The Dean Performing Arts Series

Each semester, the University Honors Center provides opportunities for students to attend local and visiting performances complete with a special academic pre-performance seminar or lecture. Past events have included the Austin Lyric Opera’s performance of La Traviata, Zach Scott Theater’s production of Fiction, and Broadway Across America’s presentation of West Side Story.

Availability of tickets is announced via email to the honors community, and tickets are available on a first come, first served basis. The Dean Performing Arts Series is made possible through the generous support of the L.L. and Ethel E. Dean Endowment.

Recent Performances

Wicked
Broadway Across America
Bass Concert Hall

Back by popular demand! Entertainment Weekly calls Wicked “the best musical of the decade,” and when it first played Austin, it broke box office records and sold out in record time. Winner of 35 major awards, including a Grammy and three Tony Awards, Wicked is Broadway’s biggest blockbuster, a cultural phenomenon and named “the defining musical of the decade” by The New York Times.

Long before that girl from Kansas arrives in Munchkinland, two girls meet in the land of Oz. One – born with emerald green skin – is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. How these two grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good makes for “the most complete and completely satisfying new musical in a long time” ( USA Today).

Our evening began with a special pre-performance talk on “Wicked Appeals and the Pleasures of Popular Genre” by Rachel Schneider of the Department of English. A Ph.D. candidate and an assistant instructor, she currently teaches a class on popular genre. She also writes about musicals and other forms of visual rhetoric for the Digital Writing and Research Lab’s blog viz.

The Nutcracker
Ballet Austin
The Long Center

The longest running holiday dance production in Texas returns with Ballet Austin’s 49th annual production of The Nutcracker. Whether starting a new tradition or continuing a long-standing one, The Nutcracker is a magical, memory making experience for all ages, with an army of mischievous mice, a bevy of bon-bons, a slurry of sparkling snowflakes, and one jovial Mother Ginger… plus the Austin Symphony Orchestra!

Based on the children’s story, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” by E.T.A. Hoffman, the Nutcracker ballet premiered in 1891 at the Maryinsky Theater in Moscow, with choreography by Marius Petipa, who commissioned the score from Tchaikovsky. Our special pre-performance seminar was presented by Holly Williams, UT’s Department of Theatre & Dance MFA Dance Program Head. Ms. Williams presented an alternative vision of the Nutcracker entitled The Hard Nut choreographed by Mark Morris.

Plan II Chamber Music Recital

The Plan II Chamber Music Society hosted an evening of beautiful chamber music, performing works by Mozart, Shostakovich, Brahms, Prokofiev, songs from Wicked, and more! This event was sponsored by the L.L. and Ethel E. Dean Endowment.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Department of Theatre and Dance
B. Iden Payne Theatre

Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and directed by Daria Davis.

In Jeffrey Hatcher’s stage play of this classic tale, Dr. Henry Jekyll is tormented by his own creation, Mr. Edward Hyde. Mesmerizing and intense, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde delves into jealousy, paranoia, and addiction and reveals the monster that may lie beneath the surface. As his psyche splinters, Jekyll must confront Hyde – himself – and the darkness that exists in both men.

There was a special pre-performance talk with Dr. Elizabeth Richmond-Garza of the Department of English and consultant to this production. Trained in Greek as well as modern aesthetics, she works actively in eight languages. Her research concentrates on Orientalism, the Gothic, Cleopatra, Oscar Wilde, and European drama. She is currently finishing a study of decadent culture at the end of the nineteenth century.

Holst’s The Planets
Austin Symphony Orchestra
The Long Center

Austin Symphony Orchestra presented a musical space odyssey featuring the Austin Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Debussy’s “Nocturnes” and Holst’s “The Planets”. The performance included a special multimedia film presentation of Gustav Holst’s “The Planets”, complete with dramatic film and photo images from NASA’s unmanned spacecrafts and narration by NASA astronaut Col. B. Alvin Drew, USAF (Ret.).

Our intergalactic evening began with a special pre-performance seminar by Sally Dodson-Robinson, Ph.D., of the Department of Astronomy. Sally works on planet formation as well as more traditional astronomy topics, and set the planetary stage for our musical journey.