ARCA Announces Its Special
Shakespeare Event
Allegheny RiverStone Center for the Arts has scheduled a dual Shakespeare event in Foxburg. ARCA, as part of its Community Arts Outreach Program, is working with Slippery Rock University Drama Troupe and professor Laura Smiley as part of its community Arts outreach program. They will visit Allegheny Clarion Valley High School on Monday afternoon May 2nd. The troupe will preform an abbreviated version of “Much Ado About Nothing”. Students from ninth through twelfth grade English classes will attend the performance and participate in an after performance dialogue with young SRU drama players.
Later Monday evening The troupe after a visit to Foxburg Pizza to refuel and refresh their spirits, will perform the play again for ARCA at Lincoln Hall beginning at 7:00 PM. After the performance the audience will have the opportunity to visit with the young and enthusiastic performers. ARCA appreciates the help of Professor Smiley in bringing the SRU performers to the Allegheny Valley.
To help prepare the way and provide an exciting view of the venerable and genius playwright William Shakespeare, ARCA has invited Professor Emeritus Ron Shafer from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, to visit Lincoln Hall on Sunday May 1st, at 2:00 PM for a lecture and conversation about the man, the times and the genius of William Shakespeare. The lecture will include English tea and wonderful homemade scones. The cost is $ 7.00 dollars for Adults and $5.00 for students. Professor Shafer visited ARCA and Lincoln Hall last year and he was found to be engaging, great to listen to, with wonderful extended stories. Accompanying Professor Shafer will be several of his Indiana University students, who will perform several Shakespeare moments to provide entertaining illustrations of his work.
Ron Shafer, as senior member of IUP’s graduate programs, is a specialist in British Literature of the 16th and 17th centuries (especially Shakespeare and Milton), but like most IUP faculty members he considers himself a generalist who teaches a wide variety of courses including American and global texts. His travels abroad—teaching stints, invited keynote addresses at international conferences, and papers and presentations—have taken him to numerous countries, including Taiwan, Japan, Korea, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Jordan, Syria, Morocco, Kuwait, Egypt, Rwanda, Uganda, Russia, Austria, Germany, England, France, Canada, Israel, and numerous others.
Invited by The Milton Society of America, he founded and continues to preside over The Friends of Milton’s Cottage, an international organization that takes as its sole aim the renovation, preservation, and promotion of the only extant home where the poet John Milton (1608-1674) lived and, notably, completed his epic masterpiece Paradise Lost and began Paradise Regained. In the 1980s, Friends started the acclaimed International Milton Symposia, the most global of all convocations on the genius of John Milton, and used London and renowned Cambridge University as its venues.
Dr. Shafer has published numerous articles in refereed journals and has edited two volumes of essays—one on Shakespeare (Shakespeare and History: Interdisciplinary Perspectives) and one on Milton (Ringing the Bell Backwards: Papers of the First International Milton Symposium).
Shafer has been the recipient of a number of prestigious grants—IUP’s first senior Fulbright Visiting Professorship (Cairo, Egypt), and IUP’s first National Endowment for the Humanities Grant (Shakespeare—1986 and 1987). In addition, he has garnered distinctive awards including a national Teaching Exemplary Excellence Award (conferred by the American Association for Higher Education); IUP’s highest award (President’s Medal of Distinction); one of 50 American professors cited by CHANGE Magazine for leadership excellence at the national level; Silver Medalist Runner-up (in a pool of over 6000) in the National Professor of the Year Award (Carnegie Foundation and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education), and a lifetime chair at IUP, Distinguished University Professor.
He currently serves as eastern USA Vice-President of United Poets Laureate International. Though his poetry has won several international awards, he maintains that his most unique experience was audience with Her Majesty, Elizabeth, Queen of England, at a garden party. One of IUP’s senior professors, he continues to teach because of his sheer love of students and the classroom. One question remains, Is he going to the wedding? It promises to be a enjoyable Sunday afternoon activity.
ARCA also wants to remind everyone that on May 5th, we will fast forward from drama at the Globe Theater to the movies and “Three Kings” which is part of ARCA’s Oil and Gas Film Series at Lincoln Hall. Actor, producer Joe Coyle is back to share stories of being on location with George Clooney. He also has a cameo appearance in the film. Admission is $ 5.00. Doors open and comments begin at 6:00 PM, the film rolls at 6:30 PM. If it is not too late it is across the street for pizza and talk after the show.