Stephani Etheridge Woodson, associate professor in the School of Film, Dance and Theatre, has been named the director of the Design and Arts Corps (DAC) at Arizona State University's Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. The corps is one of the Herberger Institute signature initiatives that aims to become a national model for arts- and design-led community change.

Herberger Institute Dean Steven J. Tepper says Etheridge Woodson is the right person to lead the initiative, which will place designers, artists, scholars and educators at the center of public life and encourage them to use their creative capacities to advance culture and address challenges. Stephani Etheridge Woodson Download Full Image

“Professor Etheridge Woodson has built an international reputation as one of the most thoughtful scholars and practitioners of arts- and design-driven community development,” Tepper said. “As director of the Design and Arts Corps, she will build upon existing deep relationships in the community to create the largest, most ambitious university-community partnership in the nation that deploys arts and design to transform neighborhoods and cities.”

Etheridge Woodson is excited to take the reins and says a pilot project for this semester is already in the works.

“The Design and Arts Corps bridges my creative and development passions, together offering the opportunity to ‘be the change I want to see,’” she said.

Etheridge Woodson emphasizes that the Design and the Arts Corps, which is inspired by the Works Progress Administration created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to provide relief during the Great Depression, is about more than just educating students.

“This is about a collaboration between the university that serves students’ learning but also leverages the human and creative capital of the university in order to build these assets for the community,” she said. 

The corps will deploy creative talent to the greater Phoenix area for a variety of programs, from embedding composers in a lab with researchers studying Alzheimer’s disease to public service projects, such as when Etheridge Woodson’s community-based theater class partnered with the Congressman Ed Pastor Center for Politics and Public Service last semester to produce videos highlighting the election and educating voters.

Etheridge Woodson says that the corps has the potential to change the perception of arts and design schools, and that she wants to work “to build stronger communities in which the arts and humanities are understood as a fundamental component of a healthy and democratic society.”

“The vision of the Design and Arts Corps is a transformed relationship between artists, designers and society,” she said. “That’s what we’re building — we’re innovating on the ground.”

When 49 people were killed this past summer at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, the theater world took action. OBIE (or Off-Broadway Theater Awards) award winner Caridad Svich created “After Orlando: An International Theatre Action” to explore the tragedy and issues surrounding it through art.

“After Orlando” is a collaboration featuring the work of more than 70 playwrights from around the world, and it has been produced and performed in more than 50 theaters and universities around the country. Now, this moving theater experience is set for Phoenix stages in January. Download Full Image

The Phoenix edition of this international project will be under the direction and artistic guidance of Robert Harper, associate artistic director for Phoenix Theatre, and Micha Espinosa, associate professor of voice and acting in the School of Film, Dance and Theatre at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.

“As an institute of higher education, ASU is committed to forging strong community ties that enhance our ability to understand, question or investigate a person’s sorrow, anger or hopes in response to current events, in this case the Orlando tragedy,” Espinosa said.

The one-day theater event intends to provide a space where controversial topics, like gun control, can be facilitated through theater.

“‘After Orlando’ directly aligns with our mission, which aims to create an exceptional theatrical experience by using the arts to articulate messages that inspire hope and understanding,” Harper said.

The project will include the participation of more than 30 local artists and a keynote speech from State Rep.-Elect Daniel Hernandez, who gained national recognition for helping save the life of U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords in 2011.

“It is especially exciting to work with a professional theater company like Phoenix Theatre and many local artists I have come to respect over the years,” Espinosa said.

"After Orlando" is scheduled for 6 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 29, in the Hormel Theatre at Phoenix Theatre.

Marvin Gonzalez and Yi-Hsuan Tseng, both MFA students in dramatic writing, have been chosen to participate in the national competition for ten-minute plays sponsored by Theater Masters. They are first invited to Aspen, Colorado, for an initial workshop with actors and directors. They will then travel to New York City in April to have their plays actually produced.

The pair are among eight students chosen from MFA playwriting or dramatic writing programs across the country. Gonzalez was also chosen to participate last year, and the play he developed at Theater Masters last spring was subsequently published in "Theater Masters' Take Ten Volume 2" with Samuel French. Download Full Image

"Hit Music," a play written and directed by School of Film, Dance and Theatre professor Guillermo Reyes, will be presented at the Nelson Fine Arts Center 131 as a free workshop Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. and Jan. 22 at 2 p.m. The play, which was sponsored by a seed grant from the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, was first featured at Theater Works in Peoria in May 2016 under the invitation of the late Dan Schay, as part of the theater's new play development process.

The second presentation, at ASU, continues the development of the new play with a rewritten script and new songs and music. "Hit Music" narrates the story of a blended Italian-Latino family of singers in 1990s L.A. The "battle of wills" between Rudy Benedetti, the stubborn Italian-born father, and his two L.A.-bred sons culminates in a battle of musical styles. The play is both a comedic and poignant story about the passing of a generation and the coming into being of a new one. Download Full Image

"That's really the story of my life," Reyes says, "Though I certainly don't sing and my father was never Italian, but that's where the element of fable and invention comes in. Nonetheless, it mirrors certain aspects of my Chilean-American immigrant background."

The play includes the performances of ASU music and theatre alumni, ASU faculty and local actors.

Theatre for youth doctoral candidates Michelle Hill and Elizabeth Schildkret were chosen from a nationally competitive pool to serve as Graduate Student Apprentices at the 25th anniversary of the New Visions/New Voices festival at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. earlier this year.

The biennial workshop and festival brings together playwrights, directors, dramaturgs and actors to create new plays and musicals specifically for young audiences. Hill and Schildkret joined a team of four graduate students working alongside Kennedy Center production staff to produce the festival. The graduate students helped produce six staged readings of new plays for young audiences with artists and theatre companies from the United States, as well as nine readings of plays by playwrights from Korea, India and South Africa. Download Full Image

Master of Fine Arts in performance students Daniel Bird Tobin and Michael Alexander each received a $1,250 scholarship from the AriZoni Theatre Awards of Excellence for their final semester. The AriZoni board of directors offers scholarships to selected candidates enrolled, or intending to enroll, full-time in a two-year junior college, four-year undergraduate college or university, graduate program or professional theatre training program.

"“It was a tremendous honor to be recognized by the AriZoni board of directors with this scholarship,”" Tobin said. “"My time in the MFA in performance program at Arizona State University has been invaluable to my continued growth as an artist and collaborator, and it is wonderful to have the chance to celebrate that work.”" Download Full Image

Alexander also expressed thanks to the board, “"I am honored to have been recognized by my colleagues and professors as someone who is deserving of this award, and I would like to thank the AriZoni board for providing opportunities for student artist to grow in their craft." The number and the amount of scholarships awarded are determined based on the number of qualified applicants received by the board.

Twenty ASU film majors attended the first official film degree course a decade ago in a small teaching studio.

Clinical assistant professor Janaki Cedanna has been there since the beginning and runs the production end of the film program from that same teaching studio, a 1,504 square-foot black box space located in the ASU Performing and Media Arts Building. He’s looking forward to moving on to bigger and better studios with a three and half year lease at Sun Studios of Arizona. One of the sound stages at Sun Studios of Arizona features a green screen. (Photo courtesy of Sun Studios of Arizona). Download Full Image

“We’re totally excited about this new space,” Professor Cedanna says. “We’re excited that the Herberger Institute (for Design and the Arts) and the ASU School of Film, Dance and Theatre, and specifically the film area, now have facilities to expand the education we give our students.”

Sun Studios on West 14th Street, less than two miles from the Tempe Main campus, boasts two sound stages, one 2,500-square-foot stage and another 2,200-square-foot sound stage with a two-wall infinity cyclorama and green screen; a sound-proof audio recording suite; a large selection of props, gear and professional-grade production and recording equipment; and a 150-seat theatre with professional digital projection and surround sound.

“It’s an amazing thing for us because it broadens everything that we do,” Cedanna says. “It takes us to the next level.”

Beginning next semester, students will have the opportunity to work in studios and with professional equipment similar to what you would find in Los Angeles, and the film program will be able to expand what it offers. For instance, Cedanna, who teaches the editing and post-production classes to film majors, says he’s always wanted to do more with sound, and now he has the proper facilities and equipment for that.

“Having the opportunity to work with such a vast amount of industry standard equipment, and to be able to get the necessary hands-on experience within the field, is nothing less than vital to set up students to enter the Industry once they leave ASU,” says junior film student Macy Kimpland. “I truly believe this will change the film program at ASU, by taking an already great program run by great professors and mentors, and propelling them all forward by giving them the tools that can make them succeed.”

In addition to classes, film students will also have access to the space and equipment for their own projects completed as part of their education.

"Sun Studios is such a weight off of all our shoulders,” says junior film student Taylor Blackmore. “The pressure of finding, reserving and paying for materials and equipment for our projects has been lifted. Now we can worry about what we're making, not how we're going to make it."

Cedanna says while Sun Studios is impressive and a benefit, the film program has always been successful and will continue to be.

“We have a ton of students who are doing amazing work in Los Angeles, New York and throughout the United States, and who learned in this space,” he says of the original studio space in the APMA building.

Since that original class of 20 film students, the film program has grown a lot, which is one reason faculty are excited to teach in the new space. For the last two years it has seen its largest incoming freshman classes, both around 140 students. Now, more than 450 students are studying film at ASU, and it’s one of the most popular programs in the Herberger Institute. Cedanna says this is a testament to the film education the students receive at ASU, and Sun Studios simply enhances the program. 

“It’s not necessarily the space or even the tools that we pride ourselves on — it’s the education,” he says. “This is just added value to that education.”