they looked forward to the two hours of class twice a week
Almost in chorus, they said, "It is the best class at KU."
And most said they would take the class again.