Under the baobab: Full slate of arts events ahead as Penn State’s new school year starts

Happy New Year, brothers and sisters.

For many of us the new year starts at Labor Day, when schools and colleges resume, when the football seasons begin in earnest, when a new theater season begins, when the U.S. Open closes out the tennis grand slams, and while the baseball World Series looms. Penn State football begins what we hope will be a final four finishing season. Now is the time to harvest the crops and prepare the fields for new planting.

I have spent more than half my life comporting to an academic schedule, first as a student and for the last 30 years as a teacher. I am energized by the return of the young folks at the dawn of their lives filled with hopes and dreams. Emotionally vulnerable, mentally accessible and physically half dressed, they swarm together, seeking friends, romance, comfort and hopefully an education. We who are long past twilight, blessed to be here, seek ways to support these young people who may well be alive in the next century. We try to help preserve the planet, promote peace and justice and protect the political integrity of democracy through our work and arts. The arts reveal tomorrow by showing us the minds of our modern prophets.

Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey is this year’s Emily Dickinson Lecturer. Her free reading will take place at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 21, in Freeman Auditorium in the HUB-Robeson Center.

Cheryl Reasoner Wethers, a 1985 PSU alumna in Spanish, created the C. Reasoner Memorial Fund in the Africana Research Center (ARC) in the College of Liberal Arts. The half-million dollar endowment celebrates the memories of her father and brother, both were named Chester. The fund will support mission-focused research by faculty, post-doctoral fellows and students in the ARC.

The Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State is presenting a free outdoor event, the Move Mix Festival, which will explore the joy in rhythmic percussive beats and movements from 5-7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 12, at the Eisenhower Auditorium rear loading dock. The festival features contemporary Latinx and traditional Indian dance by Penn State ensembles Caliente Dance Company and Sher Bhangra; Latin folk favorites by State College’s Ady Martínez Dance Party; and bhangra fusion by Brooklyn-based ensemble Red Baraat.

The Living In One Neighborhood (LION) Bash returned to State College on Thursday to bring together the campus and local community for an evening of fun and connection. The partnership between State College Borough and Penn State served as a showcase for community organizations.

The School of Theatre, under artistic director Rick Lombardo, has planned an exciting, innovative nine-play season for 2023-24. Plays were showcased at a sneak preview this past week. “Hit the Wall,” directed by Rob Schneider, is an account of the 1969 Stonewall uprising. Christine O’Grady will direct and choreograph “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812,” a wonderfully irreverent, “immersive electro-pop opera that drops us into the middle of Leo Tolstoy’s War & Peace with a cast of young revelers as your hosts.” “Bonnets: How Ladies of Good Breeding are Induced to Murder,” directed by Jenny Lamb, is a “rock-n-roll story of unrequited love, about lust, and another about jealousy, that fall into each other across space and time, ending in a total blood bath, narrated by God.” It was commissioned by the Big 10 Consortium as part of a series of new plays by and about women.

“Urinetown” and “Tartuffe,” directed by David Kersnar and Sam Osheroff, kick off the spring season. Two musical directing grad student projects follow, “Bernarda Alba” and “Falsettos.” A treat added this year will be a special town/gown production of “A Christmas Carol” featuring the SOT faculty and local professional actors. It is a fundraising event, presented in time for the holidays, Dec. 18-21.

Charles Dumas is a lifetime political activist, a professor emeritus from Penn State, and was the Democratic Party’s nominee for U.S. Congress in 2012. He was the 2022 Lion’s Paw Awardee and Living Legend honoree of the National Black Theatre Festival. He lives with his partner and wife of 50 years in State College.