TheatreWorksEDU student productions begin this week at the Riverfront Amphitheater.

Like the e-mail says, "The latest and greatest news on your favorite little playhouse in Downtown New Albany."

For more information visit the TheatreWorks web site.


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Dear Friends,

The TheatreWorksEDU student productions of Disney’s The Lion King KIDS and Seussical JR begin this week at the New Albany Amphitheater. The performances are July 11, 12, 18, 19, & 20 at 7:30 p.m and they are free to the public. Both productions are directed/music-directed by Katie Maras Haulter, assistant-directed by Brooklyn Chalfant, choreographed by Sarah Gahagen, and tech-directed by Kota Earnhardt.

The 60+ students involved with these two shows have been rehearsing since May. “It has been such a pleasure working with these talented young performers,” said Gahagen. “These kids have willingly given up much of their summer break to practice and that enthusiasm shines through on stage. It is such a positive experience not only for the children, but for us adults as well.”

Gahagen shared, ““These are such great shows with such fun music. It has been such a privilege to work with these kids and see them learning and growing as performers. They have worked so hard all summer, and I think we are all looking forward to seeing all the pieces come together into a great performance!”

Haulter is no stranger to working with student actors of all ages. She directed The Lion King KIDS at Clarksville Little Theater last summer, and is currently the theatre director at Hazelwood Middle School. Haulter shared, “The kids and teens in both Lion King KIDS and Seussical, Jr. have devoted their summer to honing their acting, singing, and dancing skills, and I couldn’t be prouder of all they have accomplished. These are perfect shows for the whole family to join us in celebrating - including little ones - and to share New Albany and Southern Indiana’s love of theatre for all ages.”

These productions are an effort to provide summer activities and positive experiences for students. “The focus of this project has been on the students,” said Dr. Jason Roseberry, Executive Director for TheatreWorks of SoIN. “From the acting, set work, lighting, and sound, these students have worked with professionals and then had the responsibility handed off to them for the performances.”

"The rise of the teetotal student," and what Mencken might say about it.

H.L. Mencken once commented on teetotalism.

Teetotalism does not make for human happiness; it makes for the dull, idiotic happiness of the barnyard. The men who do things in the world, the men worthy of admiration and imitation, are men constitutionally incapable of any such pecksniffian stupidity. Their ideal is not a safe life, but a full life; they do not try to follow the canary bird in a cage, but the eagle in the air. And in particular they do not flee from shadows and bugaboos. The alcohol myth is such a bugaboo. The sort of man it scares is the sort of man whose chief mark is that he is scared all the time.

H.L. Mencken, "Alcohol", Damn! A Book of Calumny, 1918

Concurrently there's nothing surprising about the rise of the teetotal student, and I've no criticism to make of it. Abstinence absent compulsion (for the rest of us to do the same) is just fine, and those who choose to drink should so so responsibly. Cohabitation is good.

Period.

'I'm not spending money on that': the rise of the teetotal student, by Suzanne Bearne (The Guardian)

Universities are seeing an increase in teetotal clubs and alcohol-free accommodation. Why are students drinking less?

... A rising number of young people are abstaining from booze, with 36% of 16-24 year-olds in full-time eduction not touching alcohol, according to a survey by University College London. Dr Linda Ng Fat, lead author of the study, believes that an overall decline in drinking has made it more acceptable for young people to shun alcohol. “It seems that non-drinking is becoming more normative, which could make it easier for more and more young people not to drink, should they choose to.”

Paging Wendy Dant Chesser: "Students At Most Colleges Don’t Pick ‘Useless’ Majors."

Vile humanities major. 

I'm never, ever going to let this one drop. Wendy Dant Chesser is One Southern Indiana, and 1Si's operating philosophy of "What's Good for Our Oligarchs Is Good for You, Peasant" will never be my cup of tea.

Hello Wendy, Part One: In which we are properly warned not to heed the oligarchs' call to discount the value of liberal arts degrees.

Hello Wendy, Part Two: "Are dissidents born or made? A humanities major examines his life and locale."

Here's some refutation for Dant Chesser to enjoy with her morning Starbucks. For as long as she's over there and I'm back here, this will continue to be grist for the mill.

Students At Most Colleges Don’t Pick ‘Useless’ Majors, b Michelle Cheng (FiveThirtyEight)

.. The vastly different college paths that Mehta and Speers took illustrate an obvious point that is nonetheless often overlooked in discussions of higher education: Students attend college for different reasons. Some, like Mehta, see college primarily as a financial decision, an investment that they hope will have a relatively short-term payoff. Others, like Speers, may hope that a degree will bring financial rewards, but their focus is more on the intellectual and social aspects of the college experience. (Others, of course, seek both.) Those different goals affect where students go to college and what they do once they get there.

These varied approaches to college are clear from the fields that students at different colleges choose to study. According to data from the federal Education Department, students at elite universities are more likely to pursue degrees in the humanities, arts and social sciences than students at less selective schools, who tend to choose majors that are more likely to lead to an immediate, well-paying job.1
The most popular fields of study among students at the most selective schools are the social sciences, with 19 percent of degrees awarded in majors such as political science, economics and sociology. The next two most popular groups of majors are the biological and biomedical sciences and engineering. At less selective schools, the most common fields of study are related to business (the Education Department calls this category “business, management, marketing and related support services”), with 19 percent of degrees awarded in those majors. The next most popular group is “health professions and related programs.”

Career-focused majors — such as business, education and journalism — are more prevalent at less selective schools than at top-tier schools. Education ranks as the fifth most popular major at less selective schools but is the 21st most popular major at the most selective schools. Other vocation-specific majors such as law enforcement are also more popular at less selective schools.2 In total, more than half of students at less selective schools major in career-focused subjects; at elite schools, less than a quarter of students do so.

These numbers run counter to the common stereotype of students majoring in “useless” subjects and complaining when they can’t find jobs. In fact, comparatively few students at less selective schools — the vast majority of U.S. college students and the ones most likely to be pursuing degrees primarily for their career benefits — major in these less practical fields ...