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NEWS RELEASE
Contact: David West (west@nsula.edu
)
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466
7/22/2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NATCHITOCHES-Three guest artists will speak to theatre students at Northwestern State University during the 2004-2005 academic year due to a grant of $4,460 from the Louisiana Division of the Arts to NSU's theatre program
Writer Mary Sue Price, composer and songwriter Mike Yionoulis and scene designer Lee Boyer will give workshops and talk with students about their area of expertise.
"It is a real benefit for us to be able to bring in high caliber guest artists that we would have not been able to see otherwise," said Northwestern artistic director Dr. Roger Held. "These artists work in areas that we do not teach full courses in so we add a great deal to what our students learn. It also enhances Northwestern's reputation on a regional basis because people know that top artists are involved with our program."
Price is lead writer for the daytime drama General Hospital. She will conduct a two-day workshop on writing for television early in the fall semester. Price will also be the keynote speaker at the Northwestern Theatre's annual orientation program.
"She will discuss the difficulties and rewards of being a woman in theatre," said Held. "We are bringing in a woman who is extremely successful and we hope Mary Sue will inspire the women in a our program. Our program doesn't have a course in television dramatic writing, so we thought this would give our students another option to explore.
"In this business, your network is your life. People hire others they know, so meeting people who are established is important."
Yionoulis is a composer and songwriter, who has written and performed for film, television and the theatre. He has scored several independent films, and his music has aired on CNN, the Canadian Broadcasting Company and local television and radio stations in the U.S.
As a composer and sound designer for the theatre, his compositions and recordings have been heard in New York at the Mitzi Newhouse (Lincoln Center Theatre), the New York Shakespeare Theatre, the Manhattan Theatre Club and at regional theatres across the country. Yionoulis wrote the finale for Kenneth Feld's production of "Madhattan," the first show to be performed at the New York, New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. He also adapted the classic scripts of "Oedipus," "Medea" and "Hamlet" into contemporary musical pieces.
Boyer, the founder of Boyer Drawing and Painting in Urbana, Ill., has 20 years experience in professional and academic theatre. He has presented workshops on theatre at the International Thespians Festival and the Illinois High School Theatre Festival. Boyer has taught scene design, painting techniques and graphic skills classes to students from the middle school to university levels.
He has also worked with students in painting productions at the Interlochen Center for the arts. For six years, Boyer was scenic charge artist for the University of Illinois Department of Theater where he oversaw the painting and student crews for 10 theater and opera productions each year. His credits also include the Whitewater Opera Company, Great Western Music Festival, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Illinois and Parkland Community College. Boyer's Web site is www.boyerdrawing.com.