The Technology Plays Premiere

Please join
President Karen R. Hitchcock
for the world premiere of
The Technology Plays
FEATURING
In the System
by Pulitzer Prize Winning novelist William Kennedy
&
Greetings from the Home Office
by OBIE-nominated playwright and screenwriter Richard Dresser
Reception and Program
November 10, 2003 / 5:30-7:30 p.m.
New Library Atrium
UAlbany's Uptown Campus
RSVP to 442-5373 or [email protected] by November 5th

Pulitzer-prize winning author and UAlbany professor, William Kennedy, and international playwright and screenwriter Richard Dresser ("The Education of Max Bickford") are two of six playwrights whose technology plays will debut at the University at Albany this month. The Technology Plays are a series of six 5-7 minute mini-productions that illuminate the relationship between man and technology. This experimental form of theatre beckons the audience to interact with various forms of technology including computers, cell phones and ATMs.

The Technology Play Project, which evolved from UAlbany�s HumaniTech* Semester, brought together the University at Albany and one of the region�s preeminent theater companies, Capital Repertory Theater, to explore the impact of technology on humans and modern living.

Four other plays selected through a competition of Capital Region writers, include recent UAlbany graduate, Daniel J. Whalen �02, whose play, Beyond the Firewall, is his first professionally produced play. At UAlbany Dan majored in history and minored in English. Other winners were Daniel Ho, who received his Masters in Theater from the University at Albany, Stacy (Anastasia) Orsini and Malcolm Messersmith.

The Technology Play Project was funded in part by a grant from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation�s �Imagining America� Public Scholarship Grants Program, The Beatrice and Robert Herman Foundation, and the Office of the Provost at the University at Albany.

UAlbany students will have the first chance to preview and �experience� five of these new Technology Plays on Wednesday, November 5th from 5-7 p.m. in the New Library Atrium. The formal debut of all six of the Technology Plays will take place at a gala premier on November 10th in the New Library Atrium from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Staged as �viewing boxes,� each installation will feature a different form of communication, including email, cell phone, call waiting, instant messaging, Power Point presentations and pagers.

At the November 5th preview event students will also be able to try out the latest technology from Apple Computers, including a chance to win a new Apple iPod.

*The name Humanitech is used with permission of Barbara L. Cohen and the Regents of the University of California.


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