Culture

OBOC makes a scene with ‘Confessions of a College Musical Theatre Group’

“Confessions of a College Musical Theater Group,” the title of Off Broadway On Campus’ spring show on Friday evening in Strong Auditorium, may sound like a placeholder title for the performance group’s biannual musical revue, but it actually held a lot of relevance. Many of the musical numbers were accompanied by scenes, appropriated and amended […]

Not Vanilla: Follow me, I’m famous

Recently, I have been perusing famous people’s Instagrams. I find it interesting to see how Jessica Biel or Chris Pratt live day to day — or rather, see what they chose to show me about how they live day to day. It’s fascinating how today’s celebrities choose to portray themselves to the public now that […]

‘The Light in the Piazza’ provides warmth and levity

Cold, wet snow was falling from dark skies over the Eastman Theatre on Friday evening, but the welcoming light inside offered a heartwarming, gorgeously well-performed, and often hilarious production of 2005’s brilliant “The Light in the Piazza.” The play is an uncommonly optimistic take on what the show’s stage director, Stephen Carr (associate artistic director of Eastman […]

ROC Players elevate ‘Spring Awakening’

The May Room in Wilson Commons is an interesting place to stage a musical because it doesn’t seem built for them. It’s small (compared to something like Strong), and its stage is an elevated platform, also small, with no curtains. But necessity is the mother of invention, as the ROC Players proved in the finer […]

Indulgence is unapologetically badass

I have only two words to describe the “Growing up in Hip Hop” Indulgence spring show this past Saturday: holy crap. For those who are unaware, Indulgence is a hip-hop dance group on campus run by the Black Students’ Union. I remember seeing them perform in the diversity showcase during Orientation and in After Hours’ […]

Not Vanilla: Lazy Sunday shows

The future of food-decorating competitions isn’t exactly hanging in the balance, but let’s just pretend it is. I recently was introduced to the new Netflix show “Nailed It” (no, reader, this is not a sponsorship), and I realized that with the movement of media from television to streaming platforms, a lot of the smaller, more […]

40 years of games at Simcon

Last weekend marked the 40th annual Simcon, the UR Simulation Gaming Association’s convention of board games and more. Senior Stephen Watson, the association’s Simcon chair, explained that the term “simulation gaming” is really a “catch-all way to distinguish yourself from video games and other things.” The convention, which ran from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening, […]

Passion stays strong through Africa Week and Afrikanza

Students gushed with enthusiasm at crowded Feldman Ballroom tables last Saturday for Afrikanza, the culminating event of Africa Week, organized by the Pan African Students’ Association. “Afrikanza is an event that is used to reinforce cultural diversity in the University environment among PASA members,” said sophomore Kaps Chalwe, the group’s vice president. The theme of […]

Todd one acts are bizarre, tragic, and moving

Have you ever seen something and thought, “Who in God’s green earth came up with this?” If you have, then maybe you’ll have felt a bit what I was feeling when I was watching “The Indefinitely Untitled Play,” the first of four theater pieces performed at the 19th Annual One Act Play Festival in Todd […]

Blackbird Babes give feminism a new voice

With the sudden hiatus and potential disband of the all-female pop group Fifth Harmony, America is looking for another group to communicate narratives of female camaraderie and excellence. Blackbird Babes, a UR-spawned group, while musically more attune to the pop-rock sisterhood of HAIM  than bubblegum of Harmony, definitely brought the focus of womanhood to the […]