Steinberg Symposium:
'Arcadia' November 1, 28

Arcadia, the 1995 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award Winner for Best Play and the text for the 1995-96 Penn Freshman Reading Project, will also be the centerpiece of the School of Arts & Sciences' Steinberg Symposium this year.

Three interwoven events make up the series:

November 1: A Penn Faculty Colloquium sets the stage.

November 28: The five central actors from the New York stage production of Arcadia give readings and hold a conversation with the audience.

February 6-8: Playwright Tom Stoppard comes to campus for a three- day residency.

The Steinberg Symposium--funded by Gayfryd and Saul Steinberg and presented by SAS--brings writers, artists, and scholars to campus for classes, readings, lectures, and colloquia for students and the public.

This is the first year that the Steinberg Symposium has been organized around the Reading Project text. "If this model proves successful, we intend to relate future Steinberg Symposiums with the Reading Project, whenever it's appropriate," said Dr. Robert Lucid, professor of English and director of the Steinberg Symposium.

"Arcadia is about the intersection of two groups of people separated in time by almost two centuries, but connected by blood, culture, science, mathematics, literature, and even landscape, into a common human situation," explains Dr. Christopher Dennis, director of Academic Programs in Residence. "The play was enthusiastically discussed by over 2,500 freshmen and faculty session leaders in September."

Now all students, faculty, and friends of the University have the opportunity to further explore the complex themes of the play during the Steinberg Symposium, Dr. Dennis added.

The Arcadia Colloquium will be held on Wednesday, Novem-ber 1 at 4 p.m., at the Annenberg School Auditorium. A faculty panel--Professors Stuart A. Curran (English), Dennis DeTurck (Mathematics), John Dixon Hunt (Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning), and Professor Lucid--will discuss the interwoven themes of culture, science, mathematics, literature, history, and landscape in Arcadia. Afterward, dinners will convene in campus dining halls with the panelists, project leaders and members of the audience who sign up (898-5551).

For more on the Steinberg Symposium, visit the program's World Wide Web page at www.sas.upenn.edu/sasalum/newsltr/spring96/steinberg.html. Unless otherwise indicated, all Steinberg Symposium events are free and open to the entire University community. For more information, contact Anita Mastroieni at 898-5262.


Photo: Coming November 28: Billy Crudup as Septimus and Jennifer Dundas as Thomasina will give script-in-hand readings from Arcadia starting at 4 p.m. in Zellerbach Theater. For a November 1 head start on interpreting the play, see above.


Almanac

Tuesday, October 31, 1995
Volume 42 Number 10


Return to index for this issue.
Return to Almanac Homepage.