Underwriting for this showcase has been provided by John and Beth Drews, and George and Kathy Karenik,
and we would like to thank them for their generosity. Please let us show our appreciation by giving
them a round of applause. And while this is a very happy occasion this afternoon, we've all been touched
by the sadness of the deaths of some of our
colleagues and students, we would like to dedicate today's program to the memory of Georgina Joshi,
Robert Samuels, Garth Epley, Zachary Novak, and Chris Carducci. These five budding young artists at
the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music were, as you know, killed in a plane crash this last week.
I'd like to ask you to please stand for a few moments silence as a mark of respect to these students.
Thank you very much. Our first performer this afternoon, Stephanie Lampe hails from Syracuse, New York.
And she is a junior honors college student at Indiana University pursuing dual degrees in ballet and
mathematics. She graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy, where she was honored with the Young Artist
Award, a Young Scholar Award,
and designation as co-salutatorian of her class. I think I mispronounced that. Salutatorian of her class.
We don't have those in South Africa. At Indiana University, she has been featured in the ballet theater's
productions of Cinderella and The Nutcracker and appeared in Serenade, Sleeping Beauty Act III,
Viva Vivaldi, The Final Point, and Wins from the South. In addition,
She danced in the IU Contemporary Dance Faculty Dance Concert in 2005 and 2006, and with the IU Opera
Theater in 2003 and 2004. Stephanie will be representing the Bloomington Chapter at the NSAL National
Dance Competition next month in Jacksonville, Florida. Since the requirements of the preliminary phase
of the competition include two solos, one ballet variation, and a modern dance or jazz solo,
Both our dancers today will be doing two numbers. Stephanie's first piece is a modern dance solo entitled
Reflection and is choreographed by Laura Poole.
Christina Harvey is a fiction writer in the second year of the Master of Fine Arts program in creative
writing at Indiana University. She received her BA from Stanford and is most recently from San Francisco,
California, where she worked at Google as a creative maximizer. Chris was the nominee for fiction in
Indiana University's 2005-2006 AWP intro journal project. She also received the 2005 Gene Shepard Literary Award
2004-2005 Ernest Hemingway Fellowship, and the 2004-2005 William E. Wilson Fellowship from IU. Chris
will be reading a selection from her short story, Cross Your Heart. Please welcome Christina Harvey.
I'm going to be reading the beginning of my short story, Cross Your Heart, which is about a little girl
named Danica who has kind of a troubled relationship with her parents, which as a result leads her to
kind of enact a certain power over her peers on the playground. It's also a story about a little girl
kind of investigating the differences between telling a lie, not telling the truth, joking, and using
her imagination.
crossed your heart. When Danica was nine, she began to throw away her food. It started with the Brussels
sprouts. She hated the leafy green balls that looked fun to roll, but tasted so bitter her tongue wanted
to curl up and die. One night, with four left on her plate, she wanted to give up. The rule was that
she couldn't leave the table until she had cleaned her plate
but she couldn't see how to do it. Eating Brussels sprouts felt like a slow choking. She had already
eaten two, cutting each one in half and forcing herself to chew fast like a machine, trying not to let
anything touch her tongue, nearly gagging, then rinsing it down with apple juice. She had to save the
apple juice, make it last the whole meal. But with all the apple juice in the world,
She was certain she couldn't eat the last four Brussels sprouts. She swung her legs under the table
and put her chin on her hands, looking anywhere but her plate. She felt sleepy. Her mother and father
were in the living room and she could hear Dan Rather's voice droning, pausing. She had once knocked
her TV tray with her knee and spilled everything when they let her eat with them.
So now she had to eat at the kitchen table alone. She didn't mind too much, except when the news was
over and one of her parents' shows came on and she heard the laugh track. It made her feel lonely, and
she pressed her lips together and wiggled them with her fingers. If she finished her supper, she would
be allowed to watch with them until the end of the show. She cut another Brussels sprout in half and
stabbed it with her fork. The kitchen lamp glared over her,
but the windows were big and blank, and anything could be out there watching her. Her father came in
to put his plate in the sink. He liked to let the dishes soak before he washed them. On weekends, she
helped him do the dishes. She was the official rencer and stacker. He looked at her plate. Still having
trouble with the Brussels sprouts, he asked, and she nodded. Here, I'll eat one and help you out a little.
She picked it up
He picked it up with his fingers and popped it in his mouth like a gumdrop. She smiled to see it disappear
so easily. Delicious. Now you eat the rest. Eat one while I'm watching. She raised the fork with half
a Brussels sprout on it and put it in her mouth and chewed her teeth into it. She pressed her tongue
against the roof of her mouth to protect it, but she could still taste and she started to gag. When
she made a noise, her father pressed his hand over her mouth.
Finish it, he said, and she kept chewing and swallowed it, tiny, swimmy tears, squeezing out of the
corners of her eyes. Good, he said, keep going. When Danica was nine, her parents worked and couldn't
pick her up right after school, so every day she stayed at after-school care and played on the playground.
Erica and Allison and the new girl Heather, who'd just transferred into school a week before, had to stay too.
One day, after drinking purple Kool-Aid at 4 p.m. snack, competing to see who could jump off the swings
from the highest point and investigating half a dead beetle covered in swarming ants, they sat on the
monkey bars and swung their legs. Allison hung upside down, her blonde ponytail nearly touching the
ground, all the blood running to her head. Danica wanted hair like that.
long and straight and light, and when she saw it swishing in the air like a magic broom, she wanted
to pull it right off. What should we do, Erica asked? Let's play witch, Danica said. Heather looked
up from the ground, her knuckles white as she held the metal bar. She looked nervous. How do you play?
Danica, Allison, and Erica looked at each other. Allison swung upright again. Danica's the witch, she said.
and we're good little girls playing in the forest. You have to do what I say," Danica said. We can tell
you how to play if you want to play with us. Heather nodded and stuck out her chest. Of course I want
to play. First we run away, Erica told her, and Danica has to catch us so she can cut out our hearts.
So the girls swung off the bars, small puffs of dust rising from the ground where they landed.
They ran in separate directions across the fenced-in playground, Erica toward the swings, Allison toward
the outside wall of the gymnasium, Heather toward the log forts where the boys staked their claim. Danica
took her time sliding down the bars, watching the boys play Ninja Turtles and chase each other around
the playground. She knew she was faster and could catch the other girls almost too easily. Danica liked
the running,
the pounding in her chest and head, the way the air sliced and whistled against her body. As she caught
each girl, she dragged her back across the playground to the monkey bars, the witch's castle, squeezing
her wrist as tightly as she could. Thought you could escape from me, my pretty? She asked. The first
time she threw something away, it happened by accident.
Even with only two and a half Brussels sprouts left on her plate, she couldn't make herself keep going.
She picked up a whole one with her hand the way her father had and imagined sticking it in her mouth.
She thought it might make her choke. It looked like a tiny green alien head. She wiggled it between
her fingers and pretended it was talking to her. When she heard her mother in the hall, almost to the kitchen,
She was startled and accidentally dropped the Brussels sprout. It fell in her lap on her napkin, and
Danica squeezed it with her legs so it wouldn't fall on the ground. Her mother didn't notice and saw
only that there was one less Brussels sprout on her plate. Danica could feel it making a wet spot against
her leg through the napkin, and she felt like gagging again, but she didn't. Good, sweetheart, her mother
said. You're almost done. Just eat up. Don't be a baby.
After her mother went back to the living room to watch more TV, Danica looked at her plate and saw how
much nicer it looked with only one whole Brussels sprout and another half left. She lifted up her napkin
and looked at the green ball inside the damp translucent white film. It had been so easy to get rid
of it. She picked up the other whole one and dropped it in her napkin. She would eat the last half,
she told herself, but she twirled her fork on her plate
and crossed her legs like an Indian, then uncrossed them and sat like a lady, and finally decided she
couldn't make herself eat the half if she didn't have to eat the rest. She tore at the corner of the
napkin with her fingers and made a line of tiny white balls that were ants marching to take her last
half of Brussels sprout away. When she dropped it into the white pocket of her napkin, she pretended
the white ants had eaten it. Her napkin bulged slightly,
but she threw it in the trash can anyway, lifting up the potato peels to hide it underneath. Thank you.
A master of fine arts candidate in acting at Indiana University, Eric Van Telen is about to complete
his second year of study. He was born and reared in Salt Lake City and grew up singing, playing the piano,
and acting. He received his BFA from the Utah State University in 2003 and acted professionally until
moving to Bloomington. His favorite roles include the MC in Cabaret, Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened
on the Way to the Forum, and George in Our Town. You may have seen him locally in the IU Theaters production,
The Scarlet Letter, Arcadia, Macbeth, and She Stoops to Conquer.
Eric represented the Bloomington chapter of the NSAL at the National Acting Competition in Hawaii last
year, and he will be joining the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespearean Festival for a second season
this summer. His performance for us this afternoon will include portions of Remember from A Little Night
Music, Yvonne's monologue from Art, and Martin Guerre from Martin Guerre.
Funny little games that we played, remember? The unexpected knock of the maid, remember? The wine that
made us both rather merry and oh so very frank. Ah, how we laughed. Ah, how we drank. You acquiesced
and the rest is a blank. What we did with your perfume, remember, darling? The condition of the room,
When we were through Our inventions were unique Remember, darling I was limping for a week You caught
the flu I'm sure it was you My friend Serge has bought a painting It's a canvas about
Five feet by four, white. The background is white, and if you screw up your eyes a little bit, you can
just make out some fine white diagonal lines. He'd been lusting after it for months, this painting,
this white painting with white lines, but just got ahold of it on Saturday. It's unsettled me. It's
filled me with some sort of indefinable unease. $200,000.
He's comfortable, but he's not rich. Just comfortable, and he spends $200,000 on this white painting
with white lines? I could have used a less aggressive tone. I could have been nicer. Even if it makes
me physically ill that my friend has bought this painting for $200,000, I should have been nicer.
From now on, I will be on my best behavior.
Satan's child.
know the man that they plead, as if a man can love on demand except his life is already planned. There's
no demon inside, just a man full of pride, for my old salmon died. Look. Look, I'm Martin Gare. Too
young to love, but still above the lie they live.
Father, I'm brave and from your grave you'll keep me strong.
Christopher Noctrab is completing his final semester at Indiana University, pursuing a Bachelor of Science
in ballet performance with an outside field in comparative literature. He is a member of Phi Eta Sigma
and the Golden Key Honor Societies. He originally trained under the guidance of his mother in his native
New York. During his years with the IU Ballet Theater, he has been featured in The Nutcracker, Sleeping
Beauty Act III, Cinderella, Winds from the South, Spring Waters, and Who Cares?
And he's also appeared in Serenade, Glassworks, Viva Vivaldi, and The Final Point. In addition, he has
performed in productions of the IU Theater and the IU Opera Theater, most notably as Puck, Benjamin
Britten's operatic staging of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and very recently, A Chorus Line. Christopher
performed as an apprentice with the Chautauqua Ballet Company in 2004 and received the diamond, the
Mark Diamond Award for best choreography for his work.
His first solo today will be the male variation from the Act III pas de deux of Swan Lake, Christopher Noctrath.
as a BFA in musical theater performance from Western Michigan University. After college, she did summer
theater in Colorado, where she met her husband John, and then soon afterwards moved to New York to begin
an acting career. Since then, she has appeared in a national tour of the NBC series, Ed, and in many
other productions. In 2004, she moved to Bloomington, where her husband is now getting an MFA from Indiana
University.
Since arriving here, she's played in the importance of being earnest at the Brown County Playhouse,
Bicentennial Babies at the Bloomington Player Arts Project, and the Cardinal Stage Company's production
of Our Town at the Buskirk Chumley Theatre. Her favorite role to date, however, is wife to John and
mother of son, Jack. For us today, Anginette will do monologues by Amanda from Nicky Silver's The Food
Chain and by Salome from Salome by Oscar Wilde.
and asks if I'm alone. I'm at a booth by myself. What, did he think I had my imaginary friend with me?
I was alone, you know? And I can't imagine that he's not alone every single day of his miserable, pathetic
life. He has bad skin and it's not attractive. I'm not the way that, you know, bad skin is attractive
on some people, on some men.
never attractive on women. Have you noticed that? Just one more of the injustices we are forced to face.
We have bad skin, we're grotesque. Let a man have bad skin and he can be Richard Burton for God's sake.
I'm straight. So, I simply respond, no, I'm married, thank you. Well, he leans back in really the most
super silliest manner. He says,
I meant, were you eating alone? I knew what you meant. I know what he meant. I would just like at some
point in my life to cling with whatever energy I have to my dignity. What have we got but our dignity?
Women are worthless in this world. Every aspect of our culture keeps us subjugated under the oppressive
thumb of the beauty myth. If you're attractive, congratulations.
because you own it all. You run the world. But God forbid you should have bad skin, or gain a pound,
or lose a leg, or in any other way deviate from what the magazines and the television and the government
and the oil companies who own all the other stuff to begin with. God forbid you should deviate from
what the president of Shell Oil decides is attractive.
Not that I'm unattractive, mind you. I just wasn't feeling very attractive today while I was being stared
at. I just stood there in that diner for what seemed like hours, and with all the composure and dignity
that I could muster, which was considerable, I said, I've changed my mind, thank you, and I left.
I was all the way on 43rd Street before I realized I'd left my purse. Thou wouldst not suffer me to
kiss thy mouth, your cannon. Well, I will kiss it now. I will bite it with my teeth.
as one bites a ripe fruit. But wherefore dost thou not look at me, O cannon? Thine eyes, that were so
terrible, so full of rage and scorn, are shut now. Wherefore are they shut? Lift up thine eyelids,
O cannon. Art thou afraid of me, that thou wilt not look at me?
serpent that spat its venom upon me. How is it that the red viper stirs no longer? Thou wouldst have
none of me, O Cammy. Thou didst speak evil words against me. Thou didst bear thyself towards me as to
a harlot, as to a woman that is a wanton to me, Salome, daughter
the man I loved alone among all men. My body was a column of ivory set upon feet of silver. My voice
was a sensor that scattered strange perfumes. And when I looked on thee, I heard strange music. Wherefore
didst thou not look at me? Thou didst put upon thine eyes the covering of him that would see his God.
Well, thou hast seen thy God, Yocannon. But me, me thou didst never see. I saw thee, and I loved thee.
Oh, I loved thee. I loved thee still, and what shall I do now?
thou wouldst have looked at me, thou wouldst have loved me. Well, I know thou wouldst have loved me,
and the mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.
From the native of New York, baritone Christopher Bolduck has completed his work on a Master of Music
degree at IU, and this summer he will perform the role of massette in Don Giovanni with Colorado's Central
City Opera. And then in the fall, he heads to Philadelphia, where he will be an artist at the Academy
of Vocal Arts. For two seasons, he was an apprentice at the Santa Fe Opera, where he covered massetto
in Don Giovanni and calchas in La Belle Hélène. The opera awarded him
Richard Tucker Music Foundation Award in 2003, and the Donald and Luke Graham Memorial Award in 2004
for his outstanding potential on the operatic stage. Christopher has also won prizes from numerous
organizations, including the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions at the Tri-State Region,
the Liederkranz Foundation Awards for Voice, the Fritz and Lavinia Jensen Competition, the Connecticut
Opera Guild Competition,
and the classical singer convention competition. Christopher is here this afternoon, but unfortunately
he cannot sing due to his doctor's orders. You will be able to meet him a little bit later when the
awards are presented, however. We will now take a short break. The restrooms are out the door and across
the hall for those who need to use them. And I've been asked to ask you to please be back in your seats
in seven minutes time. Thank you.
Come on, Ms. Norris. You've got three seconds. Returning to our program, we begin with a reading by
the poet Robin Vogelsang. Robin comes from Jericho, Vermont, and is a fourth-year graduate student in
the English department at IU, pursuing both a PhD in American literature and an MFA in creative writing.
She loves to travel and has lived in Austria, England, and Spain.
She translates from Catalan and is currently working on a book project of translation of Catalan poetry.
Her poetry weaves together her interests in music, language, philosophy, and religion, as well as cognitive
and anatomical science. For her, poetry is a way to allow words to bear the full weight of their multiple
meanings and sounds, an exploration of the familiar by making it new. She will read three of her poems for us.
Three poems are from a series about the life of Wilson Bentley, who was a Vermont farmer from my hometown
who invented a way to combine a microscope and a camera and discovered that no two snowflakes are alike.
Wilson Snowflake Bentley, age 16. It's a question I like to think on when bailing hay or sugaring maples
yoked by sap buckets. The singularity
of snowflakes. Clouds make such quantity of crystals that surely a few might repeat. But the more I
worry it, the more I'm certain. Each is unique, miracle made to melt. Grandmother's lace doesn't compare,
though I study those orderly asterisks, too. I've looked at hundreds, thousands maybe, under my mother's
old microscope from teaching days, best present of my life.
Other boys play with pop guns or slingshots, but I watch water drops or feathers from a bird wing, tiny
stones, everything veined or slivered under my lens. Mary Blood sometimes watches me with solemn gleaming
eyes. She doesn't mind the cold when I'm at work. She likes to peer into the scope. I tell Mary Blood
to go inside or at least wrap up in a wool barn coat.
but she prefers to wait with her straight spine, observes the movements of my mittened hands. My parents
took in Mary Blood when she was nine, her mother sick with the cancer and her father with three girls.
That was last year and ever since she finds time to watch despite the chores. Her eyes could ruin the
crystals just by looking they've got so much fire. But they're spangled enough to remake the snowflake
she melted.
On the coldest day, I told her, even your name won't warm you, Mary Blood, and she went inside. She's
unique for sure, and I want her with me, but I'm nervous when she's here. Best times is winter, snow,
silent ticker tape spin, hat throw hurrah just for me and my scope. I look and sketch, wonder if I'll
ever find one crystal's twin, knowing I won't.
So I hope for snow every day I wake, which in our Vermont Valley sometimes comes late as May, which
is sometimes my name for Mary. Seance. In High Spirits, Mother tells us to look for her after she passes,
says, sleep in my bedroom and I'll visit you in the night. Don't cover the mirrors. My nieces giggle,
but such jests don't make me smile. She's been sick too much.
My mother Fanny, school teacher who taught me all she knew, who cajoled my father from microscope money,
who always believed in truths of science, who hardly went to the congregational church on the green
in Jericho, now hosts seances, which want things to float up, knocks to sound in the silence. Around
a table in a darkened room, heavy with cloth and closed eyes, hands and breath held
Voices more present for being of the past. When the ladies gather, I leave the house for my own divining
out of doors. Like a dowser with his split stick pointed to the sky, I see freshets and streams of snow
crystals to come, vibrate, and spin my eyes. Lenses almost adept enough to magnify flakes in motion
to see what floats down as a beckon.
Snowflakes break more often than you may think. In fact, they're just clumps, conglomerate crystals
that fracture and smash in jostling as they fall, sky-crowded shoulder to crystalline shoulder, ghosts
bumping elbows in midair. In a light, dry flurry, a crystal might find its way alone. It's what I hunt,
the perfect lonely sample, unbroken and ripe for a phantasmic shudder click.
I hold out my homemade tray, painted black for the catch, handles wired to keep body heat apart. When
I spot that tiny cog wheel, I prod gently with a broom straw until it sticks and drop it onto the microscope
slide, adjust the depth and bellows, photograph my subject, Sunday soul in the parlor. Silver Screen.
In high winter when the road is snowed over,
I can't go out to see the pictures with Mary Pickford and her feisty smile or Laura LaPlante's clever
grin. Stars like Mary Miles Minter have a symmetry to their mouths. They shine a singular light. Right
here in Jericho, Helen Shiner's light is her tidy mouth, teeth arrayed like snow, and just as grand
as those in motion picture. Snipping them out, I've noticed no two smiles are alike.
Whether local charmers or starlets, their secret beauty is the lips' curved symmetry. Helen, though
just a girl, loves the symmetry of the universe as I do. The northern lights enchanted her, as did my
trove of snowflakes, magnified, collected in mirror-etched pictures. She favored delicate, lacy ones,
and her smiles were bright as when we'd telescoped the stars.
But much as I'm fond of those grinning stars, human company wants something of symmetry. Preferable
the prism of crisp morning light, my daily hunt to capture fast-falling snow, stilled by silver nitrate
onto glass plate pictures. The small mouths of snowflakes always smile. I can't see much beyond a woman's
smiles, so it's best to admire the silver screen's stars.
I suppose marriage makes a kind of symmetry, but I have always worked by solitary light, and my only
real sweetheart is the snow. Six-sided valentines are versed in my pictures. I haven't seen her in years,
not even a picture, but the best I ever saw was Mary Blood's smile. Her eyes were fire, her eyes were
always stars. Maybe her life has forged its own symmetry. Just look how her and Charles's wedded light
was overexposed.
a union cold as snow. In clipped cameos and snow crystal pictures, I can hold the silver smile of moving
stars, their silent speech, and symmetry of light. Thank you. Christopher Noctreb returns now to dance
his second number. This is a jazz piece.
Too Darn Hot and is choreographed by George Penny.
I like to coo with my baby tonight And pitch the woo with my baby tonight I like to coo with my baby
tonight And pitch the woo with my baby tonight
The thermometer goes way up, and the weather is sizzlin' hot. Mr. Gov, for his squad. A Marine,
for his queen. A GI, for his cutie pie is not.
It's too darn hard. It's too darn hard.
I think George Penny deserves a round of applause too. Vanessa Ballem is finishing her third and final
year in the MFA acting program at IU. Her credits here include major roles in Macbeth, The Cherry Orchard
and Pal Joey, and appearances in the ensembles in Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris
and The Laramie Project. A recording artist with covenant communications,
Vanessa currently studies with Patricia Wise in the IU Jacobs School of Music. She's a former Miss Utah
and received the Burke Parks Talent Award in the Miss America Pageant. She's been a recurrent performer
with the Utah Festival Opera, the Old Lyric Repertory Company, and the Utah Shakespearean Festival.
After graduation, she can be seen playing Desdemona in the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival's production
of Othello.
Today, Vanessa will be doing monologues by Cynthia from Reality by Curtis Cook and by Martine from Molière's
The Learned Ladies. Please welcome Vanessa Vallum. We've been married for five years, and I love you
more than I love myself.
I'm sorry that I can't give you what you want. I know that you say that it doesn't matter and in time
it will take care of itself, but I look in your eyes when we make love and I see how much it means to
you. I see you almost wishing for it. Maybe this will be the time if I just hold her a little tighter,
if I just love her a little more. I see that, Jimmy.
and I feel it inside of me. I want a baby as much as you do, and I'm so afraid that you're going to
leave me. I know that you say that you don't want to, but part of me feels that if you did, you'd have
every right to. Don't! Jimmy, please don't.
asking when we're going to have a baby and I keep saying that we're just not ready. That we just don't
want a child right now. That's a lie. And they know it's a lie and they laugh. Well, they're not laughing,
but I can hear them laughing at us. They don't know how much I love you and you love me. They don't
know how much pain we're going through. They just know they're books.
And there, TV shows that point and blame and find alternate methods, other ways of doing what's natural,
what was meant to be done with the one that you love, the way that God meant it to be done. They make
me so angry. The ones that have no right having babies, three or four children, no money, three or four
different men, children, dirty and crying,
They shouldn't have that child. I should. I want a baby and I can't have one, but they have three or
four. Three or four. I have none. Zero. None. And it makes me angry. Makes me want to hurt them. To
hurt their baby.
she had no right to having that child and I don't have one. She is a whore. She sleeps with so many
men. She's sick. Her baby is sick, but she has one. I have none. Now she has none because I don't want
her to have one. If I can't, she can't. If I can't, I did it for you, Jimmy.
we don't have to watch her coming to church every Sunday with that sick baby that we don't have.
It was wrong. It was so wrong, but I couldn't stop myself. I just, I just jumped down there and stopped
it from breathing. I just, I jumped down and I covered its mouth as everybody yells
I did mean it. I killed her baby. It just ain't right for the wife to run the shop. The man, I say,
should always be on top, though I've sacked
Ten times for saying so. Its cocks, not hens, should be the ones to crow. If I had a husband, I wouldn't
wish for him to be all meek and womanish. No, no. He'd be the captain of my ship. And if I happened
to give him any lip or crossed him,
He'd be right to slap my face a time or two to put me in my place. The master's heart is rightly set
on finding a proper man for Henriette. Well then, here's Pletandra. Why deny the girl a fine young man
like he? And why give her a learned fool who prates and drones? She needs a husband, not a bag of bones
who'll teach her
I tell you, just don't suit her. Talk! Talk, as all these pedants know how to do. If I had a husband,
I've always said it wouldn't be no learned man I'd wed. Wit is not the thing you need around the house,
and it's no joy to have a bookish spouse. When I get married, you can bet your life
My man will study nothing but his wife. He'll have no other book to read but me and won't, so please
you, ma'am, no eggs.
Born in Ukraine, Marina Rosnitovsky immigrated to Israel when she was six years old, and she began studying
the harp at the age of 12. She earned her Bachelor of Music from Indiana University under distinguished
professor of harp, Suzanne McDonald, and she is currently pursuing a master's degree at IU
in harp performance and pedagogy. She has received the American Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship
four consecutive times,
as well as a number of other awards from the Dooney Wiseman Conservatory in Haifa, Israel. Marina has
performed with a number of professional orchestras in Israel and the United States, and several of her
performances have been broadcast on national Israeli television. She plans to follow a career of teaching
and performing as a soloist and orchestral harpist. She will play Abesidoles by Bernard Andres.
Armstrong is in his second year in the MFA acting program at Indiana University. He began his career
at IU in 1996 and graduated with a degree in musical theater. During his undergraduate years, he had
major roles in Into the Woods, The Pirates of Penzance, and Parade. Since returning to IU, he has had
key roles in the Indiana University Theater's productions of Dracula, Happy Birthday, Wanderdune,
Pal Joey, Falsettos, and Our Country's Good.
as well as at the Brown County Playhouse in the production of Forever Played. His non-IU credits include
roles in the productions of Into the Woods by the Rocky Mountain Repertory Theater in Grand Lake, Colorado,
where he met his wife, and Company by the Broward Stage Door Theater in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as
well as the National Touring Company of Seussical the Musical. But thus far, he claims his favorite
roles would have to be husband to Anjanette and father to Jack. Who wrote the script?
David. His performance today will include parts of Undressing Girls from So Long, 174th Street, Alan's
monologue from The Lion That Picked Up A Thousand Babes, and me from Beauty and the Beast.
that you'll never breathe a word. What I'm about to tell you now, Marvin, promise you'll forget you
ever heard. Each time I see a girl walking down the street, I start undressing her with my eyes. It
doesn't seem to matter what girl I meet, I start undressing her with my eyes. Her every who's and what's
in that thingamabob
Inside my head I visualize I must be a pervert or a sexual deviator Day and night my brain is just a
non-stop burlesque theater You think a guy can stop me tries But it's out of control now I start undressing
girls with my eyes Sales girls and waitresses and relations too I start undressing them with my eyes
Without so much as even a how do you do I start undressing them with my eyes
I do it every day to a thousand girls of every shape and color and size. Cindy Dorfman, Jenny Greenblatt,
even her sister Sheila. One time in that movie show, I did it to Ruby Keeler. Boy, would my mother get
a surprise. She would die if she found out. I start undressing girls with mine. How I'm undressing girls
with mine. I keep undressing girls with my eyes. I'm a nice guy.
I'm a really nice guy. And I say that, not because I think it's true, but because that's what everybody
says. I mean, if you ask any girl who's known me for more than a week, that's how she'll describe me.
Oh, Alan? Oh, he's a nice guy. And they say that because, well, you know nice guys, right? They don't
try to hurt people, try to be a gentleman, and treat people right, because that's what we learn girls
are attracted to. They want to be treated right, right?
I mean, if you get girls together and get them talking about guys, you know, they'll dream you up a
perfect gentleman. But in real life? Okay, that's very different, because if you get girls together
and get them talking about real guys, not figments of their imagination, but real people, what do you
get? Men are stupid, and men are scumbags, and men are slime. And you'll notice how all those words
start with the letter S, and I think there's something to that. But anyway, guys are all these S words.
You know, all these and more, but who
girls date. You know, who comes on to them at the bars? And who do they go home with? The scumbags!
The slime! And then when they get hurt, and they always do, they call me up to confide in me because,
long go, we decided that we were just gonna be friends. I swear, you girls need to get a whole
new vocabulary, okay? You've started so many cliches, it's not even funny. So anyway, these girls call
me up and they say, Allen, Allen! Oh, guys, they're slime!
And then they realize they're talking to a guy, and they say, oh, except you, Alan. You're a nice guy.
And when you find a girlfriend, she's going to be so lucky. But it can't be me, because I'm attracted
to guys who are going to shit all over me. So great. Now I've got all the friends I need. So why should
I be a nice guy anymore, huh? Yeah, I think I'll be a scumbag now. Yeah, I think I'll learn some stupid
pick-up lines and use them on girls who are dressed to get laid. I think I'll be proud of how loud I
can belch.
And I think I'll use women like the Black and Decker screwdrivers because obviously that's what they
really want to hear. So, oh great, great. Life begins now. Come on, babe. Let's go back to my house
and do it. I can see that we will share all that love implies. We shall be the perfect pair, rather
like my voice. You are face to face with destiny.
Thanks.
Back again is Stephanie Lampe who will be representing the Bloomington Chapter at the National NSAL
Dance Competition. This time she will dance the variation with fan from Don Quixote.
is in her final year of a Master of Music program at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music,
where she is a student of Costanza Cucaro. She received her B.M. from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music,
where she had roles in many productions, including Alcina, Die Fledermaus, The Rape of Lucretia, and
The Barted Bride. At IU, she has sung in the Magic Flute, The Merry Widow, and Cosy Fan Tutte.
Vera spent two summers at the Chautauqua Institute, where she was seen in A Midsummer Night's Dream
and Le Mamel de Teresias. Today, she will sing an aria from Semera Midi by Rossini.
That concludes our performances. Now I will turn things over to David Albright, President of the Bloomington
Chapter of the NSAL. He will introduce the area chairs who will in turn present the awards to all the
award winners in the 2006 NSAL competitions. It has been a pleasure being with you, and I wish you all
a very good afternoon. Before I proceed, I want to say
We really should give Murray a big, big hand. And I also want to thank our underwriters again, John
and Beth Drews and George and Kathy Koenig. They have been very generous with us. Now, as you know,
competitions don't play
take place without hard, lengthy work. And our area chairmen have really, really labored in the vineyards
this year, some very difficult competitions and so forth. I'm going to introduce all of the chairmen,
then in each case, one of them will wind up making the presentations. Our visual arts chairs have been
Kathy Kornak,
Lady Finkelstein, Gladys Devane, and Jane Otten. Kathy will make the presentations. Thank you, David.
We have a wonderful art show downstairs and I do hope everyone joins us there after this program along
with the reception. We do not have any white paintings with white diagonal stripes and none of them
are worth $200,000 but we have some wonderful paintings and each one is tagged and has the price on it.
that the artists would like to receive for it. We had 32 artists that entered 57 works of art in the
competition with slides. We narrowed those down to 20 artists with 28 pieces of work, and those are
in the show downstairs. And I want to thank my co-chairs, Linda Finkelstein
Glass Devane and Jane Otten for all the work they helped with, and the judges who were Robert Kingsley,
Betsy Stewart, and Lydia Finkelstein. And I also want to thank all the wonderful donors that donated
money for the awards. Now I'm going to call the artists up here, visual artists up here, and if you'd
come and stand here, I'd appreciate it. It's Melanie Lawrence, Ann Potter,
Ari Pescovitz, Michelle Rosic, Gregory Witt, and Jessica Held. If you'll kind of line up the way I called
you so that I don't get confused, but I'm giving the awards out.
Now, I will give the awards out, and I will ask that you hold your applause for all of them until afterwards.
To Melanie Lawrence, went the Klein Merit Award. Congratulations, Melanie. To Anne Potter, went the
Shiner Merit Award. Congratulations, Anne. To Irie Paskowitz, went the Alma Eichmann Memorial Award.
Congratulations, Ari. To Michelle Rosick went the Nur Primo Merit Award. Congratulations, Michelle.
To Gregory Witt went the Chris Kahn Merit Award and a Pygmalion gift certificate. The gift certificate's
not in here, but we will give it to you. Congratulations.
To Jessica Held, went the Rosemary Frazier Merit Award, and also a Pygmalion gift certificate.
And as I said, we don't have the gift certificates yet, but we will get them to you. And to Amy Klein,
who didn't come up. Oh, I'm sorry. And Amy Klein won our chapter award. I'm sorry. Congratulations to you.
Joanne Athanas and Mary Stroh were our dance chairs and boy did they work. Mary will do the presentations
for the dance.
As you've heard, this year the focus of the national competition is dance. And it was a little bit different
this year because we had the ballet element, but we also had a contemporary dance and a jazz element
as well. So the dancers had to be quite versatile in all the styles. Stephanie and Chris, where are
you? Come.
while they're coming up. The local competition was held on February 5th in the IU School of Hyper Dance
Studio. And they had, all the participants had classes in ballet, contemporary, and jazz. And they also
performed a classical ballet variation as well as an original piece of jazz or contemporary dance choreography.
I'd like to say many thanks to our three judges who were David Ho Choi. He is artistic director of Dance
Kaleidoscope. Alan Jones, former artistic director of the Louisville Ballet and a prolific choreographer.
And Cynthia Pratt, who is a dance faculty member from Butler University. And we had teachers from our own NSAL
gang, George Penny and Liz Shea and Violette Verity. It now gives me great pleasure to present these
two awards. Winner of the Robert Sullivan Memorial Award, the Marjorie K. Borkenstein Memorial Award,
and the Violette Verity Merit Award, Christopher Nochtraub.
And winner of the Mrs. Granville Wells Memorial Award and the Lila and Stephen Hughes Travel Award,
Stephanie Lamp.
Our Drama Award Chair is Marilyn Norris, and Marilyn will do the presentations. I think she will refuse
to use the microphone, but that's Marilyn. Will you please come on stage?
is the interaction of the voice of the heart with the voice of the soul. Few arts better realize Yates'
definition of art than does theater. And of the 31 very talented competitors in the drama competition
this year, the three judges acknowledge these actors as those who best realize that synthesis of the
voice of the heart.
and the voice of the son. Our congratulations, and we ask again that you hold the applause until they
have all received the awards, go for the Roy Matten House Memorial Award to Rebecca Falkenberry.
Congratulations. Yes. The Hersamalas Merit Award to Zachary Spicer.
Rocket, Carol Moody, and Fran Snig Memorial Award to John Armstrong. The Laura Shiner Memorial Award
to Anjanette Hull Armstrong. And the Chapter Career Award in Drama to Vanessa
Congratulations. Thank you. The literature chair this year stayed right in my home, I guess. My wife
was all right.
Thank you, David, and thank you for having me in your home. Thirty-one wonderful young writers entered
the competition this year and they submitted, one was a playwright and several submitted novels, some
submitted poetry, short stories. We even had several high school students enter the competition.
I want to thank the judges this year, Dorian Gossie, Mary McGann, and Roger Finxton, who did a wonderful
job of sorting through the excellent entries and coming up with our winners this year. Will all of the
literature winners please come forward? I'm not going to read your names in case I skip one, so I leave
it to you to know if you're a literature winner. For the first time this year, we had two winners from Purdue.
University and our competition. Okay, the Bachman Merit Award goes to Elizabeth Snow, who I think is
not here. I did not see that her name tag was picked up. I do see you are Brian, right? We do have one
Purdue person here. The Albright Merit Award goes to Ann Timberlake. Ann, congratulations.
Josephine K. Piercy Memorial Award and the Wilson Merit Award goes to Michelle Ross. And Michelle is
not here. Michelle has won probably four or five awards in our literature competition over the years.
This is her last competition because our age limit stops at 29 and she's about to turn 30.
Anyway, congratulations to Michelle. The O'Mara Merit Award and the Will H. Hayes Junior Memorial Award
to Brian Dunn, who is one of our Purdue winners.
I'm delighted, and I hope Purdue keeps entering our competition. And I hope we may just stay in Bloomington
Pleasant. We don't always with Purdue visitors. The Roy Battenhouse Memorial Award goes to Christina
Harvey. Congratulations. And our Chapter Career Award goes to Robin Vogelsang.
The music chair this year was Stan Hamilton, and I'm going to let him tell you what kind of dilemmas
that he confronted in conducting this competition, which incidentally included both instrumental and
voice. Thank you very much, David. Will the music award winners please come and join me at the podium?
without your names being called. And as usual, we request that the applause be held until we're finished.
David asked me to summarize the wonderful difficulties in the 47 auditioners for the two days of music
auditions. Perhaps a comment regarding one of the prize winners will tell you, if you don't already know,
of the talent and perseverance, and I should say charm, that all of our student of music bring to the
competition. The one musician whom I know, who I know is not here, Zhao Zhang, who is a winner of the
Margaret Bueller White Memorial Award, she is in Beijing at the International Flute Competition. So
I think that in alone self suffices to tell you of the difficulties of our judges.
Winning the Hatfield Merit Award is Nino Cocharella. Is Nino here? No. Winner of the Jacobi Merit Award,
the McDonald Merit Award, and the Davis Merit Award is Mark Chapman. Congratulations, Mark. Winner of
the Barbara Merit Award and the Tatlock Merit Award is Yunbei Li. Congratulations.
Winner of the Donald Felton Award is Christia Starnes. Winner of the Caldwell Merit Award and
the Stavropoulos Merit Award is Christopher Bolduc. We couldn't hear today, but he's kindly graced us
with his silent presence. Winner of the Ralston Merit Award is Vera Savage.
And winner of the chapter career award is Marina Rosnitovsky.
And needless to say that the chair of our musical theater competition is George Penny. That's monster
of a choreographer for Christopher Noctav. Thank you. With the musical theater award winners, please approach.
There were 23 entries in this year's competition. Our judges were from the Indiana Repertory Theater,
Richard Roberts and Megan McKinney, who was a past winner of the NSAL in drama. The Albright Merit Award,
Alexander Meisner. The Scott Berges Jones Tribute Award, Amy Linden.
Rory Battenhouse Memorial Award, Jesse Burnett. The Caldwell Merit Award, Kinzington Blaylock, who's
in a performance of quilters in Evansville, Indiana. And they are just going down, I have the feeling.
The Robinson Merit Award and Governor Merit Award, Eric Van Telen. And the Chapter Career Award, John
Armstrong.
concludes our awards and I want to congratulate all the award winners and to remind them of two things.
That we are having a reception which Lenore Hatfield and her helpers have put together and we really
would like to have you spend some time with us and so that we can tell you how much we enjoyed your
performances.
and how much we enjoyed your exhibit and the arts exhibit. I also should tell you that you might keep
in mind that this year has been kind of banner year. We've had a former award winner from this chapter,
who got her first break here, debut at the Metropolitan Opera,
And we just had another young man who got his first break here, too, won the Richard Tucker $30,000
prize. So with that, let me say that we hope you all have bright shining futures. Will all of the award
winners stay very briefly here so we can get a group picture of you? We'd like to post our award winners
on our website. With that, I bid you
Good afternoon.