Good afternoon and welcome to the 38th Annual Showcase of the Arts. I'm Peggy Bachman and I'm Co-President
of the National Society of Arts and Letters, the Bloomington Chapter. I'm sure that you all know that
the Bloomington Chapter is the only one in the country which holds a competition in each of the disciplines
of art, music, literature, dance, drama, and this year we added musical theater.
And to this end, we raised a record-breaking $21,650 in cash prizes, which we will award this afternoon.
Thank you so very much, all of you, for the work you've done to make this possible. And now this is
the yearly venue where you will be able to see and hear the winners of our competitions. Please go into
the art gallery downstairs
before you leave so that you can see the art show. Next year, we hope to show slides of the winning
works. I'd like to thank our first Vice President, David Albright, who's standing at the door for arranging
this showcase, as he has for several years, along with his helpers, Mary Carol Reardon and George Koronek.
After the show, the prizes will be awarded.
Thank you. I'd like to introduce you to my co-president, Ingellar Welch. Thank you very much. I can
only agree with Peggy, every word she said. I'm 100% behind her. I also have the pleasure to introduce
this afternoon
Once again, our Master of Ceremonies, Professor Murray McGibbon. Professor McGibbon, as you may know,
has been with us in previous years, the last two years anyway, is a professor of the Department of Theater
and Drama at Indiana University and has an MFA from the University of Southern Illinois. He's a native
of South America, which is a lovely country.
where he received a number of major directing awards, along with the university, which include Aqueous,
Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and this season, he will be directing Master Harold and the
Boys. Please give a warm welcome to Murray McGibbon.
Thanks. Good afternoon. It's good to be with you again. Our first performer this afternoon will be Sam
Wotton. Sam holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Georgia and is a second year student
in the MFA acting program at Indiana University. Since being with us, he has performed in Proof, Romeo
and Juliet, Lysistrata, and Art at the University Theater. And he has played in Picasso at the La Panna
Gille and My Three Angels at the Brown County Playhouse.
as well as being in an independent production of our country's good here at the John Waldron Art Center.
He can currently be seen in Malafickia, a wonderful discovery of witches, at the Bloomington Playwrights
Project this afternoon, within a few minutes after performing here, and again this evening. So those
of you who sneak out, I know where you're going. This summer, Sam will study Commedia dell'arte in Italy
with the famed Antonio Fava. Today, he will be doing excerpts from William Shakespeare's
the Merchant of Venice, and the Mercy Seat by Neil Labout. Please welcome Sam Wotton. Certainly my conscience
will serve me to run from this Jew, my master. The fiend is at my elbow and tempts me, saying to me,
Gobble. Lancelot, gobble. Good Lancelot. Good Gobble. Good Lancelot, gobble. Use your legs.
Take the start. Run away. Well, my conscience says no. Take heed on us, Lancelot. Take heed on us, Gobble.
My honest friend, Lancelot Gobbo, being an honest man's son, or rather, an honest woman's son, for indeed,
my father did something smack, something grow to. He had a kind of a taste. Well, my conscience says,
bouge not, bouge, says the fiend, bouge not, says my conscience. Conscience, say I, you counsel well.
My conscience is but a kind of hard conscience to offer to counsel me to stay with the Jew. Who is,
say to me, reverence the devil incarnate? But the fiend, if I should run from the Jew, well, I would
be following the devil himself. But in my conscience, my conscience is but a kind of hard conscience
to offer to counsel me to stay with the Jew.
The fiend gives the more friendly counsel. I will run, fiend. My heels are at your commandment.
I will run. You think I was born this way? Like I'm some
Hot throat pirate of the high seas? Huh? Hell, I'm just trying to muddle through. That's all, just muddle
my fucking way through the middle age. See if I can make it that far. Wait, you like trivia so goddamn
much, well, here's a tidbit for you. I'm faking, okay? Totally getting by on fumes. I put my game face
on and I go out there
Scared shitless. But you know what? I take that back. This is me. I screwed up every step of my life,
Abby. I'm not afraid to admit it. Happy to, actually. I'm happy to sing it out there for anybody who
wants to hear. I always take the easy route. Do it faster, simpler. You know, whatever it takes to get
it done. Be light. Get by. That's me. Cheated in school.
screwed over my friends, took whatever I could get from whomever I could take it from. My marriage,
there's a goddamn fiasco, of which you're intimately aware. The kids, I barely register as a dad,
I'm sure. But compared to the other shit in my life, I'm Dr. Fucking Spock. No matter what I do or have
done, they adore the house.
Kids are like. And you. I mean, let's not forget you. Us. I haven't done all I said. I promised I do.
I fuck up along the way. But I've been trying. I really have. This time out, I've really been trying
with you. I don't know what it looks like or feels to you.
But I've really made a go of us. And so then yesterday, through all the smoke and fear and just... I
don't know, apocalyptic shit. I see a way for us to get out of it. You know, to totally erase the past.
And I don't think that makes me Lucifer or some criminal or a bad man for noticing it. We've been given
something here. A chance to...
all the rotten crap we've done. More than anything, that's what this is. A chance. I know it is.
Jenna Wolf is currently pursuing a ballet major with an outside field in business at Indiana University,
and is a part of the IU Honors College. She began dancing at the Ruth Mitchell Dance Studio in Atlanta,
Georgia, at the age of four. Continuing her training, she joined the Ruth Mitchell Dance Theater, and
subsequently danced in various ballets, including The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, La Bayader, Coppelia,
and Swan Lake. She has also had soloist roles in
Sherba gala performances, and at the Spoleto Arts Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. With the Indiana
University Ballet Theater, she has had roles in original works by Mark Godden and Violette Verde, The
Nutcracker, Swan Lake, George Balanchine's Four Temperaments and Serenade, and The Sleeping Beauty.
For us this afternoon, she will be dancing Aurora's Variation from Peter Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty.
Mary Jarrell grew up in the small town of Petersburg, Indiana, and she's been an undergraduate degree
from the University of Evansville. She is currently completing her master's thesis at Johns Hopkins
University under the direction of poet Dave Smith. Her work has been published in several journals,
including The Rainbow Review, Hayden's Fairy Review, Poeta del Sol, and The Formalist. She has also
received two consecutive Intro to Journal Awards
from the Associated Writing Programs. Today she will be reading four of her poems. The four poems I'm
reading today are from a longer series of narrative poems, all set in a small town. The first two are
from the perspective of a young woman who lives in the town and her experiences at the county fair.
The last two are from the perspective of two older women in the town. Demolition Derby. Another word
for girl was target, which I should have read but didn't in his smile the first time I climbed in the
driver's seat. His 89 Impala lasted four whole minutes before two tires blew and I became the candy
stuck in his steel pinata.
scared senseless, which he liked, and falling hard for the violent rush, the magic of the hit, the souped-up
consciousness. I learned to strip the cars myself, to smash them in the back end so they spun, and how
to get unhooked. I didn't mind the busted lip, bruised wrists, or blues I had the morning after. But
sometimes, walking off the field alone, the empty bleachers littered with
soda cans, beer bottles, and half-eaten funnel cakes, I remember my first race and that boy as scared
for me as I was, winking as he strapped me in and sent me chasing after more than just a crush. Behind
me now lies a trail, deep ruts, and wrecks of crumpled steel, while across the chest of my t-shirt,
the spattered mud from spun-out tires dries brown and stains like blood.
Pig wrestling. Well-greased and terrified, it screeches its way into the pen where we four high school
girls last year's division champs anticipate its first evasive move. It barrels left, zigzagging right
between us while we slog barefoot, our jeans rolled to the knees through muck three inches deep.
The crowd shouts strategies as we close in, the pig prepared to dodge us like a cornered memory that's
stuck somewhere between forbidden and forgotten. We spring together, struggle to subdue it, stop its
squealing, feel its slimy skin beneath us, the muscles twitching. When the bell calls time, it twists
off in escape, just like those thoughts that bolt away after their capture, more alive than when you
pinned them for the count,
Anniversary. He's hiding things from me again. I found our bank book in the freezer stuck between the
icy slabs of deer meat our boys brought home last fall. The past few nights, I haven't slept with him.
He doesn't remember who I am. He called me a hussy and a fool to think he'd sleep with just anyone who
walked into his room. At the hospital today, the therapist played the moonlight serenade
and asked him what he remembered about the song. He knew the name and hummed the tune in his wobbly
old man baritone. Frank Sinatra sang that song, he said, and closed his eyes. I watched him sway to
the music, wondering if he remembered my head on his shoulder at the USO in Boston, holding him so tightly
as we danced that the buttons of his jacket left small imprints on my chest and stomach.
Yesterday, on our anniversary, I took out our old wedding pictures. I didn't expect him to remember
them, and he didn't. They tell me this is good for him, but I'm not convinced. He asks me questions
as he glances at them, but he doesn't believe my answers. He just looks at me. His eyes are clear and deep.
Cold water in a wishing well, but his thoughts are burnt gold pennies tossed by lovers, friends,
and children, old and new coins spread apart or jumbled up together, lying at the bottom with no way
to scoop them out without falling in. Beautician. Because they know she'll do it when their time has
come, her ladies sometimes joke about it at the shop.
They stand and say, I want it just like this, then laugh at the mirror. She laughs, too, until someone's
last appointment brings her here, to this white room of sterile metal, quiet, cold, windowless. She
only sets the sides and front, the backs not seen, of course. She works on women she has known for more
than 30 years, making sure the handheld dryer is on the cooler setting, doing things exactly like she's
always done.
When the hair has dried, she takes the rollers out and lets the perfect glossy curls fall into place.
Then, with a curling iron, touches up the last few strands. But today the iron grazes the dead flesh
at the temple, hissing softly. And for a moment she expects to see the woman's facial muscles press
the mouth into a rounded ouch of pain and hear some sound emitted from the throat.
Instead, she only hears the echo of her voice. I'm sorry, Catherine. As embarrassment warms her face,
knowing the hand that wants to ease the darkening burn is her small, age-spotted own. Thank you.
Abigail Mueller from Evanston, Illinois, is a senior majoring in theater and drama at Indiana University.
On the IU main stage, she has appeared in Trelawney of the Wells, Sweeney Todd, Sweet Charity, and the
IU Broadway Cabaret. Other credits include Queen of Bakersfield at the John Waldron Arts Center, How
to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at the Baskook Chumley, and Man of La Mancha, Little Shop
of Horrors, Fiddler on the Roof,
and the last five years, all with the Rocky Mountain Repertory Theatre in Grand Lake, Colorado. She
will be performing selections from the most happy fella and the last five years. Please welcome Abigail Mueller.
My name is Catherine Hyatt. I'm here to see Mike Stelmeyer, please. Thank you. Hyatt! Mike! Hyatt! It's
Kathy Hyatt. No, no, no. This will only take a minute. I'm sorry if I'm interrupting. Well, two things.
Actually, one, I just wanted to make sure you got those reviews I sent you from the summer. Yes, I got
some notices in the local paper and I thought you'd enjoy them.
to send out another set of those, sure, sure. The other thing was just, you know, checking in, seeing
if there's anything you wanted to send me in for. I feel like I'm in a really good place right now.
Yes, yes, yes, certainly. As soon as I'm doing something in the city, I will let you know. Okay, thanks
so much for your time, Mike. Okay, I'll talk to you soon.
Christopher Nochtrab is completing his second year with the Indiana University Ballet Theater. He began
his dance training with his mother in Long Island, New York, and as he advanced, he joined a small company
known as Harbor Ballet Theater in Port Jefferson, New York. He danced in many ballets with this company,
including The Nutcracker, Peter and the Wolf, and many new works. He also attended summer ballet intensive
programs with the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater School, The Rock, and Chautauqua.
Since arriving at IU, he has danced in new works by Jacques in Virginia and Cezbron, George Balanchine's
Four Temperaments, and Serenade, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty. This summer, he will be performing
as a company apprentice with the Chautauqua Company. For us this afternoon, he will be doing the male
solo from George Balanchine's Square Dance.
Jason Plaude is currently a graduate student at IU where he studies with Patricia Wise. He received
his Bachelor of Music and Voice Performance from the University of Southern Maine. Since coming to IU,
he has appeared with the IU Opera Theater in La Traviata, The Merry Widow, The Ballad of Baby Doe, and
Peter Grimes. He has also had roles elsewhere in The Marriage of Figaro, The Telephone, The Secret Garden,
HMS Pinafore, Rita, and Jekyll and Hyde.
His concert soloist work includes Gabriel Forez Requiem, Wolfgang Mozart's Requiem, Ralph Vaughan Williams'
Five Mystical Songs, and Joseph Hayden's Lord Nelson Mass. Among his honors are the Lillian A. Nordica
Scholarship, the Emily K. Rand Vocal Prize, and the Ed DiBrando Pisetti Scholarship. He will be singing
an aria from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, and an art song by Richard Strauss. Ladies and gentlemen,
Jason Plaude.
Have you already won the case? What do I hear? What do I have to do with it? I want to punish you in
such a way. It will be my pleasure.
If the old woman pretends to pay her, in what way? And then there's Antonio, who refuses to marry a
nephew to the unknown Figaro. Cultivating the pride of this mad cat,
Let's make a turn.
take a short break.
As we resume our program, the next performer will be Laura Otto. Laura has a BA in English and a BA
in rhetoric from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and she is currently completing work for
an MFA in fiction at IU. She's also the associate director of the Indiana University Writers Conference
and a freelance journalist for The Business Ledger, a business newspaper serving the Chicago area. She's
a single mother of a six-year-old boy, Cole,
who is her pride and joy, but the greatest detriment to getting any work done. She spends lots of time
driving coal to hockey, baseball, and martial arts practice, and not much time writing. Any writing
that she does tends to be late at night. For us, she will read selections this afternoon from her short
story, How to Kill a Wild Boar.
How to Kill a Wild Boar is written in second person point of view, which means that the narrator is
addressing a you character and making the you character a central character in the story. In this story,
the you character is named Jory. Her mother died while giving birth to her, and Jory has grown up living
alone with her father. Jory is now 17 and is trying to come to terms with her and her father's strained
relationship. How to Kill a Wild Boar. You can do it with a bullet.
But if you're really brave, you'll use a bow and arrow. Your best bet is to get him in the neck. You
have one shot. If you miss, the boar will go after you. And believe me, you don't want to be faced to
snout with an angry boar, because with every wild boar comes 10 wild boars. They travel in packs, and
they'll come after you with their long razor-sharp tusks, poking and jabbing you in the legs, leaving
scars a foot long and an inch deep. And if you fall,
Don't fall. It's all over. They've got you, your little girl stew. And they'll eat anything, roots,
cow patties, onions, lizards, small birds, raspberry jello, sour corn, eggs, grapes, their own dead
kin. Don't think they won't eat you. Your father tells you this as you watch him snap open the bed of
his pickup truck. He has just returned home from a six-day camping trip.
Three of the days were spent driving from your home in a small Chicago suburb to the South Carolina
swamps and back again. Primo hunting ground, your father explains. You are watching Three's company
reruns when he runs inside the house waving his arms frantically. Jory, you've got to see something,
he says, breathless. When he clicks the television off, you sigh and roll your eyes. Your home early,
you say. It is noon on a Saturday.
You didn't expect him to return until early the next morning. You had been looking forward to an evening
alone, or almost alone. Jean, your boyfriend of six months, is supposed to come over with a bottle of
sparkling grape juice and a rented copy of Pulp Fiction.
Jean knows you don't like sleeping alone when your father's out of town, especially since you just found
out that Darren, the pimply-faced kid that lives next door, has been hiding in the bushes that line
the front of your house and watching you undress at night. Darren is only 12, but he looks nearly 20.
And unlike the other little boys that live in your neighborhood,
He is already taller than you and has patches of brown fuzz that trail the soft curve of his jaw in
wild and erratic patterns, like the chia pet your father bought you for Christmas three years ago. Darren's
mother works late at Jenny's, a little diner on the west side of town. And sometimes, late at night,
you hear his stepfather yelling at him, and you hear crashes and metal things banging together. And
you hear the high-pitched screech of his stepfather's car
as he spins out of the driveway. And if things get really bad, you hear Darren blast the Star Wars theme
song so loud that the ceramic ballerina on top of your dresser wobbles a little. If things get really,
really bad, Darren will scream at the top of his lungs, sometimes in tune with the music. Once, he screamed
for a good 10 minutes straight, beginning with a droid battle and not ending until passage through the
planet core.
You feel sorry for Darren and disgusted at the thought of him looking at you that way. You wonder if
he ever watched you make out with Gene or dance around your room in your Tuesday underpants pretending
to be baby from dirty dancing. You wonder if he ever saw you scratch your butt or pluck the tiny black
hairs that grow out of the space between your eyebrows. You wonder how many times he saw you naked or
if he saw you naked at all. Most of all, you wonder what it is about your tall, lanky body.
too tall and too lanky for a girl of 17, in your opinion, that he finds so appealing. But when you lie
awake at night, the noises from next door are somewhat comforting. You marvel at Darren's amazing lung
capacity, the reverberating battles of the house next door, so different than your own speechless house.
You wonder what it must feel like to scream like that. You tried practicing once in the shower, wondering
if your father would run up the stairs panicked.
You screamed for five minutes straight until foamy rivers of shampoo slid down your forehead and filled
your mouth, and you had to stop. Gene tells you that it's peaceful in your house, calm, refreshingly
still. Not a creature is stirring, he says, tickling your foot. I would have killed for this at your
age. My house was full of noises all the time, the coffee grinder, my brother's stereo. I would have
loved this. You have so much freedom.
You grimace at the way Gene said, your age, like you're his five-year-old cousin or something. Then
you think about the word freedom and realize that freedom is earned. Freedom means giving up something
because you want to, because you don't want it anymore. But I never asked for this, you say. I never
asked for all this quiet. When your father grabs your hand and pulls you out of the chair, you think
about calling Gene.
You want to tell him not to come or to forget about the sparkling grape juice at least. You don't want
your father to find out that Gene sometimes spends the night when your father is away. You don't want
your father to notice Gene's dark green silk boxers, the ones with the dancing jalapenos that you love
so much peeking out from the waist of his jeans. You don't want your father to smell Gene's excess cologne
or notice the small cut on his chin still bleeding from a fresh shave.
Gene always tries to make himself look good for you, and you are afraid that your father will notice
and start asking questions. You are afraid that your father will see the indentations from your fingernails
in his back like tiny half moons. You are afraid that your father will smell Gene's musky odor in your
hair, on your hands. You and Gene have not had sex yet, but you have come close. Gene says he's willing
to wait, but by the way, his hands reach for the arch of your back,
pulling you towards him in desperate thrusts, you are not sure how long. Or perhaps you are not so much
afraid that your father will find out about you and Gene, but that he will notice but say nothing, looking
at you with a slight tilt of the head as if you were a complex math equation. And then he'll shake his
head and walk away, and you'll want to tell him to come back, to not give up, but he'll already be gone.
You want to call Jean, but before you can pick up the phone, you find yourself standing at the edge
of the driveway, shivering in just a t-shirt and running shorts, despite the glare of an October sun.
Your father is excited and talking rapidly. He is now telling you about the mating habits of wild boars
and how they have a three-inch layer of fat, grizzly tendons between their muscle and skin that's as
strong as armor.
And to kill them, you have to aim for this one particular spot at the base of their neck, directly between
the shoulder blades, and how he knows a guy that tried to kill one with a pistol, but the bullet bounced
right off. When he says, bounced right off, he points at his chest, and then at you, and you wonder
if it is a symbolic gesture. His cheeks are flushed, the same pale pink color of your petaguanas tongue.
You rarely see him like this, so ready and willing to look you in the eyes.
Usually he looks the other way when he sees you coming. And sometimes you think the fragility of your
17-year-old body and the peachy scent of your perfume scares him a bit. A reminder of the woman you
killed when you heaved your way through the dark tunnel of her vagina and out into this bright white
world. Sometimes you think he hates you for it. Thank you.
Jessica Galgiani will graduate from Indiana University this coming August with a BS in ballet and biology
after only two years of study. She was born and reared in Tucson, Arizona, and she began taking ballet
when she was eight years old, inspired by a ballet teacher who was brought in to coach the gymnastics
team Jessica was on. Jessica was trained under the expert eye of Mary Beth Cabana and spent summer workshops
with the San Francisco and Boston Ballets. Over time, she progressed to performing leading roles in
classical ballet such as The Nutcracker and more contemporary pieces set for Cabana's company Ballet
Tucson. She graduated from high school with honors and was named a National Merit Scholar and an AP
Scholar with Distinction. At IU, she has recently performed in Sleeping Beauty, staged and coached by
Julie Kent. Jessica hopes to begin her professional career
fall. Today she will dance a variation from the bluebird pas de deux from Sleeping Beauty.
Nino Cotirella is a student of Menekim Prezler at Indiana University School of Music. Nino made his
public debut at the age of 14 performing his own composition, Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra with
the Evansville Philharmonic. Since then, he has performed extensively in public. Recently, he was invited
to play Franz Liszt's first piano concerto with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for a private donor
appreciation concert. And in January 2004,
He did a concert tour of the Hawaiian Islands. He has won many top prizes and competitions. Among these
are the Indianapolis Concerto Competition at the age of 17, the National Foundation for Advancement
in the Arts Competition, the Music Teacher's National Association Competition, and Indiana University's
Concerto Competition. Nino is also an active composer.
and has won awards in several composition competitions, including a second prize nationally in the Music
Teacher's National Association Composition Competition. This afternoon, he will play pieces by Claude
Debussy and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
you
Vanessa Brinchley hails from Utah, where she received degrees in theater and political science summer
cum laude from Utah State University. She was Miss Utah in the Miss America competition and received
the Burt's Parks Talent Award at the Miss America Pageant. Currently, she is a first-year MFA student
in acting at Indiana University, where she has appeared in Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well in Living
in Paris and the Laramie Project. Her credits before arriving at IU include
The King and I, Pegger My Heart, and Pride and Prejudice. She's also been a performer with the Utah
Festival Opera Company and the Old Lyric Repertory Company. This summer, she will be a member of the
Acting Company of the Utah Shakespearean Festival. For us this afternoon, she will perform excerpts
from William Shakespeare's Henry IV Part II and Conor McPherson's The Where. Please put your hands together
for Vanessa Brinchley.
was ill-sorted. Therefore, captains have need look to it. For God's sake, thrust him downstairs. I cannot
endure such a fusty and rascal. Oh, you sweet little rogue, you. Alas, poor ape, how thou sweatest.
Come, let me wipe thy face. Come on, you whoresome chops. Ah, rogue, if they
In March last year, the school had a sponsored swim, and the kids were going to swim the length of the
pool, and I promised I was going to watch her, but I got, well, I was late.
out of work, and I was only going to be able to meet her afterwards, but when I got there, there was
an ambulance outside, and I thought like, well, the pool is in the central remedial clinic, and so I
thought like it was just somebody being dropped there. I didn't really pay any attention, but when I
got in, there was nobody in the pool, and one of the teachers was standing there with a group of children,
and she was crying, and some of the kids were crying, and then this woman,
Another one of the moms came over and she said that there'd been an accident and that Neum had hit her
head in the pool and she'd been in the water and they were trying to resuscitate her. But she said she
was going to be all right. She was in her bathing suit and the ambulance man said he didn't know if
what he was doing was working and he didn't know if she was alive, but the ambulance man knew.
I think. Well, she wasn't breathing and he just knew. And he said if I wanted to say goodbye to her
in the ambulance in case I didn't get a chance in the hospital, then. So I gave her a little hug. Her
body was freezing cold. I told her that mommy loved her very much. She just looked asleep, but her lips
had gone blue
Colin Donnell, originally from St. Louis, is now a junior at Indiana University majoring in musical
theater through the individualized major program. He has performed, or is performing in, Sweet Charity,
Betty's Summer Vacation, Sweeney Todd, and Parade. His regional credits include shows such as Miss Saigon,
South Pacific, My Fair Lady, and a number of others at Muni St. Louis. He plans to return there again
this coming summer. But before he does so,
He will be participating in May in the National Society of Arts and Letters National Competition in
Musical Theatre at Urbana-Champaign, where the top prize is $10,000. Today Colin will do selections
from She Loves Me, Hello Dolly, and Doonesbury.
me and to my amazement I love it knowing that she loves me she loves me true she doesn't show it well
how could she when she doesn't know it yesterday she loathed me but not today she loves me and tomorrow
I'm speechless, for I mustn't tell her. It's wrong now, but it won't be long now, before my love discovers
that she and I are lovers.
Just think, there I sat, cooped up in Yonkers for years and years, and wonderful people like Mrs. Malloy
were just walking around in New York, and I didn't know them. I don't know if y'all can see it from
where you're sitting. Well, for instance, the way her cheeks and her eyes and her forehead come together
up here. Can you? I tell you right now that a fine-looking woman is the
greatest work of God on earth. You can talk all you like about the pyramids and Niagara Falls, but they
aren't in it at all. I mean, of course, I've talked to women before, but today, today, I talk to one
equal to equal, and they're so different for men. And they're often mysterious, too. I bet that you
could know a woman for a hundred years without ever being really sure whether she liked you or not.
Today, I've lost
My job, my future, everything that people think is important. But I don't care. Even if I have to dig
ditches for the rest of my life, at least I'll be a ditch digger who once had a wonderful day.
not to move too fast with her. I know we're new at learning how to care, but if she comes to me a night
that's soft and still
Theresa Herold is a master's student at IU studying with Constanza Cucaro. She has recently performed
in IU's production of Peter Grimes, The Magic Flute, and the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra, and a local
Bloomington production of Dido and Anais. Among her past credits are roles in Jeppe, The Marriage of
Figaro, and Dr. Miracle. She's also soloed with several local and university choirs, performing such
works as Mozart's Coronation Mass,
Handel's Messiah, Schubert's Mass and E-flat Major, Bach's Magnificat, and Britain's Rejoice in the
Lamb. In 2003, she received third place in the Indianapolis Matinee Musicale. She also placed first
in both the 2001 and 2002 competitions of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. In 2002,
she participated in the Maine's Emerging Artist Program, and in 2003, she attended the Charlie Creek Workshop.
This coming summer, she will be a member of the Bach Festival Chorale in Carmel, California. Teresa
will perform an art song by Brahms and an aria by Rossini.
note on which to end our program this afternoon. It's been a pleasure to be with you and to introduce
you to this remarkable talent and I'd now like to turn the podium back to Ingallor Welsh and Peggy Buckman
to introduce the NSAL area chairs who will present the awards to the winners.
Thank you very much, Murray, and thank you everyone who performed. It was absolutely thrilling and fabulous.
I enjoyed it a lot, and I hope you did too. We are now going on to our awards, and Peggy Bachman will
be giving out the awards for the visual arts program. She is doing this for Rhoda Celizzi, and Becky
Cresmolos.
Would the award winners for the visual arts competition please come up to the front of the stage? And
we would like to ask the audience to hold your applause please until we have completed the awards.
The first award is to Ayako Goto. He has been awarded the Pygmalion's Merit Award in Visual Arts.
Not here? Okay. Gabby Grodin has been awarded Pygmalion's Merit Award in Visual Arts.
Wes Harvey has been awarded the Bachman Merit Award in Visual Arts. Congratulations. Nick Canning has
been awarded the Keller Merit Award in Visual Arts. Congratulations. Brian Smith has been awarded the
Kahl Merit Award in Visual Arts.
Neil Colander has been awarded the Klein Merit Award in Visual Arts. Michael Schulbaum has been awarded
the Schnicke Merit Award in Visual Arts. Congratulations. Shane Moses has been awarded the Alan W. Kahn
Memorial Award in Visual Arts. Is that how you say your first name? Chaney. Chaney, I'm sorry. Congratulations.
Timothy Borntrager has been awarded the Carter Merit Award in Visual Arts. Congratulations. Jared Landberg
has been awarded the Grace Dyer Memorial Award in Visual Arts. Congratulations. Jesse Mathis has been
awarded the Christ Merit Award in Visual Arts. Congratulations.
John Dean Eleven has been awarded the Alma Eicherman Memorial Award in Visual Arts. Rachel Brewer has
been awarded the Noor Primo Merit Award in Visual Arts. Congratulations. Wes Harvey has been awarded
the Rosemary Fraser Merit Award in Visual Arts. Congratulations.
And Matthew Ballou has been awarded the Chapter Career Award in Visual Arts. Congratulations. Okay,
that's it.
I'd like to introduce Joan Athanas, Joanne Athanas, who is chair of the dance. She will present those
awards. First, I'd quickly like to say a few thank yous before I invite the winners up.
I'd like to thank my friend, Mary Stroh, who stood in for me during an emergency. Mary is right there.
And Mary is going to be our dance chair next year. Thank you, Mary. I'd also like to thank our trio
of judges who gave up a Sunday of their lives to adjudicate this competition. They were Larry Attaway
of Indianapolis, Elizabeth Hartwell of Louisville, and Michael Tevlin of Cincinnati. And finally, I'd
like to thank our member, Violet Verde,
who really makes this competition a success. She coaches the students, helps them with their variations,
and I thank her very much. I'm sorry she couldn't be here today. And I guess that's it. Would the winners
now come up and please hold your applause till the end.
Fifth place award, the Athanas Merit Award, goes to Elana Lichtman. Our fourth place award is the Shiner
Merit Award, and it goes to Stephanie Lam. Our third place award goes to Christopher Noctrob, and it
is the Marina Svetlova Tribute Award, donated by Violet Verdi.
Our second place winner is Jenna Wolf, and she receives the Marina Svetlova Tribute Award donated by
Lila Hughes. And finally, our first place winner is Jessica Gagliani, who wins the $1,000 award donated
by the Bloomington Chapter members. And you may applaud.
I have the honor to ask Marilyn Norris, who's the chair of the Drama Awards, please to give her awards.
And I congratulate you, too. Thank you. Drama winners, will you take the stage? And we'll remind you
to hold your applause until the end.
is not what actors do on stage. The theater is the spontaneous combustion that occurs between what the
actors are doing on stage and you in the audience. These today we honor because a panel of very distinguished
judges decided that these six and one, the two who could not be here, were capable of creating that
spontaneous combustion
even on the basis of a very brief one or two minute audition. And so we like to honor them and congratulate
them today. The winner of the Ilknoll and Robert Ralston Merritt Award is a Phi Beta Kappa double major
in Thea and Geology and unfortunately today is on a required geology field trip. Alia Maria Tawell received
the Ralph Collins Memorial Award.
receives the Lazarus Merit Award. Congratulations. Josh Devoyan receives the Frank and Becky Persimales
Merit Award. Congratulations. And in a few minutes, we'll be on stage in Tidus and Brontas. Michael
Malloff receives the Linneth Rocket, Carol Mooney, and Fran Snig Memorial Award. Congratulations.
on stage in a few moments. Sam Wojtek, who is the recipient of the Laura Scheiner Memorial Award, is,
even as we speak, on stage in Malafika at the Bloomington Playwrights Project production. And our chapter
career winner, Vanessa Wrenchley, congratulations.
I would like to introduce Ruth Albright, who is chair of the literature competition. Ruth. Thank you,
Peggy. Would all the literature winners please come forward? While they're coming forward, I'd like
to tell you that it was a stiff competition this year. We had 50 entries, plays, poems, short stories,
essays of literary merit, TV scripts, et cetera, and these
10 people. I'm not sure everyone's here today, but the 10 people won these awards and really deserve
them. Our first winner is Michelle Ross, who seems not to be here. She won the McCluskey Merit Award.
Sarah Jane Stoner won the Josephine Piercy Creative Writing Award. Congratulations. Robin Jane Kish
won the Hannah Bennis Wilson Merit Award.
Kathleen Susan Balma won the Roy Battenhouse Memorial Award. Amanda Hong was not able to be with us
today. She has a class today, which is too bad for Amanda. Allison Powell, I guess she's not here either.
She won the Will H. Hayes Jr. Memorial Award. Brian Cox. Brian won the Albright Merit Award.
Dan Manchester. Dan won the Helen Caldwell Merit Award. Carrie Jarrell, who read her poems for us, won
the Roy Battenhouse Memorial Award. Carrie came all the way from Baltimore to read for us today, because
she goes to Johns Hopkins. We appreciate her coming. Laura Ann Otto won our Chapter Career Award.
Congratulations to all the winners. I have the pleasure to ask Dee Lane to come to the podium and introduce
her music competitors.
they are assembling up here, I would like to remind us all that music is an exacting discipline and
their performances and their competition represents many years of cultivating not only their instrument
but their interpretations and their techniques and it represents wonderful discipline.
We are proud of all. Joon Eun Jo has been awarded the Hapfield Merit Jacobi Merit Award. Her discipline
is violin. Jessica Jo Julin.
has been awarded the Margaret Viewer White Memorial Award. His discipline is piano. Jason Sloan has
been awarded the Caldwell Merit Award, and you know his discipline is the voice. Nino Cocharena has
been awarded the Elizabeth H. Berger Merit Award,
and we congratulate you, is Disability Forces Piappa. And Teresa Piappa has been awarded the Chapter
Career Award in Voice. Thank you very much.
Our final presenter is George Penny, who did the competition for musical theater. George, you want to
give out your award? It is truly a pleasure and honor to be able to present
the first ever National Society of Arts and Letters musical theater competition. Galia Arad, Hall Merit
Award. Alexander Meisner, the Bossman Merit Award. Rhea Campos, the Borkenstein Memorial Award and Jacobs
Merit Award. Thank you. Zachary Frank, the Albright Caldwell Merit Award.
Vanessa Branchley, the Scott Burgess Jones Tribute Award. Abigail Mueller, William and Gail Cook Award
in honor of George Clooney. Colin Donald, Mrs. Granville Wells Memorial Award, our competition winner.
Thank you very much.
That concludes our program. We would like to ask the winners to come and stay here for a photo session
for a minute, and then if you'd all go downstairs and enjoy yourself with some refreshments, we would
like to invite you to do that. And that concludes our program. Thank you for coming. I hope you enjoyed it.