October 1, 2021
Greetings, Everyone:
After a naturally rocky but enthusiastic start, it feels as if we’ve dug in strongly to classes, rehearsals, exhibitions and now performances! While we’ve all done a remarkable job of finding creative ways of showing our art digitally in the past year, I hope we all share the exhilaration and excitement as we begin to do so in person again. As we take this next step of moving back to live, in-person performance, please let’s do so thoughtfully, with care and safety in mind.
As we enter pumpkin spice season (however you may feel about that), we’re also entering into a period of departmental self-reflection—the first semester of an Academic Program Review of the DFPA—and as we’re returning to a sense of semi-normalcy (more knowledgeable and flexible than before the pandemic) it’s the perfect time to examine and evaluate our majors, our curriculum, our organizational structures. I ask everyone’s support of the Program Review Task Force when members may seek insight from faculty, staff and students.
It’s fall, and we’re firing on all cylinders. Please keep up the forward momentum, the care for one another, and the great creative surge!
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SEP 30 - OCT 10 // THU-SAT @ 7:30PM, SUN @ 2:00PM
Written by Naomi Iizuka
Directed by Lavina Jadhwani
In Person Tickets: $10-$20 | Livestream Tickets: $10
In telling our stories, perhaps we all can become gods. Drawn from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and interviews with homeless youth, Polaroid Stories uses the prestige of Greek mythology to illuminate overlooked voices in the contemporary United States. Playwright Naomi Iizuka navigates the epic and the intimate in this synthesizing play about dreams, desperation, and desire in a harsh reality. The vulnerable and marginalized characters transcend violence and loss through storytelling and song. As they share the true and devised details of their lives, the figures become as magnificent as the Greek gods themselves.
Cast: Avery Thompson, Drew Clemens, Emma Socey, Greyson Smith, Katie Nowak, Levi Welch, Maegan Pate, Maggie Bittinger, Mikayla De Guzman, Téa Johnson, Annemarie Andaleon, Elizabeth Usher, Emily Muirhead, Makenna Van Raalte, Mary Dixon, Momina Shahzad, Wency Hernández Rubio
Production Team: Lavina Jadhwani (Director), Millie Le (Assistant Director), Faith Hood (Dramaturg), April Browning (Producer) Gaby Labotka (Fight/Intimacy Coordinator), Kayla Menz (Assistant Fight/Intimacy Coordinator), Tim Mann (Scenic Designer), Rachel Healy (Costume Designer), Lee Keenan (Lighting Designer), André Pluess (Sound Designer, Composer), Bobby Barnett (Assistant Scenic Designer), Emilia Vates (Associate Costume Designer), Jillian Gryzlak (Props Artisan), Gianni Carcagno (Stage Manager), Jake Snell (Assistant Stage Manager), Alex Umekubo (Assistant Stage Manager)
In-person tickets are only available for Loyola students, faculty, and staff. Log in using your UVID to access these options. In-person audiences will be asked to present an active Loyola ID and wear a mask at all times.
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Ralph Arnold Gallery: Open
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Image: Renata Berdes, A bed, 2017, acrylic, chalk, pastel, and glitter on canvas, 20x24
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SEPT 17 - NOV 5 | On view from W. Sheridan Avenue
In collaboration with Arts of Life
Participating Artists:
Renata Berdes
Ted Gram-Boarini
Hubert Posey
Open features the work of three artists working with Arts of Life, Hubert Posey, Renata Berdes, and Ted Gram-Boarini. This exhibition explores intersections of access, identity, and creativity. Arts of Life advances the creative arts community by providing artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities a collective space to expand their practice and strengthen their leadership.
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OCT 28 - NOV 7 // THU-SAT @ 7:30PM, SUN @ 2:00PM
Written by D.W. Gregory
Directed by Jonathan Wilson
In Person Tickets: $10-$20 | Livestream Tickets: $10
An element as bright as the Roaring Twenties, radium can shrink tumors and illuminate clock dials. But as its industry grows, factory workers are dying from a gruesome disease linked to the nation’s latest miracle cure. Radium Girls follows Grace Fryer and other dial painters suing for recognition from the company that made them sick. In this earnest and courageous work, the road to court is long, the clock is ticking, and Grace must decide between family or justice before it’s too late. Through humor, heart, and haunting dialogue, D.W. Gregory’s historical play reflects on labor rights, the commercialization of science, and the growing fixation on wealth and success, by any means.
In-person tickets are only available for Loyola students, faculty, and staff. Log in using your UVID to access these options. In-person audiences will be asked to present an active Loyola ID and wear a mask at all times.
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Returning to Campus
We are excited to be back to campus. Please make sure you have familiarized yourself with all the University Guidance included in on these websites:
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Classroom Protocol for Faculty
The Classroom Protocol for Faculty section on the Positive Diagnosis Protocol page explains what faculty need to know if there is a positive diagnosis in their classroom. The page also includes more detailed information about how contact tracing works. For additional information or clarification, faculty should contact their department chair, program director, or associate dean.
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Free and Easy COVID-19 Testing
Loyola encourages all students, faculty, and staff, regardless of vaccination status, to take advantage of the University's comprehensive COVID-19 surveillance testing program, which is free and easy to use. This tool is especially helpful as the Delta variant circulates in our region, prompting occasional breakthrough cases among the vaccinated (sometimes, without symptoms). Testing sites are open at all three campuses, seven days per week. Results are delivered quickly, typically within 24 hours. Information about registration and scheduling can be found on our surveillance testing website.
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Updated Service Request Portal
The Facilities Department has launched a new service request portal with a user-friendly and intuitive page to submit and track requests. The Loyola community now has access to submit a facilities related service request via this link or by visiting https://www.luc.edu/facilities/ and clicking “Submit a Service Request.”
Please click on this link for a brief instructional video.
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SEIU Collective Bargaining Agreement
If you are a non-tenure track faculty member, full or part-time, you must be a part of the union. There are several policies and procedures pertaining to non-tenured faculty. You can find a copy of the ratified contract here.
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Engaging Guest Artists
The process for Engaging Guest Artists has changed. If you have a desire to bring a guest to your class or have some other reason you hope to engage an individual, please familiarize yourself with the new process. Please review the guidelines before starting the process. Once you are ready to start the process, please complete the Guest Artist Engagement Form.
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Faculty Development
Good news, our professional development budgets have been tentatively, minimally restored to comparable pre-pandemic levels. We are currently working with the CAS Dean’s office to get clarity on the process for applying for funding through the CBA Mandated development funds and then we will fold that into our internal forms to ensure that all applications and proposals for funding will be routed to the appropriate channels. We hope to finalize this process very soon, but in the meantime if you have an opportunity happening in the short term, please feel free to reach out to me directly so I can advise you. Funding will be allocated on a rolling basis, as it is available.
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Sharing Our Story and Spotlighting Our Community
The DFPA develops artists, designers, scholars, and arts leaders in a creative community that shares the Loyola vision of valuing freedom of inquiry, the pursuit of truth, and care for others. We do this through creative mentorship in and out of the classroom, studio, and rehearsal hall, through the application of arts research and practice in our public programming, and by teaching our students the value of critical reflection within a liberal arts context.
You and your students are our story, and we want to partner with you to share the activities of this unique arts community with others at Loyola and beyond through our websites, social media channels, and more.
We invite you to help us tell your stories in the following ways:
The Arts Classroom/Studio:
The magic happens in the arts classroom, practice rooms, and studios! Please contact José Pérez if you’d like to share something you’re working on in your classes – projects, presentations, demos, guest artists, etc. Here’s an example of how activities in the art classroom could be presented on our websites. Please consider sharing activities at any stage of development. We want to celebrate process!
Student Features:
Our students are involved in exciting arts research and engaged learning beyond the Lakeshore Campus. They are involved in projects in class or are growing in noticeable ways. Often our instructors and advisors are the first to know or play a mentorship role in these activities. Please point us in the direction of students that are involved in creative inquiry. We want to connect with them and feature them like in this example.
Faculty and Staff Activities:
Let us know about your upcoming creative, research, and scholarship activities – especially if there is a public-facing aspect – by submitting this form.
For submissions, ideas, or related questions, please contact José Pérez at jperez32@luc.edu
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DFPA is participating in a national workforce study
We are excited to be participating in the SMU DataArts Workforce Demographics Study and wanted to share more information with you in advance of our October 11 launch date.
Participating in this study can help our organization better understand the diverse makeup of our staff, and faculty and independent artists to remain relevant to and representative of our changing society. This data can illuminate strengths, challenges, and opportunities for the organization as we embrace change and meet the needs of an evolving population with unique identities.
This work is important to us in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts to understand how our demographics compare to that of the rest of the city of Chicago, nationally and at other academic institutions. With the recent Strategic Planning of the University, the launch of Loyola’s Anti-Racist Initiative, our Academic Program review, the creation of a DFPA DEI Committee there are many opportunities in the near future to examine how our department and its workforce compares to that of other organizations. It will be another area of examination to help us know where we are and aid us in developing a plan of where we want to go.
The anonymous, seven-minute survey allows respondents to self-identify their race, national origin, age, gender expression, sexual orientation, and disability status, and perception of safety, well-being, and happiness in their workplace. SMU DataArts’ online platform and proprietary survey protect the data of individuals while collecting detailed information. In addition, respondents may choose to skip any question in the survey. SMU DataArts will create a workforce report for us if we received enough survey responses to meet a statistically significant response threshold. When you receive the link to the survey, please fill it out!
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Updated Contact Information
It is important for a variety of reasons that we have your updated home phone and address while we are working remotely, please complete this form to update our records. Thank you!
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Faculty Profile Updates
If you do not currently have a faculty profile on the DFPA website or would like to update your profile, please complete and submit the Biography and Headshot Form. Faculty pages are among the most frequently visited pages on our website. Students often look up faculty when they’re shopping for classes so it is important to keep your profile current.
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Mark E. Lococo, PhD
Professor, Chair
Department of Fine and Performing Arts
Loyola University Chicago
mlococo@luc.edu
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