Everything Nac

An old red and black speckled brick sits among the papers and notebooks on the desk of Stephen F. Austin State University Professor of Theatre Rick Jones.

It’s a great conversation piece, but more importantly, it serves as a reminder for Jones that teaching students the historical importance of Irish Theatre has greater impact in Ireland than in a classroom in Nacogdoches. It also reminds him of the significance of being in the right place at the right time.

The 352-year-old brick is from the original Smock Alley Theatre, constructed in 1662 in Dublin, Ireland, and it was given to Jones four years ago while he was taking a group of SFA theatre students on a tour of Ireland as part of a theatre course he teaches.

Jones was standing outside Dublin’s Smock Alley Theatre, the oldest brick building in Ireland and the first purpose-built theatre in the English-speaking world that’s still standing. A number of significant events in Irish theatre took place there. Jones was explaining to students its history of becoming a warehouse, then a Catholic Church, then a Viking “adventureland” before its rescue by a cultural trust wanting to restore it back to its theatrical grandeur, when a man who had been seated at a nearby café approached him.

The man happened to be Kristian Marken, the director of the Smock Alley Theatre Studio at the time and manager of the building’s renovation. He offered to give Jones and his students a tour of the magnificent building, which was off-limits to the public at the time. The group was so awestruck and appreciative of this one-on-one attention that Marken, who is now director of the Smock Alley Players, gave Jones one of the original bricks.

Those kinds of once-in-a-lifetime experiences make cultural immersion courses invaluable to students, and as a result, another Ireland trip is in store for 11 SFA theatre students in June.

Every other summer since 2006, Jones has taken a Summer I theatre class to Ireland where students see Irish plays performed in famous theatres, tour historic sites, and participate in workshops and seminars with noted artists, scholars and theatre administrators.

“It’s an opportunity for the students to see where things happened as opposed to me just telling them,” Jones said.

The course begins with two weeks in the classroom where students read plays and Jones lectures on them and Irish history. After that, the group will leave for Dublin and Galway June 8 and return June 25.

“We will see a lot of shows, predominantly Irish plays, as a group,” said Jones, whose specialty is Irish theatre, having completed his doctoral dissertation on that subject. “But the students are also required to experience other cultural events on their own time, such as going to art galleries. We will be learning everything we can about the entirety of the culture.”

Students in the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Theatre will add another element of excitement to all the fun those attending the Texas Blueberry Festival will experience June 14 in downtown Nacogdoches.

Theatre students will appear in costumes portraying popular characters from fairy tales and children’s stories. Children (and adults) will have the opportunity to talk with the students and take photos with them, according to Angela Bacarisse, professor of design and arts management at SFA. The School of Theatre’s trademark dragon character, Schlaftnicht, from the children’s show “Trudi and the Minstrel,” performed the summer of 2005, will make his annual Blueberry Festival appearance.

Students will be promoting the new SFA SummerStage Festival, which kicks off Friday, June 27, and runs through July 18. Formerly SFA’s Summer Repertory Theatre, this all-new, family friendly festival will feature Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” adapted by Anne Coulter Martens, and Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” adapted by Christopher Sergel.

The students perform at the Blueberry Festival each year to “let the community know that the SFA School of Theatre offers good quality family entertainment at affordable prices to our neighbors in Nacogdoches,” according to Bacarisse. Discount coupons for the SummerStage Festival will be distributed that day.

The costumed characters can be seen in front of The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House at 329 E. Main St.

“We have a lot of fun just dressing up and seeing how excited the kids are when they see us and get to talk to their favorite characters,” Bacarisse said.

For performance times and ticketing information for the SummerStage Festival, visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu or call (936) 468-6407 or (888) 240-ARTS. All performances are in W.M. Turner Auditorium in the Griffith Fine Arts Building on the SFA campus.

SFA Gardens at Stephen F. Austin State University will host the monthly Theresa and Les Reeves Lecture Series at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 12, in the Ina Brundrett Conservation Education Building at the Pineywoods Native Plant Center, 2900 Raguet St. in Nacogdoches. Peter Loos, former president of The Native Plant Society of Texas, will present “Native Plants That Work for You.”

Loos has a degree in horticulture from SFA and is a resident of Chireno, Texas. He Is the owner of Ecovirons, which specializes in hard-to-find native plants, plant growing services, biological and botanical services, native plant seeds, landscape design, wetland construction and maintenance services, and land management services.

The Theresa and Les Reeves Lecture Series is held the second Thursday of each month at the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture’s SFA Pineywoods Native Plant Center. A rare plant raffle will be held after the program. The lecture is free and open to the public, but donations to the Theresa and Les Reeves lecture series fund always are appreciated.

Parking is available at the nearby Raguet Elementary School, 2428 Raguet St., with continual shuttle service to the Ina Brundrett Conservation Education Building.

For more information, call (936) 468-1832 or email grantdamon@sfasu.edu.

The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Theatre has renamed its summer theatre program, giving it a fresh new image and approach that’s sure to please audiences of all ages.

The 2014 SFA SummerStage Festival, formerly called Summer Repertory Theatre, will feature Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” adapted by Anne Coulter Martens, and Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” adapted by Christopher Sergel. The festival runs June 27 through July 18.

The new festive name is a reflection of the SFA School of Theatre’s effort to inform audiences that seeing a play is a casual and fun way to spend time in the summer with family and friends, according to Scott Shattuck, director of the School of Theatre.

“Audiences for our summer shows have grown enormously over the past few years,” Shattuck said. “But we want to welcome even more people who may not realize yet how fun our shows really are. What we do is storytelling – it’s entertainment, it’s songs and humor and suspense, and it’s a blast.”

Laura Rikard, assistant professor of theatre at SFA, whose production of “Charlotte’s Web” set the school’s all-time summer attendance record last year, will direct Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” as delightful a tale as any that has enchanted kids through the ages. And Zach Hanks, also assistant professor of theatre who’s making his SFA stage-directing debut, will direct Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a novel and Oscar-winning movie that’s captivated American young people and their parents for generations.

Both plays are produced by special arrangement with The Dramatic Publishing Company of Woodstock, Ill.

Performances of “To Kill A Mockingbird” are at 7:30 p.m. nightly on June 27 and 28 and July 8, 10, 11, 15 and 18. General admission tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and $7.50 for students/youth. Performances of “Alice in Wonderland” are at 10 a.m. July 15, 17 and 18; at 2 p.m. July 3, 5, and 16; and at 6:30 p.m. July 5, 12 and 17. General admission tickets for “Alice In Wonderland” are $7.50.

Patrons are encouraged to come an hour before curtain time for outdoor pre-show festivities, Shattuck said.

To be sure the summer shows are accessible to the entire community, the School of Theatre started experimenting with “Pay-What-You-Can” performances. At these special shows, those who are able to pay $15 for a ticket are asked to support the school by doing so, but those who can only pay $10, $5 or even $1 are equally welcome, Shattuck said. Those dates will be announced later in June.

For tickets or more information, visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu or call (936) 468-6407 or (888) 240-ARTS. All performances are in W.M. Turner Auditorium in the Griffith Fine Arts Building on the SFA campus.