UNC's 'Sunday in the Park With George' Bridges Art, Music, and Theater
UNC's College of Performing and Visual Arts is turning its production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George into a fully cross-disciplinary laboratory, premiering March 5–8 at Langworthy Theatre in Greeley.
The production fuses custom electronic music, sculpture-driven sets, drawing instruction, and art-history talks to explore what artists sacrifice for their craft and how different creative disciplines actively reshape one another on stage.
The production runs March 5–7 at 7:30 p.m. and March 8 at 2 p.m. at Langworthy Theatre, 1710 9th Ave., Greeley. The show is co-directed by School of Theatre Arts and Dance Director and Professor of Costume Design Anne Toewe, Ph.D., and Professor of Musical Theatre Ryan Driscoll, with set design by Assistant Professor of Scenic Design DJ Pike.
The project expands on Driscoll's earlier work with the School of Music on Titanic—this time, all three schools in the College of Performing and Visual Arts collaborate. Matthew McHugh, instructor of drawing, painting and foundations, will coach the actor playing George. Kiki Gilderhus, associate professor of art history, will co-host a Q&A after the Saturday, March 7 performance at 7 p.m.
"Academia is based on the idea of the free exchange of ideas and thought," Driscoll said. "I have always found that there is no greater opportunity for that than in musical theatre."
Music composition doctoral candidate Gabe Gonzales composed original electronic music for Act II, using Sondheim's themes as a foundation. DJ Pike designed sculptural set pieces for the Chromolume scene, inspired by Georges Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, the pointillist painting that inspired the musical.
"The ideas that Gonzales has brought to the table are ones I could never have thought of on my own," Driscoll said. "In turn, these themes are now directly influencing Pike's set design."
Central to the production is a question for all artists: what are you willing to sacrifice for the sake of your art? Driscoll hopes the piece "will offer a level of deep insight and thought for all involved," according to UNC.
Gilderhus brings scholarly depth to the Seurat reinterpretation. "Seurat's painting is absolutely French, and at the same time very American," she said. "For me, the magic of the painting lies in the tension between the figures Seurat observed in the moment (the bathers, the couple, the monkey!) and the way they appear frozen, timeless."
"In this instance, interdisciplinary collaboration between art history and theatre allows [everyone] to view the art and the artists in new ways," she said.
Tickets range from $5 to $22. Buy online at tickets.unco.edu or call the box office at (970) 351-4849. Box office staff can clarify student and senior pricing and whether the March 7 pre-show talk at 7 p.m. requires separate registration.