How to make a star: ASU's Herberger Institute launches new performance season

Watching Alexandra Ncube onstage today, starring in the smash hit “The Book of Mormon,” you would never know she suffered from stage fright.

But the Tempe native, who will be part of the touring performance of "Mormon" coming to ASU Gammage on Oct. 20,  says her fear was so severe in her early years of performance that she would try to “just get through” by pretending the audience wasn’t there.  

Ncube credits ASU's Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, from which she received a bachelor’s in theater in 2012, with helping her learn to think of the audience as “another character in the scene, that needs to be noticed.”

She says it was “Big Love,” a show presented in the School of Film, Dance and Theatre her junior year at ASU, that “solidified” her love of the program.

“The program was far beyond the curriculum for me,” Ncube says. “It was the relationships with my colleagues and professors, the frustration, the breakthroughs.”

One of the most important things she learned, Ncube says, is that failure is “a gift.”

“I highly respect my professors for creating an environment for me to fail safely and encourage growth in my performance with their direction,” Ncube says. “Failure is the birthplace of new ideas, creation, success.”

This fall sees the launch of another season at Herberger Institute, with more opportunities for rising stars — the future Alexandra Ncubes of the world — to both hone their craft in front of an audience and learn from established stars of the performing arts. 

“The Herberger Institute season creates the space for a profound and enriching exchange among students, faculty and the wider community,” says Steven J. Tepper, dean of the institute. “The season is the culmination of our unique laboratory environment and represents hours and hours of experimentation, revision and creativity. The audience gets to experience the final product and feel the immediacy, passion and excellence that have been forged by the collaboration of brilliant students, renowned faculty and visiting artists."

The season showcases students’ talents in vehicles that run the gamut from Stephen Sondheim’s dark, groundbreaking "Company," presented by ASU’s Lyric Opera Theatre, to “Lasso of Truth,” a recent play by Carson Kreitzer that she describes as “a sexy gender power kaleidoscope.”

The School of Music’s esteemed Visiting String Quartet Series brings the Brentano String Quartet to campus for three concerts in Katzin Hall, as well as workshops and master classes; in addition, the Sonoran Chamber Music series will offer four concerts in Katzin Hall, featuring such stars of the chamber-music world as pianist Gil Kalish and violinist Martin Beaver. The school will also present the world premiere of “Guadalupe,” an opera composed by School of Music professor and Arizona Governor’s Arts Award winner James DeMars.

The School of Film, Dance and Theatre’s MainStage season also includes the dance kick-off event, “Fall Forward!” and features new works created by ASU faculty and guests, using a range of movement styles and new media.

The Herberger Institute season also offers wide-ranging and thought-provoking contemporary art exhibitions at the ASU Art Museum’s multiple locations. This fall, visitors have the opportunity to see “Landlocked,” the first video survey of Mexico City-based artist Miguel Angel Rios. Rios’ unique artistic practice addresses issues of power, apathy and violence though his innovative use of social and political narratives and original production techniques. The exhibition includes four never-before-seen works commissioned by the museum.

Northlight, ASU’s photography gallery, has moved from Tempe to join the Step Gallery at ASU’s Grant Street Studios in downtown Phoenix. The first show in the new location, “Nascent Site: Sight,” features works from ASU photo alumni celebrating the more than 40 years that the Northlight Gallery has been offering distinctive exhibitions.

The Design School offers a series of talks by luminaries in the design world, which are free and open to the public, as well as exhibitions showcasing the work of the school’s students in architecture, industrial design, interior design, landscape architecture, urban design, visual communication design and environmental science. And the Digital Culture Showcase, a twice-yearly event in the School of Arts, Media + Engineering, highlights the innovative projects that result when students work outside the conventional boundaries that separate art and science.

Visit season.asu.edu for a full listing of season events, and create your own season from the hundreds of events on offer. Patrons who buy tickets to three or more performing arts events before Oct. 1 save 25 percent on the total price.