Where in the World is Indiana University of Pennsylvania? OUT IN FRONT!

Theater faculty member Jason Chimonides' play, The Optimist, which premiered in New York City in spring 2008, will be published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc. in 2008. This company is the premiere play publishing companies in English speaking countries.

Three Indiana University of Pennsylvania students were recognized at the national 2008 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival competition. Theresa Huber, Livonia, N.Y., a senior theater major and member of the Robert E. Cook Honors College, won a national sound design award. This is the third year in a row that an IUP student has been selected for national honors from the Kennedy Center. As part of her award, Huber has been given a design fellowship for the O’Neill Playwright’s Conference for summer, and has been offered admission, with full tuition waiver and financial stipend, to five different graduate programs in sound design. Simone Marcus, a junior theater major from Seward, was given an honorable mention in the Alcone Makeup Design Award category at the national competition for her makeup designs for The Beauty Queen of Leenane. Jessica Sabol, a sophomore theater major from Morrisdale and member of the Robert E. Cook Honors College, was chosen by the festival national selections team as its number one choice in the dramaturgy category. Dramaturgy is a specialized branch of theater art and involves translating the elements of story to stage. As such, it often involves research, contextualization and creative composition.

Music professor Dr. Kevin Eisensmith has been elected vice president and president-elect of the International Trumpet Guild for 2007. The International Trumpet Guild is an organization with roughly 7,000 members worldwide in 64 different countries.

Dr. Barbara Blackledge, IUP professor of theater and dance, has been selected for a 2007 faculty fellowship by the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival National Committee. As a fellowship recipient, Dr. Blackledge attended the National Festival in April to mentor student award-recipients and participate in the master classes.

David Hunter, a fall 2006 graduate from IUP's Robert E. Cook Honors College serving as the 2006-2007 technical director of IUP’s Studio Theater, has won the national award in sound design from he Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival competition. This is IUP's third national award from the KCACTF.

Two IUP faculty members have been selected by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts to receive 2007 Individual Creative Artists Fellowships. Fuyuko Matsubara, art, was selected for a crafts fellowship, and Anthony Farrington, English, will receive a fellowship in literature (fiction). They are two of only 68 artists representing 22 counties in Pennsylvania selected for these competitive fellowships.

IUP Robert E. Cook Honors College student Emily Fargo was selected in April 2006 in Washington, D.C. as one of two national winners in dramaturgy in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival competition. Fargo, a senior theater major, was the 2006 Region II winner in dramaturgy. As a result of her selection as a national winner, she will be sent by the KCACTF to the Playwright's Center in Minneapolis in summer 2006 to work in dramaturgy on new play scripts with the PlayLabs Festival and is an invited participant in the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas conference.

Daniel Benscoter placed first in the senior men category and Gregory Athanasatos placed second in the freshman men category of the November 2005 National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Allegheny Mountain Chapter Student Auditions. These auditions are an opportunity for students from central and western Pennsylvania to come and sing for comments and adjudication by NATS teachers from around the state. Benscoter is a student of Dr. Robert Peavler and Athanasatos is a student of Dr. Mary Hastings.

IUP's Trombone Choir, under the direction of Dr. Chris Dickinson, was selected to perform for the 2005 Pennsylvania Music Educators Association Conference. This event draws hundreds of music teachers and students from across the state, with workshops, panel discussions and performances by instrumental, choral and solo artists, both student and professional. The group was selected to perform by a panel of judges through a blind selection process with dozens of applicants.

David Radley was a first-prize winner in the 2005 American String Teacher's Association Alternative Styles Competition. The national competition is designed to recognize string students who excell in jazz, blues, folk, and ethnic styles of string playing. Radley won in the "Best Groove" category.

Music major Dana Difilippantonio of Easton is the 2005 winner of the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition. As a result of this honor, Difilippantonio was the invited featured solo performer with the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra at its March 2005 concert. He performed "Concertino for Marimba."

A senior theater major from IUP was the first foreign student to study at the University of Zagreb’s Academy of Drama. Now he is the first student of any nationality to produce his own work at the Kazaliste Gavella, a Zagreb professional theatre. Christopher Steele, a senior theater major, opened his show, “Jos Joden Pasado,” Dec. 2, 2004 on Gavella’s second stage. This stage is reserved for contemporary works. Matko Srsen, head of the Academy of Drama’s directing program, helped Steele to network with actors and the general manager at the Gavella. Actors including Goran Visnjic, best known for playing Dr. Luka Kovac on NBC’s “ER,” have performed at this theater.

Dr. Gary J. Olmstead, retired professor of music, received “The Lifetime Achievement in Education Award” from the Percussive Arts Society, an international organization of more than 8,000 members, at its fall 2004 meeting.

Twelve IUP theater students pulled off two sold-out performances of Grizula July 21-22, 2004 at the 55th annual Dubrovnik Summer Festival in Croatia during a week-long stay. The Dubrovnik Summer Festival is looked upon as the most prestigious annual international theatrical, music and ballet festival in Croatia. The IUP theater group was one of only two American universities invited to perform in the Festival.

Joshua Kelly, a senior viola player at IUP, won third place in the 2004 Keynotes of Music for Mt. Lebanon 34th annual scholarship competition.

A film produced by two Indiana residents emerged onto the big screen at several film festivals. Emergence, produced by David Altrogge and Matthew Fridg, features actors from the Indiana area and was shown at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival in November 2003. The filmmakers have been submitting Emergence to a number of film festivals, including the Telly Awards, the Key West Indie Fest and the Student Academy Awards. Fridg and Altrogge used equipment and facilities provided by the communications media department to produce the film.

IUP's fall 2003 production of Zastrozzi, the Master of Discipline (guest directed by College of Fine Arts Dean Michael Hood) has been invited to perform as one of the major competing productions at the Region II festival for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival on Jan. 8, 2004. This is the second year in a row that an IUP production has been invited to compete at the regional level. Region II includes all of the universities and colleges in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, as well as Washington, D.C. The winning production from Region II will be recommended to perform at the Kennedy Center in April 2004 for recognition of department production work on a national level.

IUP's College of Fine Arts will receive $510,000 to establish a center for wood turning and furniture design, starting in 2005. This will be the first center of its kind in the country.

Graphic design professor Andrew Gillham is the first IUP professor selected for an Air Force Special Operations Command Outstanding Achievement in Safety Award for his "Digital Eagle" interactive DVD-ROM program. "Digital Eagle” was designed for the Air Force Special Operations Command and is a series of multimedia teaching tools aimed at improving flight safety for pilots of the C-130 (Spectre Gunship) and MH-53 (Pave Low Helicopter). These teaching tools take the form of interactive DVD-ROMs that accurately recreate mishaps causing damage and loss of life during training and warfare. Gillham received the award from the Air Force in November 2003.

IUP will extend its focus on entrepreneurial programs even further as the recipient of a 2003 $50,000 grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The funds, joining The Eberly College of Business and Information Technology with the IUP College of Fine Arts, will be used to develop an entrepreneurship minor for fine arts students as well as an online certificate program for small business owners.

Michael Hood, dean of the College of Fine Arts, has been elected to membership in the National Theatre Conference. The conference was founded in 1925 with the purpose of strengthening and broadening the influence of theatre in the United States. Membership in the conference is strictly limited to 120, and is comprised of distinguished members of the theatre community in outstanding college, university, community, not-for-profit, and for-profit theatres.

IUP professor of music Dr. Jack Stamp, composed Indiana County's Bicentennial Fanfare, a 60-second composition in celebration of the County's Bicentennial celebration.

Senior music education major Aaron Patterson is one of 50 students in the world selected to be part of the 2003 International Youth Wind Orchestra performance in Jonkoping, Sweden in June 2003. Patterson, already a winner of the 2002 Young Artist Competition in the United States, will be part of the saxophone section and as one in an ensemble of approximately 50 of the most outstanding young musicians from throughout the world.

IUP's theater department's production of Scapin is one of a select few productions chosen from region two to be showcased during the 2003 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in College Park, MD. The production may be considered for a further invitation to perform at the national festival in April in Washington, D.C. KCACTF is the only academic or professional theater organization to be actively inclusive of faculty, students and production work.

IUP senior music major Aaron Patterson of Carlisle is the winner of the 2003 Johnstown Symphony Orchestra's Young Artist Competition and will perform Pierre-Max Dubois' "Concerto for Alto Saxophone" with the orchestra on March 8 and 9, 2003, at the Pasquerilla Center on the Johnstown Pitt Campus and also in Indiana. An addition to the performance, he won a monetary prize. Second place winner was IUP bassoonist Mitch Cyman and third place was IUP flautist Ashley Shank; both also received monetary awards.

IUP's student saxophone quartet, "A Few Good Reeds," was selected to perform at the U.S. Navy's annual Saxophone Symposium at George Mason University in Washington, DC, in January 2003. The quartet consists of Kurt Cessna of Indiana, Brent Davis of Peckville, Aaron Patterson of Carlisle and Jen Shuty of Portage, all senior music education-performance majors at IUP. The group also was selected to perform in Harrisburg in mid-January for the inauguration of Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell.

The university's saxophone quartet, A Few Good Reeds, won a bronze medal in the senior wind division of the 2002 Fischoff National Music Competition in South Bend, Indiana, on May 10-12. The members of the group—Kurt Cessna of Indiana, Brent Davis of Peckville, Aaron Patterson of Carlisle and Jen Shuty of Portage—entered the competition as an undergraduate group. The group competed against professional musicians as well as graduate and above level musicians in the senior division, noted Dr. Keith Young, professor of music at IUP and quartet "coach."

IUP student Samuel N. Wilson was selected as a finalist in the 2002 Student NICHE Awards competition for an original furniture design, "Adirondack in Style!" Wilson was one of eight IUP students whose original design prototypes of the traditional Adirondack chair were displayed at The Society for Contemporary Craft satellite gallery in Pittsburgh in Fall 2001. The exhibit was titled The Adirondack Revisited. The chairs were designed and built by students from the Advanced Furniture Design and Woodworking Studio of the Department of Art at IUP under the direction of art professor Chris Weiland. In addition to the creation of original art, the students were involved in all aspects of the exhibition, from communication to publicity and staging. NICHE is a national publication for furniture retailers.

Mitch Cyman, a music education major, has been selected through a national audition to perform with the 2002 National Wind Ensemble on Memorial Day weekend at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Cyman is one of only 45 student musicians selected from a national pool of candidates. The prestigious 2002 National Wind Ensemble will be conducted by H. Robert Reynolds, retired director of bands at the University of Michigan.

Junior saxophonist music education major Aaron Patterson was selected as the winner of the 2002 Young Artists Competition for the Bulter Area Symphony Orchestra. Pattterson performed with the orchestra in two March performances.

IUP sociology major April Anne Ginley won the 2001 outstanding achievement award at the annual Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh. Hundreds of student and professional artists apply to be considered for the Festival each year, with more than 300 chosen for this prestigious juried exhibition. The year 2001 marks the fourth year in a row that an IUP student has won an award at the Three Rivers Arts Festival.

IUP dance professor Holly Boda teaches her students that success is the result of hard work—and she leads by example, with her recent awards proof of her dedication. Boda received the 2001 Outstanding Professional in Dance award from the Eastern District Association (EDA) of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD). Based on leadership, service, volunteerism and contributions to the profession, the award also considers a nominee’s outstanding, innovative contribution to the dance discipline. Also attending the conference will be student Aylish Lynch. Following in Boda’s footsteps, Lynch has won the Outstanding Future Professional award on the state and national level, after being nominated locally by faculty within her major, physical education and sport.

Paige Gessner, a student in IUP’s Robert E. Cook Honors College, was selected to serve an internship at the Pittsburgh Opera. She is a music education major with a concentration in flute. The majority of her projects offer hands-on experience in music education, including a project that will be submitted to the New York City Opera to be added to a new Opera America Web site for educators. This Web site is a collaboration between five opera companies in the country to make opera lesson plans available for teachers to incorporate opera into their classrooms.

IUP's Chamber Singers, one of IUP's premiere performing groups, was selected over 120 participating Pennsylvania choral groups as the 2000 featured university chorus for the Pennsylvania Music Educators State Convention held recently in Pittsburgh.

ArtsPath, a program based at IUP, promotes quality arts experiences and the use of art in education across all curricula in addition to offering various other services. A consortium of area educators, administrators, students, residents and civic leaders are joined with resources available in the community and through IUP to accomplish this goal.

In partnership with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, ArtsPath serves Armstrong, the majority of Butler, Indiana and Jefferson counties in identifying professionally active visual, performing, media and literary artists for placement in any educational setting within a community. ArtsPath also provides artists and teachers with personal educational opportunities and community outreach.

The IUP Department of Music has developed a partnership with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Activities planned over the coming seasons include master classes for the community and students, special visiting artists, joint performances with IUP ensembles and faculty, arts-in-education outreach through ArtsPath and participation in annual area Black History Month celebrations.

The critics are all over IUP theater professor Ed Simpson, and he couldn’t be happier. Simpson’s play Additional Particulars won the 2000-2001 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for distinguished achievement in writing at the Spring 2001 Drama Critics Circle in Los Angeles. The Drama Critics Circle is a 23-member board of critics from newspapers and magazines throughout Los Angeles. Founded in 1969, it is a non-profit association dedicated to excellence in theatrical criticism and to the encouragement and improvement of theater in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. Previously, Simpson received the 2001 Backstage Magazine's Garland award for Additional Particulars at the Pasadena Playhouse.

Dr. Jack Scandrett, chairperson of IUP’s Music Department, Spotts Music Center in Indiana and Roland Music Corporation worked together to design, develop and install a digital piano lab at IUP. The lab consists of one interactive instructor piano and 12 interactive, electronic pianos called Music Tutors that reproduce strikingly realistic piano sounds. Each Music Tutor provides a comprehensive music lab for every student giving personalized interactive guidance, with special emphasis given in areas where help is needed the most. The digital pianos also feature sequencers that allow the student to improvise virtual combinations of their own music creations.

Dr. James Nestor, professor of sculpture, served as an invited panelist for the 2001 International Sculpture Competition presented by the International Sculpture Center in collaboration with APT Pittsburgh (Arts+Performance+Technology).

An IUP undergraduate sculpture major, Jason Burgess, won the "highest achievement" award and a second IUP undergraduate sculpture major, Ray Knoll, Pittsburgh, was an honorable mention winner in the 2001 International Sculpture Center Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture competition held in conjunction with the conference.

IUP's orchestral and choral groups are selected for broadcast frequently by the Pittsburgh area's public radio stations.

IUP's Keystone Wind Ensemble was one of seven groups nationwide chosen to perform at the 31st National Conference of the College Band Directors National Association in 2001. The ensemble includes a mixture of faculty, students, administration and alumni. The group performed four world premiere pieces by internationally known modern composers. Dr. Jack Stamp created and directs the Keystone Wind Ensemble, which has produced a total of nine CDs of its own work.

A Center for Educational and Program Evaluation within the Department of Educational and School Psychology at IUP has been established to serve school districts and other educational and community agencies by providing evaluation and assessment services. Graduate students in the IUP’s school psychology program work under departmental faculty to provide services while gaining experience. The Center completed both quantitative and qualitative data analysis and reports for contracted clients, including evaluations of programs for community and educational agencies.

The work of several leading-edge European artists, some of whom have never shown their work in the United States, are featured in the first Fall 2000 exhibition at the University Museum, New Works/ New Europe. The exhibition gives U.S. audiences a chance to view more than 30 works from faculty members from the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia; and the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, Slovenia. IUP professor of graduate and advanced sculpture at IUP and exhibition curator Dr. James Nestor selected 22 artists from the academies.

IUP secured a $2,000 grant from the Howard Heinz Endowment to also exhibit the New Works/New Europe at two Pittsburgh sites in conjunction with the 19th International Sculpture Competition in Pittsburgh in 2001.

In addition to the development and premiere of this exhibition, the University has developed the first ever exchange programs with the three Academies for students in the fine and performing arts.

Student artists have the opportunity to participate in a student art society and a gallery devoted to showcasing student work.