Nobel Laureate and Obie-Winner Coming to UC
Top Names Help Celebrate Weinberger Anniversary

Fall 2000 is turning into a triple-play quarter for UC's Helen Weinberger Center for the Study of Drama and Playwriting. The term began with a two-day visit by renowned South African playwright and apartheid critic Athol Fugard.

In November, two more highly acclaimed playwrights, Obie Award winner Jose Rivera and Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka, will be coming to campus to work with students and giving Tristate residents a chance to see and hear the play masters in person and enjoy their works.

The stellar line up is the Weinberger Center's way of celebrating its 10th anniversary. Founded in 1990, the center is headed by UC Associate Professor of English Norma Jenckes, its founding director and the woman behind the fall quarter programming.

"What a magnificent synergy has occurred this fall quarter, with not one, not two, but three world-class playwrights visiting the campus of the University of Cincinnati, the Department of English in Arts and Sciences, and the College-Conservatory of Music in a short 10- week period," says Richard Hess, chair of CCM's drama department. "It is unprecedented."

Jose Rivera
The visit by Jose Rivera, a Puerto Rican-born dramatist who writes for theater, film and television, falls just as CCM will present a studio performance of his play, Marisol. The line-up of Rivera-related events includes:

An Afternoon with Jose Rivera
When: 4-6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 2
Where: Patricia Corbett Theater, CCM
What: Rivera will speak about his craft and read from a selection of his plays. No reservations or tickets are required. The event is free and open to the public.
Information: (513) 556-2560

Master Class with Jose Rivera
When: Noon-2 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 2
Where: Robert J. Werner Recital Hall, CCM
What: Rivera will lead a master class. It is free and open only to UC students.

Studio performance of "Marisol"
When: 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 2
8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 3
2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4
Where: Studio Theater, CCM
What: A studio production of Rivera's Obie Award-winning play Marisol. The play is an apocalyptic urban fantasy that urges society to recover compassion for our fellow man. The Village Voice calls it "angry, fearsome, fantastic, and poetically frenzied, without surrendering either its sanity or its mordant sense of humor... It's a cry from the poet's heart."
Tickets: $10 general admission, $5 students
Limited seating: For tickets, please call (513) 556-4183 beginning Oct. 30.

Schedule of events with Wole Soyinka
An Afternoon with Wole Soyinka
When: 3-5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 30
Where: TBA
What: CCM students will present a scene from one of his plays. Discussion of the state of the art will follow. Admission is free and open to the public. For information, call (513) 556- 2560.

NOTE: Soyinka will also read and make a presentation at the ETC downtown that evening at 8 p.m. Tickets are required. For tickets, call ETC at (513) 421-3555. Also, Theater of the Mind will present a reading of Soyinka's "Death and the King's Horsemen" at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 20, at the ETC. Admission is $5. For information, call ETC at (513) 421-3555.