Unless he was on sabbatical, Pope. L created a theater work with Department of Visual Art (DoVA) MFA students each year between 2011 and 2023 as a required component of their curriculum.

“So over a period of ten weeks we read fairy tales,” he reflected, “looked at operas of fairy tales, read essays about the writing, politics and history of fairy tales, discussed the intersecting layers of human practice and intention that produce fairy tales and eventually created a live production of a fairy tale in the tenth week. It was a lively time and the students did a great job.”

In this Hansel and Gretel Theater Workshop, students were required to write scripts and to direct, design, and perform each other’s material. The results were totally distinct works of theater attributable to the individual and collective voices within the group combined with Pope. L’s ever present direction and instigation.

Wishing to celebrate this remarkable pedagogical encounter with its alumni, artist and DoVA faculty member Catherine Sullivan invited them to revisit Hansel and Gretel on or near the For Events platform. Alumni have also begun work on an archival project that will continue beyond the performance on May 4.

The afternoon will include ambient works on view in no particular duration, video documentation of H and G on view in Swift Hall and a program of improvisations and remarks which reflect on the substance and experience of The Hansel and Gretel Theater Workshop.

Artists:

Crystal Beiersdorfer

Jan Brugger

Maggie Crowley

Ceyhun Firat

Eli Greene

MaymayJumsai

Stacee Kalmonovsky

Chichan Kwong and Michal Koszycki

Cristen Leifheit

Max Li

Ben Nicholson

Brandon Sherrod

Brett Swenson

Danny Volk

Miao Wang

Tianjiao Wang

Tina Wang

Qiuchen Wu

Time

1:00pm - 3:00pm CDT(2:00pm - 4:00pm EDT)

Location

Hutchinson Courtyard, Hyde Park Campus