Everything Nac

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way live performances are presented worldwide, the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Theatre has planned a diverse and adaptable season for 2020-21 that will bring live theatre to the stage and inside East Texas homes.

“These are certainly interesting times in which we live,” School of Theatre Director Cleo House Jr. said. “While we have made plans for virtual and in-person performances this year, life continues to be ever-changing in this new COVID world, so our plans remain fluid and adaptable. But we’re bringing you more opportunities than ever before to ‘visit the theatre.'”

Theatre faculty and students learned a lot in presenting the Festival of New American Plays virtually last spring and even more in the remote presentation of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” this past summer.

“We’re using that new-found creative knowledge to bring you an exciting virtual performance of ‘No Exit’ by Jean-Paul Sartre as our season opener,” House said. “This existentialist play, written and first performed during World War II, explores the afterlife and the relationships that bind us to one another.” The performance runs Sept. 24 through 26 and is recommended for mature audiences.

After the first Mainstage virtual performance, live performances are planned in Kennedy Auditorium, but patrons have the option of purchasing live virtual access for watching all shows. Live performances are at 7:30 p.m. on scheduled nights.

The first live Mainstage show, “Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead” by Bert V. Royal, is a play about a teenage boy, CB, who begins to question the existence of an afterlife after his dog dies. “Dog Sees God” is a touching and thought-provoking play about being different in a school filled with people who all pretend to be the same. Recommended for mature audiences, the play runs Oct. 6 through 10.

Theatre patrons will want to get onboard for “Rideshare/Overshare” by Ian McWethy and Carrie McCrossen. When Mike and Elaine each call a car to get to their blind date, they find themselves paired with the weirdest drivers on the road, from a “semi-licensed” therapist, to a thief engaged in a high-speed chase, to a rapper more concerned with sharing her original music than obeying the rules of the road. The play is PG-13 and runs Nov. 10 through 14.

In the spring, join the School of Theatre for “The Maids,” a play inspired by an actual murder case. Written by Jean Genet, “The Maids” shows the title characters, Solange and Claire, entertaining violent and sometimes sadomasochistic fantasies about murdering their employer. “It is difficult to tell exactly what is ritual, what is hallucination and what is reality,” House said. Recommended for mature audiences, “The Maids” runs Feb. 23 through 27.

A new offering this season is the Devised Theatre Project, in which the School of Theatre will create a show from start to finish that will showcase the talents of student performers, faculty, designers and technicians.

“The audience, moving through the space and surrounded by the performance, will experience an adventure that will be entertaining and might just change your idea of what theatre is and can do,” House said. The project runs April 1 through 3. The performance venue will be announced at a later date.

The final show of the season is based on the novel by Mark Haddon and adapted by Simon Stephens. “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” is the winner of the 2015 Tony Award for Best Play. With an extraordinary brain, Christopher is exceptional at mathematics but ill-equipped for everyday life. Suspected of murdering his neighbor’s dog, Christopher is determined to solve the mystery of who killed Wellington, but his detective work turns his world upside down. With a rating of PG-13, the play runs April 20 through 24.

“No Exit” livestream access sales start at $7.50 with additional donations accepted.

General ticket prices for other play performances are: adult, $15; senior (62+), $10; non-SFA student, $10; SFA faculty/staff, $7.50; youth, $7.50; SFA student, $5; virtual access, $15. Live virtual access is available for all performances. Livestream access sales end at 1 p.m. daily during each show’s run, and links are emailed after 4:30 p.m. each day.

Purchase tickets/access at boxoffice.sfasu.edu or call (936) 468-6407. For questions about the plays, contact the School of Theatre at (936) 468-4003.

A research article co-authored by a pair of professors in the Stephen F. Austin State University Rusche College of Business is featured in the latest edition of the prestigious University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, an Ivy League publication that’s read around the world.

Dr. Justin Blount and Dr. Stephen Shrewsbury, both in the Department of Business Communication and Legal Studies, posit that poor corporate behavior – sexual harassment, insider trading, securities fraud and price collusion ­– is difficult to punish with the patchwork mechanisms of governance and compliance currently in place.

Corporate self-regulation of its own ethics is clearly not working well. A federal Office of Corporate Ethics is needed so that the ethical behavior of CEOs and corporate officers at publicly held companies can be more effectively monitored and individuals held personally accountable for ethical violations.

The paper, “The U.S. Office of Corporate Ethics: Enhancing Officer and Director Accountability in Publicly Held Corporations,” represents months of collaboration between Blount and Shrewsbury. And with its publication in a scholarly journal that’s had nearly 80,000 downloads in the past year alone, it has a chance to be cited by other academics – and even read by an important lawmaker with an office in Washington.

“I’m hoping that someone who makes policy picks it up,” Blount said. “You hope someone reads it and finds interest in it.”

From the outset, Shrewsbury’s intent was clear.

“When I write a paper, I do it to effect change,” he said.

Shrewsbury said that the paper will probably not be well received by some, as it will likely be seen – and wrongly so – as a push for big-government oversight of the freewheeling world of capitalism, a world that, Blount and Shrewsbury admit, requires aggressive risk-taking that can oftentimes skirt the line between right and wrong. But if it engenders opposition, it would be a good thing.

“I hope it is criticized because that always generates further discussion,” Shrewsbury said.

Within the passages of the article itself, Blount and Shrewsbury anticipate the headwinds the argument is bound to face and acknowledge the fortitude it would take to create policy out of their research.

“It is always easier to continue the status quo,” they write. “There is little doubt this proposal will be met with resistance. Substantial political will is going to be necessary.”

Blount, who has a research interest in corporate governance, did the heavy lifting on the securities side of the paper, while Shrewsbury, who had a 30-year legal career in the Air Force, addressed the ethics end. The paper proposes a U.S. Office of Corporate Ethics, modeled after the Office of Government Ethics, which exists to train, oversee and regulate ethics within the executive branch. It’s conceived as a self-funded, nonpartisan agency with ethics advisors appointed within publicly held corporations.

Their article appears in Volume 22, Issue 4 of the journal. With the ethics paper behind them, both Blount and Shrewsbury are focused on their next projects.

Blount plans to next look at the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, in which the court ruled 6-3 that an employer cannot fire someone for being gay or transgender. Doing so violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed workplace discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Blount will focus on how the ruling could affect dress codes and appearance standards in the workplace.

Making the case will take plenty of effort, but it’s all part of Blount’s academic life.

“I publish more than I have to because I enjoy it,” he said.

Shrewsbury will research legal issues involved with dealing with intense wildfires that have broken out over the last decade, one of which was burning out of control near Glenwood Springs, Colorado, in late August. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, since 2009 there have been an average of nearly 70,000 wildfires per year that burn about 7 million acres. These fires are difficult to contain and have caused an untold amount of problems. Shrewsbury’s research will review the hodgepodge approaches to the problem and consider the creation of a national firefighting service.

While it might seem like an enormous pivot from corporate ethics to wildfires, for Shrewsbury it’s more about the scope of an idea, and what captures his attention, than it is about the consistency of the topic.

“I’m a big picture guy, and I like to lay out big concepts,” he said.

By Richard Massey, senior marketing communications specialist at Stephen F. Austin State University

Stephen F. Austin State University will present the work of Keisha Brathwaite, Erik Ordaz and Aldo Ornelas in “T3RNION: In Hindsight: Non-Visible Patch Points, Surface Levels, Journey & Connections.”

All three artists earned their M.F.A. degrees from the SFA School of Art last year. The show is open Sept. 1 through Oct. 3 in The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House.

Ordaz, from Mexico City, is an adjunct faculty member in the School of Art. “In Hindsight: Non-visible Patch Points” is the result of his research and work with the concepts of balance, space, form and connection. It is also the result of his experience “working with modular synthesizers, finding similarities in the way I work with such instruments and the thoughts behind this series,” he said.

“The exhibition is composed of seven ceramic vessels that present a sequence of movements and marks that speak to the history of their literal journey in becoming an object,” Ordaz said. “Visible circular shapes refer to connection points that create a nonlinear map of relationships between the work.”

Brathwaite, a native from the Caribbean, describes her collection “Surface Levels” as “depictions of unobserved and imperceptible realities of many phytoplankton exteriors.”

“The exhibition explores various structures, textures and repetitious forms from microscopic surfaces of objects that cannot be seen with unaided eyes,” she said. “Electron microscopy is used to perceive and analyze these otherwise unseeable surfaces in depth. Magnifications provide a reference in creating three- and two-dimensional works that are minimalistic and abstract at a visible level. This abstract 3D/2D image collection is translated into material expressions using acrylic sheets, acrylic ink and wood as the main media for construction of individual works. Collectively, they serve to make the invisible visible.”

Brathwaite is a freelance graphic designer and intends to continue teaching graphic design and media arts at the tertiary level.

Ornelas, who is from Chihuahua, Mexico, is a full time studio assistant in the School of Art. He describes his “Journey & Connections” collection as “a series of work comprised of ceramic sculptures that explore my personal experiences in relation to the human figure, immigration and nature, as well as experiences influenced by my continuous travels between my country of origin and the United States.”

“This exhibition is composed of a wall installation and a series of three sculptures that resemble monoliths, strong and expressive figures of spiritual origin that represent important figures in life, sources of wisdom and stelae that connect to the earth,” Ornelas said.

SFA art exhibitions are free of charge. Sponsors include the Friends of the Visual Arts, William Arscott and the Nacogdoches Junior Forum.

The Cole Art Center is SFA’s historic downtown art gallery located at 329 E. Main St. Gallery hours are 12:30 to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cole Art Center patrons will be required to wear a mask, practice social distancing, comply with designated entrance and exit routes and follow all other CDC guidelines, including maximum capacity restrictions.

For more information, call (936) 468-1131.