Category: Entertainment

Photos by Alex Gross

Actor Luke Scaros (pictured above) and director Zoe Crankshaw produced the James McLure play as their senior project for Ohio Wesleyan’s theatre department with freshman Daniel Haygood and sophomore Reggie Hemphill  in supporting roles.

“Lone Star” follows brothers Roy (Scaros) and Ray (Haygood, above left) through a night of drunken revelations complicated by uncomfortable acquaintance Cletis (Hemphill).

My brothers and I have been fans of Chance the Rapper since his first mixtape, “10 Day,” dropped in 2011. So when our friend, a sophomore at Ohio State University, got us tickets to Chance’s OSU performance at the LC Pavilion Monday night, we jumped at them.

When Chance the Rapper came on stage, he reminded me and everyone else why this 21-year old mixtape king is already doing national tours. His first step onstage wasn’t so much a step at all; it was a leap. Chance is, apparently, his own hype man. The way the crowd started screaming and chanting “Chance the Rapper, Chance the Rapper,” it was obvious that Chance needs no formal introduction. He started with a few tunes from his “10 Day” mixtape before moving on to his “Acid Rap” mixtape songs, a few throwbacks to his early works and a cover of “Wonderful Day,” the theme song to the PBS cartoon “Arthur.”

“I guess I should properly introduce myself,” he said to the crowd. Taking a brief  bow as if he was the conductor of an orchestra, he continued.

“My name is Chance the Rapper, and I’m here today to sing you a couple of songs from my new mixtape.”

Chance sounded exactly like I wanted him to; when he began singing, his voice was as clear and as personal as it is while I sit at my computer and blast his full album on YouTube. His voice isn’t the only thing that rings clear, though. The political commentary in his songs hit me with a stronger impact than any other rapper I’ve ever seen (a list that includes Nas, Most Def and Lupe Fiasco).

“They murder kids out here. Get Matt Lauer in here, Katie Couric in here,” he rapped about his hometown of Chicago in his song “Paranoia.”

When Chance is performing, he is highly attentive to his audience. He would often stop talking to throw a “woo hoo” at the audience, to which they would respond with a “woo hoo” to be returned to him. At one point in the show, Chance called out those on their phones, saying, “It’s cool if you want to film the show, but be part of the show.”

Chance has an incredible ability to entertain. Labeling himself solely as a rapper really doesn’t do him justice whatsoever; by doing so, he’s selling himself short.

The new mural in the amphitheater beside the Hamilton-Williams Campus Center uses symbolism and a painting technique called pointillism to celebrate “the diversity of people and cultures on this campus,” said senior Kerrigan Boyd, moderator of Citizens of the World House.

The mural was painted the weekend of Oct. 24 and was a collaborative effort between the Student Led Art Movement and Citizens of the World House, who brought in artist and muralist Jacque Fragua to help with the project.

Fragua is a Native American artist who works for Honor The Treaties, which is an organization that uses art and advocacy to amplify the voices of indigenous communities, according to their website.

Boyd said Fragua visited campus last semester to speak about his use of art as a tool for activism. She and her housemates were inspired by his speech, so Boyd reached out to the president of SLAM, senior (not sure about this…) Catie Beach.

“Catie actually said she had been wanting to do a mural too, so it was just kind of a series of perfect events that aligned very well,” Boyd said.

Boyd and Beach won October’s You Are OWU award for their work on the mural.

WCSA provided the funds for the project, and Boyd said they were “really supportive and generous.”

Boyd said there were a lot of administrative levels the project had to be approved on, but the process would have been much more challenging at a bigger school.

“Craig Ullom (Vice President of Student Affairs) and Sally Leber (Director of Service Learning) really championed the project and took it to the proper levels to where it needed to be,” Boyd said.

She said the amphitheater was chosen as the mural’s location because it was unutilized and the subject of the mural was based off Fragua’s work, which is focused on social justice.

“We know that’s broad, but it’s also a theme I think really unites us on campus, so we wanted the mural to be an expression of that,” Boyd said.

Both artistic and non-artistic students were invited to contribute to the mural and Boyd said she was “blown away” by how many people participated.

“I went to class on Friday until 1 and I came back and there was already so much on the wall,” Boyd said. “I think it really speaks to the inclusivity of the theme.”

The mural was painted in the style of pointillism, which Boyd said doesn’t require extensive knowledge of painting, but makes for beautiful art.

Freshman Ellen Sizer, a member of SLAM, said pointillism is a painting technique that uses small dots of colors in a pattern to create an overall image and is an offshoot of impressionism.

“I think it was genius because people who aren’t as artistically gifted can still contribute and the mural can look rad,” Sizer said.

Sizer compared the effect of pointillism to a city landscape, saying the view from far away is very different from the view up close.

“I was afraid that I’d screw it (the mural) up, but I did contribute a little bit,” Sizer said. “It was fun to just watch the process more than anything.”

Boyd said she is happy with how the mural turned out and wants to thank everyone who contributed.

One of her favorite aspects of the mural is its symbolism.

“He (Fragua) based it loosely on indigenous bead work,” Boyd said. “The metaphor for each bead is that each piece stands alone but comes together to make something beautiful and united as a whole.”

The Night Owl is an online-only literary publication started at Ohio Wesleyan and serves as a place “where fellow lovers of reading and writing can converge,” said managing editor Elizabeth Riggio ’14.

The publication is a way to maintain connections with OWU writers after they graduate, said professor of creative writing and Night Owl consulting editor Robert Olmstead.

“Professor Caplan and I have always talked about ways to better keep up with our poets and writers as they move on from OWU,” Olmstead said. “The idea of a very simple online literary journal seemed appropriate, a place for those people to gather.”

He said the Night Owl “quietly debuted” on May 1, 2014, and so far the response has been overwhelming. Submissions to the publication have come from all over the world. Many of the Night Owl’s writers and reviewers are OWU alumni, reaching as far back as ’99, but many are not even academics.

“We have a college administrator from Wisconsin, a baseball umpire from Oregon, a painting contractor from Florida, a medical writer from Idaho, a fitness instructor from Pennsylvania,” Olmstead said.

He said the Night Owl has a strong presence with publishers, receiving literature for review almost every day. These works are fiction, poetry, history, biography and culture.

All the books assigned for review are first read by Olmstead, and then he chooses each book’s reviewer based on who he thinks would most enjoy reading it.

“Over the last ten years, book reviews have really dried up, so we are doing a small part in filling that need,” Olmstead said. “There’s something about getting your hands on a book six months or a year before it is published. Book writers are the first onto the truth, followed by journals, newspapers and television in that order. You’d think it might be the other way around, but it isn’t. The slowest is first.”

Riggio said she became involved with the Night Owl at Olmstead’s request, and as managing editor she reviews and edits submissions, as well as manages the website.

Riggio, who is currently teaching in South Korea, has recently begun an “occasional contribution” called Dispatches.

“These Dispatches are a type of travel writing, similar to a blog, about my experiences and reflections in South Korea,” Riggio said. “We would like for the Dispatches to be a section of the Night Owl in which people can submit from anywhere in the world.”

She said she posts weekly, depending on submissions, and dedicates about five or six hours a week to the publication.

“To me, the spirit of the Night Owl permeates my daily life and so it feels less like a project with set hours and more like a constant process as a writer, thinker, and editor—one that I truly enjoy,” Riggio said.

She said it has been a privilege to learn from the writers who submit to the Night Owl and from Olmstead, a professor and writer she admires and respects.

Senior Marta Del Cid is an IT assistant for Information Services and handles the technical side of the Night Owl website, supporting Riggio and Olmstead with website issues and design layout questions. Riggio said Del Cid has been “extremely instrumental” in the process of setting up the site.

“I would recommend students visit the site,” Del Cid said. “It truly has been a pleasure working alongside Elizabeth (Riggio) and Mr. Olmstead to create a strong website for literary work.”

Newest submissions appear at the top of the website and there are no advertisements, comment sections, or bright colors.

“Night Owl is about focusing on the art of the written word without the unnecessary and distracting bells and whistles,” Riggio said. “You will be hard-pressed to find a publication like this.”

To access the Night Owl, go to nightowl.owu.edu.

More than fifty people filled the Jemison Auditorium on Sunday to hear Audra Thompson play french horn and Meg Linebaugh sing during their senior recital.

Thompson was the first to perform, and she played three pieces by Dukas, Gliere, and Mozart, respectively.

“The first movement (of the Mozart piece) was my audition piece for Ohio Wesleyan,” Thompson said. “The second movement was my very first solo ever. In 7^th grade I went to solo and ensemble with it.”

Thompson has been playing the french horn for ten years. She started when she needed to choose an instrument for band class, and her family owned a 100-year old horn made in Germany that they kept in their basement.

“I was always told ‘Don’t touch that horn. Don’t mess with it,’ so whenever I thought my mom was gone I’d go mess with it.”

To prepare for her senior recital, Thompson rehearsed with the accompanist and took lessons with Kim McCann. Thompson said they guided her and taught her to not just play the notes on the paper, but to learn what the notes were intended for.

Thompson said she liked that the french horn is a less common instrument.

“It’s also an instrument that can be not only represented as the hero but also the villain in music, because of its majestic and human voice-like quality.

Freshman Nicole Rozsa attended the recital for a music appreciation class and said it was “really nice listening to a solo piece.”

Linebaugh, a mezzo-soprano, performed nine songs after the intermission. The first two were in German, followed by two in French, two in Italian and three in English.

Linebaugh said the music was chosen because it was technically challenging and she practiced by studying the translations of her music and “just getting comfortable with the performance aspect of it.”

“I liked the way she showed emotion when she sang and just everything in general,” said sophomore attendee Spencer Harris.

Linebaugh began singing in the second grade. She said she grew up singing show tunes around the house with her mom and watching musicals.

“I always loved when we sang in music class in grade school, then in second grade I sang at a school Christmas party. After that they were like ‘Wow you can sing,’ and it just went from there.”

Linebaugh said she loved to sing because she can take on another character and express herself.

“Music has this special ability to capture emotions and to really touch people in a unique way,” she said.

Junior Christopher MacDonald is one of seven students directing freshman in short scenes excerpted from longer plays.

MacDonald is directing Kacie Iuvara and Chris Shanley, in “Vanna and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” a play written by Christopher Durang. Iuvara is a theatre major, and Shanley said he is thinking about pursuing a theatre minor.

“The play is about four siblings, two of whom are staying in their dead parent’s house,” MacDonald said. “I chose this play because it’s so over-the-top — there are a lot of heightened emotions, so you can really have a lot of fun with it. Kind of like a soap opera.”

“One reason I like this piece so much is because I get to break a mug on stage,” Iuvara said.

MacDonald said he was first inspired to direct this piece after seeing it performed in Los Angeles.

Another director, Gabriel Caldwell, is the first sophomore to take the directing class in a long time. Caldwell said he began his directing career in high school at the Columbus School for Girls.

Caldwell grew up in Columbus, Ohio, where he started the theatre department at his high school during his junior year. He is now majoring in theatre and education.

For the Freshman Scenes, Caldwell is directing two freshmen, Matthew Pheneger and Charlie Lennon, in “The History Boys,” written by Alan Bennett. Caldwell said the piece is filled with sexual tension.

“The piece has very dry, very British humor,” Caldwell said. “It’s like a gin martini your friends are making you drink, but you really don’t want to,” Caldwell described of his piece.

Caldwell said the reason he loves the Freshman Scenes idea is because it helps the freshmen learn how to “ really delve into the characters,” he said.

The Freshman Scenes will be performed this coming Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Chappellear Drama Center. There is no charge and is open to the public.