News

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Holy Cross Ballroom Dance team will hold its seventh annual Ballroom Dance Competition on March 25 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center Ballroom. The event is free for Holy Cross students; admission for all others is $5.

Each year Holy Cross hosts this competition, inviting Hartwick College, University of Rhode Island, University of Connecticut, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Harvard University, Brown University and other New York and Massachusetts area schools and studios with ballroom teams. Each team consists of couples that compete in different levels in American and international styles of dance.

Couples will compete in the rumba, cha-cha, foxtrot, tango, waltz, swing, bolero, samba and the Viennese Waltz, among others. There will be fun dances held during breaks and all are welcome to participate. Those who enjoyed watching the popular television show Dancing with the Stars, will take pleasure in watching the Holy Cross team as they dance for placements.

The Holy Cross Ballroom Dance team is a student-run organization on campus advised by Ed Soares, associated professor of mathematics.

The competition is suitable for all audiences and is an all-day event. All are welcome.

For more information, contact Janet Rose Kolodziej jmkolo06@holycross.edu or visit the Holy Cross dance team’s Web site at www.HCBallroom.com.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Alicia Reece, who has worked for economic equality and social justice, will give a talk titled “Women in Contemporary U.S. Society: How Can They Continue to Progress?” on March 27 at 7:15 p.m. in Room 519 of the Hogan Campus Center at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.

Reece has a resumé filled with historic “firsts” including being the first African American woman to file to run for mayor in Cincinnati’s history, and the youngest woman to be considered for the Democratic ticket for lieutenant governor and secretary of state.

Reece became the youngest woman in history to be elected (at large) to Cincinnati City Council at the age of 28 in November of 1999 and was elected three more terms while becoming one of the most visible vice mayors of a major city in the country as she was at the forefront of dealing with racial riots and unrest in Cincinnati in 2001. Reece was the face of the city on national and international media and became the city’s lead negotiator in federal court with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Fraternal Order of Police to settle a racial profiling lawsuit resulting in radical law enforcement reforms including an anti-racial profiling law.

The dynamic young woman has also been recognized nationally for her work in renaming a street surrounding the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center along the Ohio River in downtown Cincinnati, “Rosa Parks Street” in honor of the late “mother of the civil rights movement.”

Reece has electrified crowds as a speaker at the National Democratic Convention, National Rainbow/PUSH, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation conventions and conferences, and a panelist at the National Urban League. She has been featured nationally and internationally on CNN, Fox, BET, Nightline, as well as in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Ebony, Vibe, and Jet.

Currently she is the vice president of marketing at her family’s 35-year-old advertising, promotions and management company.

The event is sponsored by the Black Student Union, Student Government Association and Women’s Forum.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Congressman James P. McGovern, who represents Massachusetts’ Third Congressional District, and Jose “Chencho” Alas will commemorate the life and legacy of Archbishop Oscar Romero on March 22 at 7 p.m. in the Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The event is free and open to the public.

Romero became El Salvador’s prophet and martyr during his three brief years as archbishop from 1977 to 1980. The violence, poverty, and repression of those years transformed him from a conservative bookworm to an outspoken advocate of the people. On March 23, 1980, he appealed in his radio address to those who were responsible for the violence: “To the soldiers: I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: cease the repression!” The following day he was assassinated.

Former priest Alas, a friend and colleague of Romero, will speak about the continuing plight of the El Salvadorian people for peace and justice. Alas is the founder of the Foundation for Self-Sufficiency in Central America (www.fssca.net), which keeps Romero’s legacy alive and seeks the environmental, economic and social autonomy for people of El Salvador and Central America. FSSCA plans to plant one million trees in El Salvador — the most deforested country in the Western Hemisphere outside of Haiti.

The event is sponsored by McGovern and the Office of the President at Holy Cross.

WORCESTER, Mass. – James L. David Smith, professor of conservation biology at the University of Minnesota, will give a talk titled “Tigers, Landscape, People: Can Extinction Be Averted?” on March 20 at 4:15 p.m. in the Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.

Smith is one of the world’s leading authorities on tigers. Since 1978, he has conducted field research on Bengal tigers and other wild cats in every country of South and Southeast Asia. His work has been featured in major magazines and documentary films. Smith’s recent work has focused on conservation and the possibility of linking community development to the preservation of forest habitats where tiger populations can survive.

The lecture is sponsored by the environmental studies concentration.

WORCESTER, Mass. – David O’Brien, Loyola Professor of Roman Catholic Studies in the department of history at the College of the Holy Cross, will give a talk as part of the “Last Lecture” series on April 3 at 7:30 p.m. in the College’s Rehm Library. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Funded by the Lilly Endowment Vocation Initiative, the pretext of the lecture is that the speaker is about to retire and has been asked to sum up in a final lecture to students what they believe has made the work they’ve dedicated themselves to meaningful and worthwhile. Given a “last” chance, what’s worth saying? What wisdom would be most important to pass on? What challenges have to go unfulfilled?

O’Brien will discuss his experience at the intersection of American history and Catholic Studies and explain what he means when he argues in favor of a Catholic version of what he calls “Americanism.”

An historian of American Catholicism, O’Brien specializes in Catholic social and political thought and religion and politics. He has been a faculty member at Holy Cross since 1969. He is a Notre Dame graduate and earned his Ph.D. in history at the University of Rochester. He served as president of the American Catholic Historical Association, he holds six honorary degrees and he received the Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for distinguished service to Catholic higher education from the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.

O’Brien is the author of several books including The Renewal of American Catholicism (Oxford University Press, 1972), Public Catholicism: The American Church and Public Life, 1789-1989 (Macmillan, 1989), Isaac Hecker an American Catholic (Paulist Press, 1991) and From the Heart of the American Church: Catholic Higher Education and American Culture (Orbis Books, 1994) and was co-editor of Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage (Orbis Books, 1992).

He frequently provides expert commentary for the media; he has been quoted in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Catholic Reporter, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Associated Press. He has also penned numerous op-eds for The Boston Globe and Telegram & Gazette (Worcester), among others.

O’Brien was the founding director of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at Holy Cross. He also developed the Peace and Conflict Studies concentration, a multidisciplinary program for students who wish to complement their major field of study with courses focused on peace, conflict, justice and human dignity.

The lecture is sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.

WORCESTER, Mass. – City officials will join Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J., president of Holy Cross, to formally announce the College’s partnership with the City of Worcester’s “No Place for Hate” campaign on March 22 at 4 p.m. in the College’s Rehm Library. The event, free and open to the public, will be followed by a reception.

Titled “Hate: Not Here!” the anti-bias initiative will promote individual and collective responsibility for building campus community. Congressman James P. McGovern, who represents Massachusetts’ Third Congressional District and is a champion of human rights, will deliver the keynote address. Mayor Timothy P. Murray will also speak.

“The strength of our city flows from the diversity of its people and the respect we have for each other,” Murray said. “We must always be vigilant to protect that strength, through efforts like the ‘Hate: Not Here!’ program. So I’m very pleased that Holy Cross is partnering with the city on this most important initiative.”

Holy Cross senior Kolt Bloxson, of Fitchburg, is the driving force behind the partnership. A classics and philosophy double major, she is a member of the women’s ice hockey team and director of diversity for the Student Government Association. She worked as a Student Programs for Urban Development (SPUD) intern last summer with Frances R. Manocchio, the city’s director of human rights. Manocchio, who helped construct the city’s campaign, will also be in attendance. SPUD is a community service organization sponsored by the Chaplains’ Office.

“I saw the city’s program and I thought this is something that not only benefits the entire Worcester community, but as part of the community, Holy Cross could support this effort,” she said. “Since I’ve been a freshman I’ve seen different things on campus — rallies, vigils, different demands for diversity discussions — but they’ve all been separate ideas, so I thought we could give it one unified, proactive push.”

Worcester’s “No Place for Hate” initiative is a program developed by the national Anti-Defamation League “to organize communities to work together and develop projects that enhance the appreciation of diversity and foster harmony amongst diverse groups.”

The College has been sponsoring events that support the mission of the “Hate: Not Here!” campaign since last semester, including a discussion following the movie Crash, which recently received the Academy Award for best picture. Future events, such as lectures, retreats and an essay contest are being planned to carry out the program’s objective. A literacy program involving students from elementary schools in the South Worcester neighborhood is also being planned.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Odile Cazenave, associate professor of French at Boston University, will give a talk titled “Violence Des Banlieues: Une Histoire Qui Ne Date Pas D’Hier” (“Urban Violence in France: Past and Present”) on March 23 at 4 p.m. in Stein Hall, Room 526 at the College of the Holy Cross. The event is free and open to the public. The talk will be in French. A discussion, following the talk, will be in both French and English.

Cazenave will talk about the issues of identities and territories behind the recent French riots to compare with the representation of French/Parisian suburbs in postcolonial francophone literature by African and Franco-maghrebi writers in the past 20 years.

She has published numerous articles on women writers, on questions of identity, displacement, immigration and globalization. She is the author of Femmes rebelles: Naissance d’un nouveau roman africain au féminin (L’Harmattan, 1996) and Afrique sur Seine: A New Generation of African Writers in Paris (Lexington Books, 2005).

The event is sponsored by Africana Studies and the French section of the Modern Languages and Literatures department.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Michael Mungai, who overcame poverty and heads a non-profit organization that provides shelter and education services to children in Dagoretti, Kenya, will give a talk on March 24 at 4:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk, free and open to the public, is part of a student-initiated weeklong series of events titled “Holy Cross on Fire: Africa Awareness Week” intended to educate the campus community about AIDS, poverty and hunger in Africa from March 19 to 24.

Mungai, 22, is a freshman at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. He was born in the impoverished province of Dagoretti. At 14, financial strife forced him to quit school and fight for survival on the streets of Dagoretti. During that time, Mungai was featured in Left Behind, a documentary about Kenyan HIV orphans and street children of Dagoretti. The documentary tells the story of African children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic. Mungai’s talk will follow a screening of the documentary.

As a result of the exposure he earned through the documentary, Mungai, then 19, established contacts with volunteers who aided him in founding Dagoretti 4 Kids. The organization aims to rescue the destitute and less fortunate by offering them shelter, rehabilitation and education. Since the organization’s inception in 2003, Dagoretti 4 Kids has provided residential and education services to more than 40 street children.

Students involved in Student Programs for Urban Development (SPUD), a community service organization sponsored by the Chaplains’ Office, decided to start the series after visiting Kenya and reading a speech that Bono, frontman of the popular rock group U2, delivered on Feb. 2 against world poverty as part of SPUD’s weekly reflection activity.

“After reading Bono’s talk that he gave at the National Prayer Breakfast we were inspired to educate the campus on the issues that go on in Africa and why there has been such pull to get countries to provide debt relief for the nations of Africa as well as give a small percent of their budget to help the countries move forward,” said Christine Higham ’06, who went on the Kenya Arrupe Immersion trip along with a fellow intern, Kerry Glynn ’06, in January.

The trip presented them a chance to encounter the poor and marginalized of East Africa and allowed them to take a brief look at prevalent issues facing these people, including HIV/AIDS, poverty, gender issues and hunger.

“Bono’s talk and our trip to Kenya helped spark the conversation and the desire to tell our stories and experiences further. In collaboration with SPUD, the Kenya group, Amnesty, Black Student Union and the Student Coalition on Homelessness and Housing are working together to ‘set the campus on fire,’ ” she explained. “If we can tell the stories of those suffering as well as educate the campus that issues beyond AIDS/HIV affect the African people, we can make a difference. We hope that this will take hold and people will want to do more for this cause.”

WORCESTER, Mass. – There will be a round-table discussion by Holy Cross students on the challenges and opportunities for a dialogue between Islam and the West on March 21 at 4 p.m. in Mulledy Hall. The talk is free and open to the public.

The discussion, titled “Islam and the West: Challenges and Opportunities for Dialogue at Holy Cross and Beyond,” will feature Shiva Marvasti ’08, a political science major; Caitlin Griffin ’08, biology; Andrew Le ’09, chemistry and Stephanie Landry ’09, undeclared.

The discussion is the last of a six part series titled “Islam and the West: A Clash of Civilizations or a Search for Common Ground.” The event is sponsored by the Peace and Conflict Studies and the Office of Student Affairs’ Multicultural Peer Educators.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Legendary guitarist Jay Geils will give a talk titled “The Evolution of the Electric Guitar” on March 30 at 4:30 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center, Room 519 at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.

Geils will demonstrate various guitar styles that were the cornerstone of rhythm and blues and eventually rock ’n’ roll in the ’50s.

The J. Geils band was a Boston based band that achieved international success in the early ’80s with hits like “Centerfold.” Jay Geils currently performs with the jazz trio, New Guitar Summit.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Chris Picone ’90, assistant professor of biology at Fitchburg State College, will give a talk titled “A Radical Proposal for Sustainable Agriculture” on March 13 at noon in O’Neil Hall, Room 101 at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.

According to Picone, researchers are creating an agriculture based on perennial grains in contrast to annual grains and plants grown in diverse mixtures as opposed to fragile monocultures. He will discuss how the plowshare may have done more ecological damage than the sword and how modern farms and crops are ecological “drug addicts” that can go through “withdrawal.” An open floor dialogue, where solutions will be discussed, will follow.

Picone, who received a bachelor’s degree in biology at Holy Cross, holds a doctorate in ecology from the University of Michigan.

The event is sponsored by the Environmental Studies Program.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Carlos Eire, the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of history and religious studies at Yale University, will give a talk on his memoir Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy, winner of the 2003 National Book Award, on March 16 at 4 p.m. in Dinand Library’s Faculty Room at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.

An expert on religious reformations, faith, and spiritualism in modern Europe, Eire is also the author of From Madrid to Purgatory: The Art and Craft of Dying in Sixteenth Century Spain (Cambridge University Press, 1995) and War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship From Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge University Press, 1986) and co-author of Jews, Christians, Muslims: A Comparative Introduction to Monotheistic Religions (Prentice Hall, 1997). He has been a faculty member at Yale since 1996. Waiting for Snow in Havana (Free Press, 2003) recounts Eire’s childhood in 1950s Havana.

The event is sponsored by the Latin American and Latino Studies Concentration.

WORCESTER, Mass. – Victor Triay will give a talk titled “Bay of Pigs: Confrontation in Cuba, April 17, 1961” on March 23 at 4 p.m. in Room 304 of the Hogan Campus Center at the College of the Holy Cross. The talk is free and open to the public.

Triay will address the Bay of Pigs invasion from the point of view of Brigade 2506 and the reasons for its failure. Most of the approximately 1,500 men of Brigade 2506, made up of idealistic participants who came together in April 1961 to overthrow Fidel Castro’s dictatorship, were captured by Castro’s forces in Cuban swamps and jailed until December 1962. About 114 died. Triay’s book tells who the individual members of the brigade were and what they fought for.

Triay is the author of Bay of Pigs: An Oral History of Brigade 2506 (University Press of Florida, 2001), which received the Samuel Proctor Oral History Prize from the Florida Historical Society and Fleeing Castro: Operation Pedro Pan and the Cuban Children’s Program (University Press of Florida, 1998). His most recent book is The Cuban Revolution: Years of Promise (University Press of Florida, 2005). Triay, whose parents left Cuba in 1960, grew up in Miami. He is professor of history at Middlesex Community College in Middletown, Conn.

The event is sponsored by the Latin American and Latino Studies concentration.

WORCESTER, Mass. – This spring, seven members of the Holy Cross faculty have been promoted to the rank of associate professor, with tenure.

Loren R. Cass, of the political science department, earned a Ph.D. in political science from Brandeis University. A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 1999, he has served on multiple college committees and frequently advised student theses in the Washington Semester and College Honors programs. Cass’ research focuses on the relationship between international and domestic environmental politics. He is the author of the forthcoming The Failures of American and European Climate Policy: International Norms, Domestic Politics, and Unachievable Commitments (SUNY Press). He lives in Auburn with his wife, Lisa, and their children, Levi and Landon.

Sharon M. Frechette, of the mathematics and computer science department, earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Dartmouth College. A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2000, she is the principal investigator for the National Security Agency Young Investigator Grant titled “Gaussian Hypergeometric Functions, Modular Forms and their L-functions, and Partition Functions,” which runs through September 2007. She lives in Rutland, with her husband, Paul, and their two daughters, Claire and Olivia.

Andrew D. Hwang, of the mathematics and computer science department, earned his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1993 from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of more than 10 research articles on the geometry of surfaces and their higher-dimensional analogues. He has served on the common requirements committee since 2003 and the Diversity Task Force since 2004. He lives in Sterling with his wife, Connie.

Paige Reynolds, of the English department, earned her Ph.D. in English language and literature from the University of Chicago. A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2000, she has provided a number of services to the College, including serving as a speaker during the Ignatian Pilgrimage Panel, a member of the Faculty Affairs Committee, and mentor for the Mentor Program for ALANA, International, and Passport Students. Reynolds is the editor of the Pearson Custom Library Introduction to Literature, winner of the Roger McHugh Award for Outstanding Essay in Volume 7 (2003) of New Hibernia Review and author of the forthcoming The Audiences for Irish Spectacle: Drama and Modernism, 1890-1926. She lives in Providence, R.I., with her husband, Mario Pereira, and their son, Asher.

Maria M. Rodrigues, of the political science department, earned a Ph.D. in political science from Boston University. A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 1999, Rodrigues is the director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Concentration and former chair of the Committee on Fellowships, Research, and Publication. She is a member of the Faculty Advisory Committee for the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture and a member of the Latin American Studies Concentration and Environmental Studies Concentration. She lives in Boston with her husband and their four children, Ravi, Diego, Jairam and Isabel.

Constance S. Royden, of the mathematics and computer science department, earned her Ph.D in neuroscience from the University of California, San Francisco. A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2000, she is on the Haberlin Building Committee, the Committee on Graduate Studies and Fellowships, and is co-facilitator of the College Committee on Collaborative Teaching. She is the principal investigator for a $297,365 National Science Foundation Grant titled “Cortical Processing of Moving Objects by Moving Observers” which runs through July 2007. She lives in Needham with her husband, Robert Colgrove, and their children, Caitlin and Thomas.

Stephanie E. Yuhl, of the history department, earned her Ph.D in history from Duke University. A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2000, she has served on the Campus Center Advisory Board, the Community Standards Board, and the Cantor Art Gallery Acquisitions Board, the Curricular Goals Committee and as both president and vice president of the Holy Cross chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.  In addition to scholarly essays in American history, Yuhl is the author of A Golden Haze of Memory: The Making of Historic Charleston (University of North Carolina Press, 2005).  Yuhl lives in Worcester with her husband, Anthony Cashman, and their three children, Julia, Emmett and Phineas.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The College of the Holy Cross will present a panel discussion with three esteemed science professionals Diann Jordan, Sheila Tobias and Elga Wasserman titled “Celebrating Women and Science: Lessons from the Past and Directions for the Future” on March 20 at 4 p.m. in Hogan Suite A, on the fourth floor of the Hogan Campus Center. The discussion, free and open to the public, will be followed by a book signing.

Diann Jordan, a tenured professor of biological sciences at Alabama State University and an educational consultant, is the author of the forthcoming Sisters in Science: Conversations with Black Women Scientists on Race, Gender, and their Passion for Science (Purdue University Press), the first book of interviews with prominent black women scientists across the United States. Before going to ASU, Jordan worked for more than 10 years as a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she was the first woman faculty member ever hired in the soil and atmospheric sciences department, as well as the first African-American woman to be tenured in a research science department. Jordan has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Women of Color in Science and Technology Certificate of Merit in 1997 and the Faculty Enhancement Award for Diversity and Human Rights in 1999 from the University of Missouri.

Sheila Tobias, a renowned feminist and author of Faces of Feminism: An Activist’s Reflections on the Women’s Movement (Westview, 1997), has made an art and a science of being an outsider to science and mathematics, and a household name for her books Overcoming Math Anxiety (W.W. Norton & Company, 1994), They’re Not Dumb, They’re Different (Research Corporation, 1994), Breaking the Science Barrier (College Board, 1992) and Rethinking Science as a Career (Research Corporation, 1995). A noted consultant on college and university curricula whose work has been supported by the Ford, Rockefeller, and Sloan Foundations, she is currently the coordinator of the Sloan (Foundation) Science Master’s Outreach Project.

Elga Wasserman, author of The Door in the Dream: Conversations with Eminent Women in Science (National Academies Press, 2002), holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Harvard and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Her groundbreaking book profiles the small number of women scientists who have achieved the high honor of being elected to the National Academy of Sciences as a way to explore the personal and professional challenges confronting current and future women in science. Wasserman is a noted speaker as well as an experienced professional in science, law and university administration. Her work offers an in-depth look at the everyday issues confronting women in male-dominated fields.

The event is sponsored by the Lilly Vocation Discernment Initiative, women’s and gender studies, Africana studies, environmental studies, Center for Interdisciplinary and Special Studies, pre-medical and pre-dental program, the science coordinator’s office and the departments of biology, chemistry, mathematics and computer science, physics and psychology.

WORCESTER, Mass. – The department of theatre at the College of the Holy Cross will present Bertolt Brecht’s 1944 masterpiece The Caucasian Chalk Circle on March 30 and 31, April 1, 6, 7 and 8 at 8 p.m. in Fenwick Theatre (O’Kane Hall). The production is directed by Associate Professor Edward Isser, chair of the theatre department. Isser is using the James and Tania Stern translation which features lyrics by W. H. Auden. This mounting will feature an original score by Eric Culver, a member of the Holy Cross music faculty. Tickets are $7 for members of the Holy Cross community and $10 for the general public. Groups of 10 or more can purchase tickets at a special rate of $5 each.

The Caucasian Chalk Circle examines the irrationality of propriety, charity and goodness in a world dominated by commerce, brute force and hypocrisy. Brecht dramatizes what happens to a good person in such an environment. A young peasant girl named Grusha saves a noble child who is being hunted by the forces of evil. In so doing, Grusha places herself in great danger and forsakes any chance for personal happiness. What will happen to the girl and the child? How can justice be delivered in a place of corruption and inequity? The play, in answering these questions, uses the devices of parable and experimental staging to make members of the audience think critically about the world in which they live. The story of the play is loosely based upon both a medieval Chinese play and the Book of Kings from the Bible. These ancient sources are augmented by equal doses of Marxism, the Marx brothers and the Broadway musical. The result is a unique work that is simultaneously entertaining, shocking and funny.

Written between 1943-44 in New York City and Santa Monica, Calif., while Brecht was in exile from Nazi Germany, The Caucasian Chalk Circle was originally intended to be a Broadway musical. Brecht had a deal with a New York producer and a movie star lined up to play the female lead, but when the script was finally delivered, the deal fell through. The Caucasian Chalk Circle violated almost every rule of American commercial theatre. It was a blistering attack on warfare, capitalism and bourgeois values – hardly commercial fare in the United States at the height of the Second World War. In 1954, Brecht directed the play in East Germany and a year later it toured to Paris, London and Moscow. The Caucasian Chalk Circle (along with Mother Courage which was had toured one year earlier) sent shock waves through the theatrical world. So-called “Brechtian Theatre” became the rage and had immense influence upon world theatre. Theatre companies as diverse as Giorgio Strehler’s Piccolo Teatro in Milan, the Royal Shakespeare Company in London, the Living Theatre in New York, and the Habimah Theatre in Tel Aviv sought to emulate the style of Brecht in their own landmark productions. Today, the aesthetics of Brecht have crept into almost all theatrical productions and ironically, have had immense influence upon the staging of Broadway musicals (everything from Cabaret, Les Miserables, Sweeney Todd, Rent, and Urinetown are replete with Brechtian devices).

The set for Holy Cross’s production is designed by William J. Rynders, associate professor in the theatre department, the lighting by theatre major Flynn S. Jebb ’06, and costumes by Kurt S. Hultgren, costume designer in the theatre department.

For more information or for press tickets, please contact Joe Mader in the theatre department at 508-793-3490 or jmader@holycross.edu.