Open auditions for Shakespeare Festival 2018

Plans for the 2018 season of the Grand Valley State University Shakespeare Festival are already underway. This year’s performances will be “King Lear” and “Bard to Go.” There are casting opportunities for all students regardless of major or minor. Backstage duties are also available. 

Open auditions will be held Monday, April 9, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Tuesday, April 10, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Room 1721 of the Haas Center for Performing Arts.

To attend an audition, please sign up at the Louis Armstrong Theatre box office, call 616-331-2300 or email Jack Lane at [email protected].

GVSU puppetry class to perform shows on campus

Grand Valley State University’s Spanish Laboratory Theatre class helps students learn to speak Spanish comfortably through puppetry. Throughout the semester, students have been practicing puppet shows in class with their homemade puppets.

Students of the Spanish Laboratory Theatre class will be performing their shows Friday, April 6, at 7 p.m. in Manitou Hall, Room 122, and Monday, April 9, at 1:30 p.m. in the Linn Maxwell Keller Black Box Theatre. Both events are free and open to the public. 

Choral ensemble auditions open for fall semester

Grand Valley State University music professor and conductor Ellen Pool is holding auditions for the choral ensemble for the fall semester. She encourages students who have a background in music and enjoy participating in a structured ensemble to consider joining. The Department of Music, Theatre and Dance at GVSU offers five different choral ensembles for students to choose from, with the more advanced ensembles requiring an audition.

Interested individuals should contact Pool at 616-331-2572 or [email protected] for more information. She will be holding auditions from now until Sunday, April 15. 

Choral concert to be held Monday, April 16

The University Arts Chorale and the Cantate Chamber Ensemble will be performing in the Cook-DeWitt Center under the direction of professor Ellen Pool on Monday, April 16, at 7:30 p.m.

The University Arts Chorale is a group of 35 auditioned students who perform choral pieces from a variety of periods. The Cantate Chamber Ensemble is a small group that performs a cappella choral music and whose goal is to perform a variety of both sacred and secular music through vocal jazz. The Cantate Chamber Ensemble performs without a conductor. 

Arts at Noon series: Grand Valley Winds

The Grand Valley Winds have been invited to perform at the Janacek 2018 festival in the Czech Republic this July. On Wednesday, April 4, at noon, they will be giving a program that features some of the music they will be playing in the Janacek 2018 festival. Those performing include Christopher Kantner, flute; Marlen Vavrikova, oboe; Gary June, clarinet; Victoria Olson, bassoon; and Richard Britsch, horn. 

The program will be held in the Cook-DeWitt Center.