Patti Pace Festival returns Feb. 1

January 22, 2013

The Department of Communication Arts at Georgia Southern University will host the Patti Pace Performance Festival on Feb. 1-2. This is the second time Georgia Southern will host the performance festival honoring the late Patricia Pace, a professor and theater director in the Department from 1985 until her death in 2000.

The 2013 festival will be coordinated by Rebecca Kennerly, assistant professor in the Department of Communication Arts and director of Performance Works at the University, along with Melanie Kitchens, Georgia Southern alumna and instructor at Augusta State University. Pace was Kitchens’ mentor at GSU.

“As conceived by Patti and several others, the Patti Pace Performance Festival was to be a spring retreat that brought ‘together teachers, students, scholars, and artists in a community of discovery,’” Kitchens said.

The 2013 festival theme is “Performing Fairytales.” Tracy Stephenson Shaffer, associate professor at Louisiana State University, will guide festival participants in a workshop, which will result in the construction of new and retelling of familiar of fairytales. The festival will convene in the Black Box Theatre at the Center for Art and Theatre on Georgia Southern’s campus on Feb. 1 and conclude Saturday afternoon with festival participants’ performances of fairytales.

Special guests Christopher Krejci and Derek Mudd of the Reilly Theater in Baton Rouge, La., will present The Tragical, Comical, Ahistorical Adventures of Pinocchio on Feb. 1 at 7:30 p.m. in the Black Box Theatre. Respondents to Pinocchio include Richard Flynn, Georgia Southern professor of literature and philosophy, and Gary Dartt, University theatre professor emeritus. The Saturday performances are free and open to the public.

The Patti Pace Performance Festival is noncompetitive, providing the opportunity for faculty and graduate student directors to receive critical feedback for their work, and for undergraduate students to workshop, perform, network and learn more about their field. The festival also gives universities a chance to highlight their programs and recruit potential students. 

The festival is funded in part by a grant from the Campus Life Enrichment Committee.  No-cost, open-campus registration deadline is Friday, Jan. 25.  To register, email Kennerly at rkennerly@georgiasouthern.edu  and indicate “Pace Registration” in the subject line; include names, student/faculty, and department. To learn more about the Patti Pace Performance Festival, contact Kennerly at 912-478-7325 or at rkennerly@georgiasouthern.edu.