Students involved in theater on campus view themselves as members of a mutually supportive community that encourages collaborative learning. Indeed, success in any theatrical production depends on individual efforts applied to a group endeavor and Princeton's Atelier program conceived by Professor Toni Morrison places such collaboration center stage. The program brings to campus to work with our students some of the world's most outstanding creative artists, including this spring the cellist Yo Yo Ma and the distinguished director Peter Sellars. Sellars asked students in his Atelier to organize themselves into groups to recreate various aspects of a 16th-century Chinese opera, which were then stitched together into a final piece presented by the students. The Atelier also gave students the chance to watch Peter Sellars and soprano Dawn Upshaw collaborating in rehearsal on a new production.
Students involved in theater regularly shift roles from one production to the next.
For them, the dramatic arts clearly exercise an all-inclusive, powerful attraction. This is not surprising. Even some members of the senior administration and faculty this year were persuaded to exchange their usual roles for parts in a campus theatrical production. If you are not actually lured into performing in a production on your next visit to campus, I urge you to play the role of spectator and attend a campus student performance. I think you will find the experience enjoyable and rewarding.