Jessica Morris seeking participants for Epic Theatre project

Jessica Ires Morris writes with a great opportunity for interested classmates. If you are interested please contact Jessica directly. Pass the info on to friends who may also fit the profile and would be interested.

Jessica writes, "The Epic Theatre Center, a professional theater company and home for teaching artists in NYC, is headed by Zak Berkman, son of longtime Smith Professor Len Berkman. I am working with Zak and his company to put together an initiative surrounding the Epic's next show.

Epic often does extensive panels, post/pre-show forums and special events in order to develop their audience and participate more fully in communities that otherwise might not come to the theater. Zak has asked me to put together a panel on single-sex education to meet and speak after one of the performances of Beauty on the Vine - his new play. Hopefully, the panel will include women from several colleges and/or high schools, as well as experts in the field and other interested parties.

We are also attempting to bring some current Smithies to the show on the same day. We will be subsidizing their tickets and hopefully engaging them in the panel discussion. The panel would most likely meet before a show sometime during the last weekend in April or the first weekend in May.

Following is a slightly more detailed description of this initiative. You can also go to www.epictheatrectr.org or to the show's MySpace page.

Thank you so much for your help!
Jessica Ires Morris"

FROM EPIC'S INITIATE DESCRIPTION:
"Our mission is to help place Epic's upcoming production of Beauty on the Vine by Zak Berkman at the center of a larger outreach and arts-education effort that brings together women of diverse backgrounds to share experiences and creatively explore how individual definitions of beauty, power, and success impact society as a whole.

From mixed-race identities to extreme plastic surgery, Beauty On The Vine is a modern fable exploring the power of the human face in Lindsay Lohan America. When a young female star of right-wing radio is brutally murdered, her husband and father investigate the reasons behind the violence. They discover a world where young women transform themselves to look like their idols and mothers lose their daughters to the illusion of popularity and power.

Our plan is to bring a minimum of 500 young women, ages 16-24, to see the play for free or for less than a movie ticket and participate in pre- show workshops, post-show forums, or special events that focus on the external and internal forces affecting how they construct their identities in our culture. These Beyond Beauty Initiative events will be an opportunity for these young women to interact with potential role models on a level playing field. They will exchange perspectives on the play, collaborate on workshop projects, and share the stage during post-show discussions with "older" women: with and without children/grandchildren, artists, architects, scholars, Wall Street brokers, bankers, political consultants, government employees, activists, marketers, and more.