HWS News
29 September 2017 • Arts She Kills Monsters Frame/Works Talk
Coinciding with the 2016-17 HWS Theatre seasons opening production, She Kills Monsters, the Frame/Works series returns with a presentation by HWS Theatre Resident Sound Designer Kelly Walker.
The talk, "There Once Existed Simply a Game," will take place from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 21 in Coxe 7. It will explore some of the literary sources of the late 1960s and early 1970s that influenced Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and how the game was portrayed in early 1980s popular culture. D&D grew out of the intersection of tabletop war-gaming and sword and sorcery fiction. Despite a heritage that draws from the pulps and J. R. R. Tolkien, D&D has a mixed portrayal in popular culture.
Directed by Assistant Professor of Theatre Chris Woodworth and written by playwright Qui Nguyen, She Kills Monsters explores the world of role-playing before the technology boom, through the narration of a geek heroine. In the play, Agnes Evans goes on an epic adventure in her deceased sisters imaginary world of D&D, meeting fiendish cheerleaders, nasty ogres, deadly fairies and a five-headed dragon.
Walker's Frame/Works talk is free and open to the public. She Kills Monsters runs Thursday and Friday, Oct. 20 and 21 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, Oct. 22 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. The productions will take place in McDonald Theatre of the Gearan Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at Area Records, the College Store and at the Gearan Center (room 202, Monday-Friday, 2-4 p.m.).
Attendees of Frame/Works are encouraged to attend the Oct. 21 performance. Following that night's production, audience members are invited to stay for a post-show talkback with members of the cast and production team.
About the Speaker:
This fall, Walker returned to HWS Theatre for his fourth season as resident sound designer. He has worked as a sound designer in academic and professional theatre for 18 years, most recently for the HWS productions of Duchess, Twelfth Night, Good Kids, Alice in Wonderland, Tartuffe, Radium Girls and Heavier Than Other; recent credits include sound design for the Geneva Theatre Guild production of Circle Mirror Transformation and live productions in the style of old-time radio of A Christmas Carol and John Grimes, PI at the Smith Opera House. Walker's voice is often heard on WEOS Finger Lakes Public Radio.
About Frame/Works:
Frame/Works is a program designed to draw connections between scholarly examination and artistic practice. Scholars are invited to present their research on a play, playwright, historical moment, genre or style in a pre-show lecture prior to a performance. Following the performance, audience members are invited to participate in a post-show talkback with members of the cast and creative team. Taken together, the pre-show lecture and the post-show talkback, frame a work of theatrical art.