The Department of Performing and Media arts presents:

Love and Information

By Caryl Churchill
 

Director: Carolyn Goelzer
Scenic Design: Jason Simms
Costume Design: Sarah Bernstein
Lighting Design: Ashley Crespo
Sound Design: Warren Cross
Stage Manager: Nick Alteri

The Flexible Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts
430 College Avenue
Friday, November 17th, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 18th, 7:30 p.m.

LOVE AND INFORMATION is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. concordtheatricals.com

The vision of the Department of Performing and Media Arts is to nurture and mentor artists, performers, writers, and thinkers through the process of event programming. We recognize that all people should see their stories represented, and envision their stories as valuable.

We commit ourselves to creating spaces that actively seek to break down systems of oppression based on race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, and place of origin and empower all to be involved. We seek to stimulate thoughtful discussion and enact social change within our productions and our audiences. It is our goal to make our events accessible to the wider Cornell and Ithaca community, to strengthen bonds and engage inquiry, dialogue, and impact around social and cultural change.

In the 2023-2024 academic year we will help realize a wide range of students’ creative projects, from original plays, to solo performances, to readings, to choreographies, to acting, directorial, and curatorial projects. We are particularly happy that in addition to supporting live performances, we are now also supporting the production of student films. Enjoy the shows!

Caryl Churchill’s LOVE AND INFORMATION was written in 2012 and first produced by London’s Royal Court Theatre under the direction of James Macdonald. The play itself is a collection of 50+ seemingly disparate scenes ranging from less than a minute long to several minutes in length, all featuring various intersections of the themes of, well, love and information! The scenes Churchill provides us, organized in seven sections, have an open format without specific character designations, “given circumstances”, or sequence, leaving their meaning, theatricality, and impact to the imaginative speculation of its creative interpreters. The cast members of PMA 3801: Advanced Techniques in Acting have responded to the challenge! In assembling our own abridged version of the play, pairs of actors were asked to prepare two very different interpretations of individual scene texts. After presenting these in class, one of these was chosen for further development, and later arranged in order by the ensemble to create a unique sweep and dramatic journey for our audiences. The cast’s scene interpretations reflect the hopes and fears, truths and fallacies, questions, ironies, and complexities confronted in today’s life experiences in our contemporary moment, and the interplay of technologies that both illuminate and trouble our understanding of our connections to one another. Not surprisingly, humor and entertainment have played an important part in our storytelling!

We are grateful to PMA’s outstanding design and tech support teams for their talents and skills in bringing this one-of-a-kind production of LOVE AND INFORMATION so exquisitely to life.

Enjoy!

~Carolyn

Zoe Buddie (Actor)
Zoe is a sophomore double majoring in Psychology and PMA. You may recognize her from the spring 2023 PMA production The Family Copoli or the Melodramatics Theatre Company's recent performance of Chicago. She is thrilled to be returning to the stage for such a unique and collaborative show made possible by the stunningly talented cast, creative team, and crew!

Oscar Llodra (Actor)
A once-before and now-again thespian, fourth-year architecture student Oscar Llodra somehow manages to spend most of his time in the Schwartz Center for the Performing and Media Arts. His many hats as tour guide, mountain biking instructor, and architect parallel the many hats he’s excited to wear in this phenomenal  production of love and information.

Fannie Massarsky (Actor)
Fannie Massarsky is a senior PMA and Psychology double major. "Although I have acted in and directed many projects throughout my four years here, this is the first faculty directed production I've been in, and I couldn't be more excited! I think this is a very special play with pertinent themes, and I loved the creative freedom we had while working on the piece."

Emily Pugh (Actor)
Emily is a Performing and Media Arts and English double major in the class of 2024. Some of her favorite acting credits include Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, C in Soul Mining, Pozzo in Waiting for Godot, Adam in As You Like It, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Lee in True West, Éponine in Les Misérables, and Squirrel in Beo’s Bedroom (Edinburgh Fringe Festival production). In addition to acting in productions on campus, Emily is a writer for the Cornell Daily Sun and an officer for the Cog Dog Theatre Troupe, CAMP, and the Cornell Opera Society. She is excited to be a part of Love and Information and for audiences to experience this fantastic play!

Liv Licursi (Actor)
Liv is a junior studying Industrial and Labor Relations with a minor in Performing & Media Arts. Her theatre credits include Mimi Marquez (Rent), Kate Monster (Avenue Q), Mama Morton (Chicago), Martula (The Family Copoli), and March Park (Spelling Bee). She is ecstatic to perform Love and Information with this incredible cast, and she hopes you enjoy the show!

Nick Alteri, Stage Manager, is excited to be joining the team here at Cornell. He has spent the past two summers as the PSM at The Lost Colony in the Outer Banks. He graduated from The City College of New York with a masters in Theatre Education. Previous credits: Arsenic and Old Lace and Medea at Delaware Resident Ensemble Players (REP), Honky Tonk Angels at Cortland Repertory Theatre, West Side Story and A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder at The Tibbits Opera House. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Instagram: @nalteri02

Sarah Eckert Bernstein, Costume Designer, is the Resident Costume Designer at the Schwartz Center and Senior Lecturer in costume design, costume history, and character design. Some of her recent projects at Cornell include: The Family Copoli, HumaNatures, Locally Grown Dance 2023, Haunted Natures/Hidden Environments, Locally Grown Dance 2022, Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England, LGD 2021, Pipeline/Townhall, LGD 2020, The Next Storm, The Wolves, Spill, LGD 2019, Awakening of Spring, and Mr. Burns. Sarah is a graduate of The Theatre School at DePaul University and the Yale School of Drama.

Ashley Crespo, Lighting Designer, is a senior Lighting Design student at Ithaca College. She works for The Bowery Presents at The Racket in NYC as a Lighting Director. She has worked with bands like Weston Estate and Dav3d, and has done shows at The Cherry Arts and the Kitchen Theatre. At Ithaca College she designed Newsies (2023), Ceasar (2023) and Ithaca College on Broadway (2022). She will next head to the Disney College and Internship Program to become an Imagineer. She is grateful for this opportunity and is glad to finish her lighting design experience in Ithaca at Cornell University.

Warren Cross, Sound Designer, is the Resident Sound Designer for the Department of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University, and joined the department in 1990. In addition to designing sound for department productions, Warren teaches courses in Sound Design, Post Production, and Interactive Performance Technology. He attended Five Towns College for Music Technology, Manhattan School of Music for Composition, and SUNY Stony Brook for Technical Theatre. 

Carolyn Goelzer, Director, was a Minneapolis-based theater artist for more than 25 years, performing roles in most Twin Cities theaters (the Guthrie, Jungle Theater, Children’s Theatre, Illusion etc.) as well as stages in Kansas City, Milwaukee, Chicago, New York and L.A.  She received a NY Innovative Theater Award for Outstanding Actress in a Lead Role for her portrayal of Clytemnestra in Theodora Skipitares’ Iphigenia at LaMama ETC in NYC. Carolyn is a three-time recipient of the McKnight Individual Artist Fellowship (in Playwriting; Interdisciplinary Arts; and Theater Arts) and a Core alumna of the Playwrights’ Center. Recent roles include Jaques in As You Like It at the Cherry Arts here in Ithaca, and Fool in Real Live Theater’s When the Mind is Free, a newly devised work in conversation with Shakespeare’s King Lear, slated for tour in summer 2024. Carolyn currently teaches acting in Cornell’s Department of Performing and Media Arts.

Jason Simms, Scenic Coordinator, (he/him) is an award winning scenographer for Theater, Opera, Musicals and film and has designed over 150 productions. Born and Raised in Carson City, NV, Simms started designing for theatre at the age of fifteen. He designs in New York City as well as at regional theaters across the United States.

1610 Technical Production Lab: Aisosa Aigbe, Bailey Hecht, Charlotte Hee, Leah Ingalls, Davis Ouriel, Kat Petrosky, Amara Valerio, Nianhui Yang, Tracy Zeng

Scene Shop Work-Study: Arianna Josue, Julianna Lee, Benjamin Okoronkwo

Electrics Work-Study: Andrew Lewis

Costume First Hands: Bella Peters, Ana Mocklar, Izzy Berkenblit, Sharyn Schweitzer

Assistant Stage Manager: Tatiana Bustos

Dressers: Sharyn Schweitzer, Joanna Teran

Light Board Programmer: Ethan Ordower

Projectionist: Joey Johnson

Head House Managers: Idey Abdi, Safiyyah Franklin
House/Building Managers:   Kenneth Choi, Kene Chukwuma-Orakwe, Mari-Christina Clark, Evan Dickinson, Jack McManus, Jessica Pedro-Pascual, Ethan Sarpong, Matthew Saylor

PRODUCTION STAFF
Production Manager: Andrew Deppen
Technical Director: Fritz Bernstein
Assistant Technical Director: Savannah Relos
Props & Paint Coordinator: Tim Ostrander
Costume Shop Supervisor: Lisa Boquist
Lighting & Video Supervisor: Michael Garrett
Computer Support: Chris Christensen
Communications Manager:  Youngsun Palmer

Special Thanks to Sarah Bauch, Chris Christensen and Leah Ingalls, Amy Mojica, Youngsun Palmer, Chris Riley, and all the wonderful students, faculty, staff, and technicians at the Schwartz Center who have supported this project with their time, energy, and talents.

LOVE AND INFORMATION was first presented by The English Stage Company at The Royal Court Theatre in the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, London, England on 6 September 2012.   The US premier was presented at New York Theatre Workshop, New York on 19 February 2014, directed by James McDonald.

LOVE AND INFORMATION is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. concordtheatricals.com