Homecoming for Goshen College is about to get a lot more theatrical. This weekend, three performances from four alumni and one current senior will take the stage at Umble Center. Peter Eash-Scott ’99, Greg Wendling ’99, Michelle Milne ’95, Heather Kropf ’94 and Violet Smucker ’20 are involved in three unique shows for the Goshen community past and present. The theater events begin Friday, Oct. 4 with Smucker’s senior theater recital, “Working Between the Lines,” at 8 p.m. in the Umble Center. The show consists of original plays and scenes written by current GC students. Admission is free, and seating...

By Cristina Jantz • October 2, 2019 • Arts

Curious about what’s happening on the Umble Center stage this year? Check out the lineup for the GC Theater Department’s “2019-2020 Theater Season of Love and Light”: Homecoming 2019 Saturday, Oct. 5 at 4 p.m. “The Squending Brothers Present: Hey! It’s Your Reunion! Now What? or, The Best Way to Avoid the Uncomfortable Experience of Alumni Weekend is By Sitting in a Dark Theater, Watching a Show, and Not Talking to Anyone, a Sketch Comedy Revue by Peter Eash-Scott (1999) and Greg Wendling (1999),” said an announcement from the Goshen College Theater Department. Sunday, Oct. 6 at 2 p.m. “We...

By Record • September 5, 2019 • Arts

The GC Players’ final event of the season, Improv Night, is coming up this Friday, April 5 at 8 p.m. Everyone is encouraged to make their way to Umble Center’s Yost Room for snacks, socialization and the chance to try out improv for themselves. It doesn’t matter how much experience one has with improvisation. People of all levels are welcome. It’s an event for someone who wants a stress-free introduction to theater or a seasoned actor who wants to spend more time doing what they love. Improv Night is an event designed to practice improvisation skills. If something goes wrong...

By Emily Bennett • April 4, 2019 • Arts

Goshen College students, faculty and community members gathered at the Umble Center on March 15 for the opening performance of “Bright Star,” the spring mainstage musical. There were three performances last weekend and two more on March 22 and 24.   Written by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, “Bright Star” offers a story of family that will leave a smile on your face. The bluegrass and americana influenced musical travels back and forth through time to tell a tale of love, loss and redemption in midcentury North Carolina.   “Bright Star” did not have much attention when it was first...

By Gabe Miller • March 21, 2019 • News

“Everyone has that one can of soup on their shelf they’re never going to eat,” said Kelsey Winters, a junior, and she has a great place for you to take it. Goshen College’s GC Players Club will be hosting the inaugural “Bad Theater for a Good Cause” event on Sunday, Dec. 2, at 4 p.m. in the Umble Center. This event is open to the public and the entry fee is a can of soup or any other non-perishable item. “Bad Theater for a Good Cause” is a Goshen College student-led production of what theater professor Anna Kurtz Kuk described...

By Laura Miller • November 28, 2018 • Arts

This Friday, Nov. 10 will be the opening night of the GC Theater Department’s fall mainstage show, “Crimes of the Heart” by Beth Henley. The setting is 1974, Hazlehurst, Mississippi. Three sisters, Babe, Meg and Lenny Magrath, are reunited after the youngest is accused of attempted murder. Though the plot centers on the consequences of the accusation, “[this play] is less about crimes and more about heart,” said director Doug Liechty Caskey, head of the GC Theater Department. Each sister has to deal with her own set of hardships and must find a way to navigate complicated situations that arise...

By Laura Miller • November 7, 2018 • Arts

The Goshen College theater department will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the John S. Umble Center this year with a lineup of shows written by female playwrights. The 2018-2019 theater season will consist of four shows: a peace play in October, the fall mainstage in November, a mainstage musical in March and a set of one acts in April. The first play in the series will be “History Lesson” by Frankie Little Hardin. The play is set on a stormy day at an Audubon museum in Kentucky. The show is the winner of the 2018 Peace Play Contest. “[Hardin] is...

By Nathan Pauls • September 12, 2018 • News

Students gathered in Umble Center for the annual “Theater Fling,” a GC Players event to kick off a new year of Goshen College theater on Tuesday, Aug. 28. The annual event is designed to reconnect returning students, give new students an introduction to the theater community and generate excitement about the upcoming year’s productions. Upon arrival, students were able to snack and mingle, connecting and reconnecting with peers followed by a theater game designed to give students the chance to move around the room and interact more. “I love the theater fling,” said Madeline Smith Kauffman, a sophomore. “As a...

By Laura Miller • September 1, 2018 • Arts

Umble Center will soon be host to the exhilarating and humorous show, “Pirates of Penzance.” Written by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, “Pirates of Penzance” is a comic opera in two acts.  The show originally premiered in 1879 and since has become one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s most frequently performed operas, alongside “The Mikado” and “H.M.S. Pinafore.” “The works of Gilbert and Sullivan have been a significant influence on musical theater as we know it today,” said Anna Kurtz Kuk, director of “Pirates” and assistant professor of theater. “Pirates of Penzance” follows the story of Frederic, a young lad whose...

By Kory Stoneburner-Betts • March 15, 2018 • Arts

Jonathan Bontrager-Waite is a first-year at Goshen College studying theater and writing. Last November, he submitted a short play for a chance at the John Cauble Award for Outstanding Short Plays, a national playwriting award given by the the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). The play he submitted is about two high school boys in show choir that take a field trip to an art museum, who eventually get to know each other better through discussions of art. Bontrager-Waite’s play was one of the two short plays selected as regional finalists out of the 45 that were submitted...

By Cecilia Garcia • February 8, 2018 • Features

Recently, Eastern Mennonite University’s (EMU) spring 2017 mainstage “The 39 Steps” was invited to perform at the Region II Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF). Abigail Greaser, a sophomore transfer student from EMU, spent the first week and a half of the spring semester in Harrisonburg, Virginia and in Indiana, Pennsylvania for the festival. Since the premiere of “The 39 Steps” Greaser and other cast members left EMU’s theatre department, making the festival a perfect time to reconnect. “It made the opportunity to be reunited even more special for all of us,” she said. “When we all first arrived...

By Christi Sessa • February 1, 2018 • Features

While most of the Goshen College community was beginning classes last week, members of the theater department travelled to Indianapolis for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, or KCACTF. 14 students and three faculty members attended the event, which ran from Jan. 9-14. Regional festivals are held nationwide. Goshen College is a part of region three, which covers Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and parts of Ohio. At KCACTF, theater students from across the region compete in acting and design competitions, present work from previous productions, attend workshops and see performances. Anna Kurtz Kuk, professor of theater at Goshen College...

By Siana Emery • January 18, 2018 • Arts

“Mother Hicks is a witch, people say” is the opening line of Goshen College’s fall mainstage production. Written by Suzan Zeder, “Mother Hicks” is a play about three individuals: a deaf boy, an unnamed abandoned girl taken in by the town of Ware and Mother Hicks, who is an ex-midwife suspected of witchcraft by superstitious townsfolk ever since the babies she delivered died of  scarlet fever. Set during the Great Depression, “Mother Hicks” is told through poetry and sign  language. The play explores themes of family, peacemaking and how hatred can develop toward people we perceive as different. If audience...

By Emily Bennett • November 9, 2017 • Arts

On Friday night, alumni, students and their families gathered in Umble Center to watch the homecoming performance of Ted & Company’s show, “Discovery: A Comic Lament.” Ted & Company TheatreWorks is a group of storytellers who use theater and comedy to open up conversation about social justice issues and faith in an incredibly effective way. “I was laughing during the show,” said sophomore Cristina Jantz, “but afterward, I was thinking about the deeper meaning and how it could affect the future.” “Discovery: A Comic Lament” was performed by the producer, Ted Swartz, Goshen professor, Michele Milne and Goshen student, Abigail...

By Emily Bennett • October 12, 2017 • Arts

Parables, the Goshen College touring worship music ensemble, has been hard at work preparing a unique program for the 2017-18 season that combines music, drama and personal faith stories to create an engaging performance for church services and other venues throughout the state and country. Professor of music Debra Detwiler directs the group of 8 students and aids them in curating a program that addresses this year’s theme of “Together as One.” “We’re focusing on diversity within community, and community in diversity,” said Detwiler. Complex musical numbers are sung in a variety of languages, including Korean, Latin, Zulu and English....

By Siana Emery • October 5, 2017 • Arts