Fine art departments looking ahead: Plans are already underway for next school year’s events, shows, and programs

Home Culture Fine art departments looking ahead: Plans are already underway for next school year’s events, shows, and programs

While students are still editing assignments, hammering out papers, and registering for next semester, the theatre and art departments are already focusing on next year.

By December, the art department hopes to have next fall’s schedule lined up, and theater department chair George Angel told the Collegian that he is already thinking about next year’s productions.

“Final decisions probably won’t be made until March, but people are suggesting things at this point,” Angel said.

Preparation is a big deal to Hillsdale’s fine art faculty. Months—and sometimes even years—go into the decision-making process. Shows are chosen in consideration of many things, such as students who are being trained and what the college’s curriculum is.

“We just did Moliere’s ‘The Misanthrope,’” Angel said. “It has application for the French department, the Great Books program, history, sociology. We try to choose a season that mixes things up. [Decisions] come out of group discussion. Sometimes we do a main-stage show —like ‘Woyzeck’ last year— that’s student-directed and has to be thought about years in advance because the student has to be trained and ready to go.”

Other practical considerations are also reviewed, such as rehearsal time available and budgetary concerns. The theatre department tries to have two shows a semester, and has to take costuming, set, and lighting design into consideration. However, as a department, they find ways to be creative.

“We very seldom repeat ourselves,” Angel said. “There are only a handful of shows that I can think of that were performed more than once since I came here 30 years ago.”

The next show on the agenda is “Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike,” a comedy play by Christopher Durang.

Art department chair Barbara Bushey described putting on an art exhibit as a similar process.

“Everybody on the faculty has the opportunity to make suggestions and sometimes we just see something we like,” Bushey said. “We’re working on next year right now — I’d like to get to the point where we have everything done in December for the following school year.”

Professional artist exhibits are usually shown for three weeks to a month, and choosing artists to display is a selective process.

“We usually reach out to [artists] that we’ve come across in some fashion,” Bushey said, “whether it’s somebody we know or saw a show somewhere else or maybe somebody we were in a group show with. We try to rotate through having drawing, painting, sculpture, and digital work because it’s part of our teaching to show off other mediums so that students can learn from it.”

The art department tries to host two to three professional shows every semester, but it also hosts student shows. Student shows are usually shown for a week depending on the academic calendar, and are a requirement for art majors approaching graduation. The student show on display now is a combination of the work of seniors Maggie Smith and Kitty Helmick. Typically, senior shows are shown during at the end of the spring semester, but Helmick is graduating in December and Smith felt that she was ready.

Photography professor Doug Coon has taught Helmick, and says that the process of deciding what goes into a senior show can be difficult.

“Sometimes students have a hard time figuring out what they should show,” Coon said. “For their major, [art students] have to go through a variety of different mediums. But as far as the senior show goes, it’s up to them. Ideally it’s a mix but people are often good at one thing more than another so they’ll emphasize that. It really depends on the student and their interest.”

Although choosing performances and deciding on exhibits is a lengthy process for both the theatre and the art departments, Angel says it is a worthwhile one.

“I am always excited about whatever project I am working on,” he said. “We won’t do something we’re not excited about.”