December 1: Jude Law in "Obsession"

ECU SCREENS caps its fall season with Obsession starring Jude Law (The Young Pope, The Talented Mr. Ripley) at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, December 1, in the Raymond J. Estep Multimedia Center of the Bill S. Cole University Center. Open to the public, the screening is $10 for members of the community, and $5 for students.

Jude Law “smoulders” (Daily Telegraph) in the lead role as Gino, a magnetically handsome drifter who is down-at-heel. At a road side restaurant, he encounters husband and wife, Giuseppe and Giovanna. Irresistibly attracted to each other, Gino and Giovanna begin a fiery affair and plot to murder her husband. But in this chilling tale of passion and destruction, the crime only serves to tear them apart.

Recorded live at the Barbican Theatre in London, this new stage adaptation is based on Luchino Visconti’s 1943 film Ossessione. Visconti’s first feature film, Ossessione gave rise to the genre of Italian neo-realism – films shot in mainly real settings, foregrounding the resistance to Fascism and the lives of the poor and dispossessed. Banned twice when it was first released in Italy, Ossessione only got proper release in Europe and the USA many years later.

The running time for this production is 1 hour and 55 minutes. There is no interval. Obsession is recommended for mature audiences.

NT Live is the National Theatre's groundbreaking project to broadcast the best of British theatre to cinemas around the world. Next spring, ECU SCREENS will be presenting NT Live’s production of an adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca's Yerma on Saturday, January 20th at 6:30 p.m.; the new comedy Young Marx at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 21st; and Steven Sondheim’s Follies at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 28th. In February, ECU SCREENS will also host ECU’s seventh Foreign Film Festival, with free screenings of foreign-language features on Fridays at four p.m. This year’s screenings include Neruda (Chile; February 2), Nise (Brazil; February 16), and a recorded live stage production from Russia on February 9 (The Black Monk).

To learn more about ECU SCREENS, like the ECU SCREENS Facebook page. For more information about the Royal National Theatre in Great Britain and National Theatre Live, visit www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/. Dr. Rebecca Nicholson-Weir, co-director of ECU SCREENS, may be contacted at (580) 559-5929 or rnichlsn@ecok.edu.

November 4: Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night"

SHAKESPEARE’S GENDER-BENDING COMEDY GETS A NEW TWIST AT ECU

ECU SCREENS continues its fourth season with William Shakespeare’s gender-bending comedy Twelfth Night, at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 4, in the Raymond J. Estep Multimedia Center of the Bill S. Cole University Center. Open to the public, the screening is $10 for members of the community, and $5 for students.

Featuring Tamsin Greig as a transformed Malvolia, a role traditionally played by men, this joyous new production of Shakespeare’s classic comedy of mistaken identity is “Masses of fun, a delicious crowd pleaser,” according to Time Out: London.

A ship is wrecked on the rocks. Viola is washed ashore but her twin brother Sebastian is lost. Determined to survive on her own, she steps out to explore a new land. So begins a whirlwind of mistaken identity and unrequited love.

The nearby households of Olivia and Orsino are overrun with passion. Even Olivia's upright housekeeper Malvolia is swept up in the madness. Where music is the food of love, and nobody is quite what they seem, anything proves possible.

NT Live is the National Theatre's groundbreaking project to broadcast the best of British theatre to cinemas around the world. Following Twelfth Night, ECU SCREENS will be presenting NT Live’s production of Tom Stoppard’s classic comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) on Wednesday, November 15th at 1 p.m., and Obsession, starring Jude Law on Friday, December 1st at 6:30 p.m.

To learn more about ECU SCREENS, like the ECU SCREENS Facebook page or visit www.ecuscreens.blogspot.com. For more information about the Royal National Theatre in Great Britain and the NT Live screenings, visit www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/. Dr. Rebecca Nicholson-Weir, co-director of ECU SCREENS, may be contacted at (580) 559-5929 or rnichlsn@ecok.edu.

Fall 2017 Schedule

All films will be screened in the Raymond J. Estep Multimedia Center located inside the Bill S. Cole University Center (near the corner of E. 13th Street and South Francis) on the campus of East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma.

Tickets are available at the door for $10 per person or $5 for students (with ID) unless otherwise noted.

Thursday, September 7 at 6:30 p.m.
ANGELS IN AMERICA, PART ONE: MILLENNIUM APPROACHES
By Tony Kushner

America in the mid-1980s. In the midst of the AIDS crisis and a conservative Reagan administration, New Yorkers grapple with life and death, love and sex, heaven and hell.

Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man, Hacksaw Ridge) plays Prior Walter along with a cast including Denise Gough, Nathan Lane (The Producers, The Lion King), James McArdle (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) and Russell Tovey.

This new staging of Tony Kushner’s multi-award winning two-part play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, is directed by Olivier and Tony award winning director Marianne Elliott (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and War Horse). Part One: Millennium Approaches was first performed at the National Theatre in 1992 and was followed by Part Two: Perestroika the following year.

Thursday, September 14 at 6:30 p.m.
ANGELS IN AMERICA, PART TWO: PERESTROIKA

By Tony Kushner

Saturday, November 4 at 6:30 p.m.

TWELFTH NIGHT

By William Shakespeare

Tamsin Greig is Malvolia in a new twist on Shakespeare’s classic comedy of mistaken identity.

A ship is wrecked on the rocks. Viola is washed ashore but her twin brother Sebastian is lost. Determined to survive on her own, she steps out to explore a new land. So begins a whirlwind of mistaken identity and unrequited love.

The nearby households of Olivia and Orsino are overrun with passion. Even Olivia's upright housekeeper Malvolia is swept up in the madness. Where music is the food of love, and nobody is quite what they seem, anything proves possible.

Simon Godwin (NT Live: Man and Superman, NT Live: The Beaux’ Stratagem) directs this joyous new production with Tamsin Greig as a transformed Malvolia.

Wednesday, November 15 at 1:00 p.m.
ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD
By Tom Stoppard

Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Joshua McGuire, and David Haig (Four Weddings and a Funeral) star in Tom Stoppard’s brilliantly funny situation comedy, broadcast live from The Old Vic theatre in London.

David Leveaux’s new production marks the 50th anniversary of the play that made a young Tom Stoppard’s name overnight.

Against the backdrop of Hamlet, two hapless minor characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, take centre stage. As the young double act stumble their way in and out of the action of Shakespeare’s iconic drama, they become increasingly out of their depth as their version of the story unfolds.

Friday, December 1 at 6:30 p.m.
OBSESSION
Adapted by Jan Peter Gerrit from Luschino Visconti's 1942 film. 

Jude Law (The Young Pope, Closer, The Talented Mr Ripley) stars in the stage production of Obsession, broadcast live from the Barbican Theatre in London. Ivo van Hove (NT Live: A View from the Bridge, Hedda Gabler) directs this new stage adaptation of Luchino Visconti’s 1943 film.

Gino is a drifter, down-at-heel and magnetically handsome. At a road side restaurant he encounters husband and wife, Giuseppe and Giovanna. Irresistibly attracted to each other, Gino and Giovanna begin a fiery affair and plot to murder her husband. But, in this chilling tale of passion and destruction, the crime only serves to tear them apart.

The stage production of Obsession is produced by Barbican Theatre Productions Limited, London and Toneelgroep Amsterdam; co-commissioned by Wiener Festwochen and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg; co-produced by Holland Festival and David Binder Productions; and supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The Spectre of Marx

An Interdisciplinary Conference on Marxism, Its Origins, and Its Ghostly Presence in Our Contemporary World

On February 21, 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto, calling on the workers of the world to unite and destroy capitalism.

All kinds of trouble ensued.

To commemorate the 170th anniversary of this historic publication, ECU SCREENS and Linscheid Library Academic Friends are hosting "THE SPECTRE OF MARX: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Marxism, Its Origins, and Its Ghostly Presence in Our Contemporary World."

The conference will kick off at 9:30 a.m. on February 20th with two, 75-minute discussion panel/Q&A sessions featuring Drs. Joshua Grasso (English and Language), Preston Draper (Political Science), Jennifer McMahon (English and Languages), Michael Scott (Business), and Greg Sutton (History).

The conference will culminate on February 21st with a 6:30 screening in the Estep of the NT Live production of the Bridge Theater's new comedy Young Marx. starring Rory Kinnear.

We also want ECU students to be a part of the program, so we are issuing a call for papers (600-750 word mini-essays) and an art prospectus (for song, poetry, art work and short films). Click here for a pdf of the CFP. Click here for a pdf of the Prospectus. Click here for application and entry cards for artworks.

The deadline for student submissions is February 7th.

We expect to be giving out up to $300 in award money for outstanding student submissions.

Please send further questions to:  sbenton@ecok.edu.

CALL FOR PAPERS:
“Can someone be a Marxist and a Christian?”

“Do the horrors of Stalin, Mao and other self-identified Marxist totalitarians demonstrate the moral bankruptcy of Marxism?”

ECU SCREENS and Linscheid Library Academic Friends invite students to submit brief scholarly essays that:
· discuss opposing views of Marxism as they relate to questions like those above;
· deploy Marxist or anti-Marxist theories to analyze works of art or literary, cinematic or historical texts;
· engage the topic of the horrific consequences of social class warfare (or its utter necessity) in a smart way that we haven’t thought of yet.

Essays should be 600-750 words in length. We welcome dual submissions from two authors who have opposing viewpoints on the same question.

An ECU faculty jury will review submissions and invite selected authors and artists to present their work to the public at The Spectre of Marx conference, which will be held on February 20-21, 2018 on the ECU Campus.

PROSPECTUS:

We want your songs, poems, artwork and short films about "Work and the Evil (or the Glory) of Class Warfare."

Eligibility: Artists/Poets/Musicians must be current ECU students
Deadline: February 7, 2018
Curator: A jury of ECU faculty will review submissions. Selected artists/poets/musicians will be asked to present their work to the public at The Spectre of Marx conference held at ECU on February 20-21 2018
Art Specifications: Two-dimensional artworks should be no larger than 22 x 28”. All artwork must be hang-ready with D-rings and wire—we cannot accommodate saw-tooth or raw canvases without wire. Prints and drawings should be glazed and supported with wire. Three-dimensional work will be considered, but must be able to hang from gallery wire hanging system, as there will be no shelving units available. Digital, video, new media and original musical works must be presented on a USB drive formatted for presentation on both PC and Mac operating systems.
Applications:. Submissions should be emailed to sbenton@ecok.edu. Physical artworks should be delivered to Faust 155 along with entry form and artwork cards, which can be found at ecuscreens.blogspot.com.
Awards: Selected artists/poets/musicians will be notified by email of acceptance by February 14.
Sponsors: This competition is sponsored by ECU SCREENS and Linscheid Library Academic Friends
Liability: Artists are responsible for the safe delivery, installation, and timely pick up of their work. ECU SCREENS is not responsible at any time for the loss, damage, or theft of artwork.
Entry Fee: None.

September 7 and 14: Angels in America, Parts One and Two

ECU SCREENS open its fourth season with Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, starring Andrew Garfield, at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 7, in the Raymond J. Estep Multimedia Center of the Bill S. Cole University Center. Open to the public, the screening is $10 for members of the community. ECU SCREENS will be sponsoring free admission for students.

This new staging of Tony Kushner’s multi-award winning two-part play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, is directed by Olivier and Tony award winning director Marianne Elliott. Elliot also directed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and War Horse, both popular hits from previous ECU SCREENS seasons. Angels in America: Millenium Approaches was recorded live at the National Theatre in London on July 20 of this year.

Set in 1986, during the AIDS crisis and Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Angels in America dramatizes the struggles of New Yorkers who grapple with life and death, love and sex, heaven and hell. Part One: Millennium Approaches was first performed at the National Theatre in London in 1992. It was followed by Part Two: Perestroika in 1993. ECU SCREENS will present both dramas on successive Thursdays, with Perestroika scheduled for 6:00 pm on Thursday, September 14th, also in the Estep.

Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider Man, Hacksaw Ridge) plays Prior Walter in a performance that London’s Sunday Times describes as “spectacular.” In a five-star review, The Daily Telegraph characterizes the drama as “a start-to-finish sensation,” and the Evening Standard confirms that the production is “a true theatrical epic.” WhatsOnStage praises the “superb” cast, led by Garfield and Nathan Lane, who plays the real figure of Roy M. Cohn, who became Donald Trump’s lawyer. Cohn was once the “right-arm of Joe McCarthy” and boasts that he made a career of persecuting “commies and homos.” But as the drama begins, he is himself dying of AIDS, while claiming he has liver cancer.

This production contains scenes of a sexual nature and is not recommended for children.

Following the Angels in America presentations, ECU SCREENS will be presenting NT Live’s production of Tom Stoppard’s classic comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) on Wednesday, November 15th at 1 p.m.

To learn more about ECU SCREENS, like the ECU SCREENS Facebook page.

For more information about the Royal National Theatre in Great Britain and the NT Live screenings, visit www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/. Dr. Rebecca Nicholson-Weir, co-director of ECU SCREENS, may be contacted at (580) 559-5929 or rnichlsn@ecok.edu.

St. Joan on Bastille Day

Friday, July 14 at 7 p.m.
ST. JOAN
By George Bernard Shaw.  NT Live.

The ECU SCREENS summer season continues on July 14^th with George Bernard Shaw’s “St. Joan,” starring Gemma Arterton in the title role as the French national heroine Joan of Arc. 

Recorded live at the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden, London, Shaw’s classic drama will be presented in the Raymond J. Estep Multimedia Center of the Bill S. Cole University Center at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, July 14, the 228^th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille prison, which launched the French Revolution. 

From the torment of the Hundred Years' War, the charismatic Joan of Arc led a shocking victory over the English that has inspired the French people for centuries. Daughter, farm girl, visionary, patriot, soldier, leader, victor, radical, witch, heretic, saint, martyr, woman: Joan is an unparalleled figure in world history. 

Gemma Arterton (Gemma Bovery, Nell Gwynn, Made in Dagenham) , who played “Bond Girl” Strawberry Fields in 2008’s Quantum of Solace, delivers an “electrifying” performance as the warrior who was later canonized as a Roman Catholic saint (Time Out). “Arterton’s Joan radiates a gentle simplicity and quiet fervour that are deeply charismatic,” according to reviewer Paul Taylor of London’s The Independent, who also marvels at the “highly recommended” production’s many resonances with contemporary global politics. 

“St. Joan” (run-time: 2 hours, 38 minutes) will include a 20-minute intermission, during which ECU SCREENS will serve free ice cream. General admission tickets are $10. Tickets are $5 for ECU students.

Summer 2017 Schedule

Both films will be screened in the Raymond J. Estep Multimedia Center located inside the Bill S. Cole University Center (near the corner of E. 13th Street and South Francis) on the campus of East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma.

Tickets are available at the door for $10 per person or $5 for students (with ID) unless otherwise noted. Free for ECU Students.

Friday, May 19 at 1 p.m.
HEDDA GABLER*
By Henrik Ibsen, in a new version by Patrick Marber. NT Live.
Ruth Wilson plays the title role in Ivo van Hove's production.
*50% discount for attendees at Momentum Ada.

“I’ve no talent for life.”

Just married. Buried alive. Hedda longs to be free...

Hedda and Tesman have just returned from their honeymoon and the relationship is already in trouble. Trapped but determined, Hedda tries to control those around her, only to see her own world unravel.

Tony Award-winning director Ivo van Hove (A View from the Bridge at the Young Vic Theatre) returns to National Theatre Live screens with a modern production of Ibsen’s masterpiece.

Ruth Wilson (Luther, The Affair, Jane Eyre) plays the title role in a new version by Patrick Marber (Notes on a Scandal, Closer).


Friday, July 14 at 7 p.m.
ST. JOAN
By George Bernard Shaw.  NT Live.
Gemma Arterton is Joan of Arc in Josie Rourke's production.

Joan: daughter, farm girl, visionary, patriot, king-whisperer, soldier, leader, victor, icon, radical, witch, heretic, saint, martyr, woman.

From the torment of the Hundred Years' War, the charismatic Joan of Arc carved a victory that defined France. Bernard Shaw's classic play depicts a woman with all the instinct, zeal and transforming power of a revolutionary.

Josie Rourke (Les Liaisons Dangereuses, The Vote, Coriolanus) directs Gemma Arterton (Gemma Bovery, Nell Gwynn, Made in Dagenham) as Joan of Arc in this electrifying masterpiece.

April 28: Te Ata

East Central University will be hosting a private screening for ECU students and employees of the Chickasaw Nation’s movie Te Ata on Friday, April 28 at 4:00 p.m. in ECU's Ataloa Theatre in the Hallie Brown Ford Fine Arts Center.

As with other ECU events, family members may also attend with a valid ECU ID.

Te Ata is based on the true story of Mary Thompson Fisher, a woman who traversed cultural barriers to become one of the greatest Native American performers of all time. Mary took the stage name "Te Ata," which means “Bearer of Morning” in the Chickasaw language. As a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, Te Ata was an accomplished actor and teller of Native American stories and overcame various obstacles to perform in front of President Roosevelt, the King and Queen of Great Britain and on stages across the United States.
Many Oklahomans had the opportunity to participate in the movie as it was filmed locally, so viewers may see familiar faces and locations.

The Ataloa Theatre is named for another renowned Chickasaw artist, a cousin of Te Ata. Ataloa attended USAO and remained great friends with Te Ata for many years thereafter.

OPERATION MOZART

Thursday, April 13th at ECU in Ada, Oklahoma


Schedule of events
4:00 Keyboard recital directed by Mr. Skye Garcia

4:30 Instrumental recital directed by Dr. Nathaniel Berman

5:00 A Taste of Germany* (snacks) provided by ECU's chapter of the National Association for Music Educators (NAfME)

5:30 Choral recital featuring the University Chorale, directed by Dr. Steve Walker

6:00 "Amadeus: The Lines vs. the Letters," a talk given by Dr. Joshua Grasso

6:30 A Taste of Germany provided by NAfME: grilled brats with sauerkraut, potato cakes, and Black Forest cake.

7:30 Royal National Theatre of Great Britain's Amadeus, a recorded-live production. $10 for the general public; free for ECU students.

*When Wolfgang Mozart was born in Salzburg on the 27th of January, 1756, the Archbishopric of Salzburg was part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, but the state of Germany and the state of Austria as we know them did not yet exist.

Seventh Annual Film Festival Finale

Friday, February 24 at 4 pm
WHERE DO WE GO NOW? 
Directed by Nadine Labaki. Lebanon; Free.