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Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for Voices & Visions in Black Media: A Book Talk by Beretta E. Smith-Shomade, on Tuesday, April 29, at 5:00 pm, in the Film Forum, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. Smith-Shomade will be discussing her book Finding God in All the Black Places: Sacred Imaginings in Black Popular Culture. Moderated by PMA Chair Samantha N. Sheppard.
The Department of Performing and Media Arts is pleased to announce SHED: An Evening of Intermedia Dance in Three Episodes in culmination of its yearlong initiative, New/Futurism: Installation, Intermedia, Interactive & Immersive Dance and the 2025 Annual Spring Dance Presenting Series. This event will take place on Friday and Saturday, April 25-26 at 7:30 PM, in the Kiplinger Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. Get your free tickets here.
PMA Associate Professor Austin Bunn's new guide to short film screenwriting has drawn high praise from Filmmaker Magazine. His book Short Film Screenwriting: A Craft Guide and Anthology, published by Bloomsbury in October 2024, combines 10 essays about screenwriting with a curated, diverse anthology, including revealing interviews with the writers and directors.
Love to dance? Love dance history? Curious about choreography or minoring in Dance at Cornell? Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for a campus-wide community gathering!
The national organization, The Women and Theatre Program (WTP), will be hosting virtual conference sessions on April 4 devoted to The Routledge Anthology of Women's Theatre Theory & Dramatic Criticism, co-edited by PMA Professor J. Ellen Gainor. A part of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) Spring Symposium, the conference sessions are titled “Learn, Share, Teach: Critical Responses to The Routledge Anthology of Women's Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism.”
PMA Associate Professor Christine Bacareza Balance was interviewed on Faculti, a research-driven platform that offers over 8,000 expert-led videos annually. Her interview centers around researching and revisiting the production history of Francis Ford Coppola's film Apocalypse Now within the historical context of the Marcos regime and Philippine martial law in the 1970s. This interview builds upon research and writing for Balance’s current book project, Making Sense: Poetics, Performance, and Philippine Martial Law.
“The Family Copoli," a “post-apocalyptic burlesque and re-population play,” is the brainchild of playwright Andy Colpitts ’26, a doctoral candidate in PMA, and composer Michael Wookey and the production involves more than a dozen Cornell alumni and students.
Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for Professional Directions: Production Design for Film & TV and Accessibility with Michael Fitzgerald on Wednesday, April 9, from 2:30 PM to 4:10 PM, in Conference Room 220, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. The event will be moderated by Visiting Associate Professor Nick Embree, and is sponsored by Student Disability Services.
Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for PMAPS: Movement and Creation Workshop with Merián Soto on Wednesday, April 9, at 7:30 p.m. in the Ballet Studio (Room 320), Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. Students in PMA 3350: Technology and the Moving Body I "Body and Tech" and "PMA 2300: Dance Compositions will take part in the workshop with Soto. The event is free and open to the public.
Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for PMAPS: "¡Fenomenal! Rompeforma 1989-1996" Film Screening on Thursday, April 10, at 5:00 p.m. in the Film Forum, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. The screening will be following by a Q&A with Merián Soto and Viveca Vázquez. The event is free and open to the public.
Members of Cornell's Department of Performing and Media Arts are participating in the Shakespeare Association of America conference this week.
In this episode, Jessie and Chris met with Cornell senior Liv Licursi, PMA graduate student Andy Colpitts, and singer-songwriter and composer Michael Wookey, to discuss their upcoming production of The Family Copoli, A New Post-Apocalyptic Burlesque Musical scheduled to take place this August at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Are you a student looking to break into film, TV, and media, or an alum working in the industry? Connect through PMA's CORNELL IN HOLLYWOOD Group on CUeLINKS, Cornell's exclusive networking platform that bridges current students with alums. While this group highlights film, TV, and media connections, participants from ALL majors are welcome!
The new Broadway musical “Redwood” features set design by Cornell Alum Jason Ardizzone-West ’95, a former AAP student who participated in many PMA productions. The show stars Tony Award-winner Idina Menzel who co-conceived the show alongside director Tina Landau. “Redwood” opened at the Nederlander Theatre on Broadway on February 13.
Assistant Professor of the Practice Danielle Russo has been selected as a 2025 New York State Choreographers Initiative Award Recipient, administered by the New York State Council on the Arts and NYS DanceForce. This award will support the research and development of her new intermedia dance and community archival project, with emphasis on its community engagement in Central New York in Spring and Fall 2025.
On Friday, March 14, at 7:30 PM PST, Wa Na Wari will present "GuideStar" at the Space Needle: A Spectacular Light and Sound Installation by PMA Professor Mendi Obadike and AAP Professor Keith Obadike. “GuideStar” will feature an array of light shining from the top of the Space Needle for an evening of cosmic reflection and wonder.
PMA Assistant Professor Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz will be speaking at Harvard University’s Theater and Performance Studies Colloquium on Friday, March 7, from 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM. The event is coordinated by Eunice Lee and Sarah Gonzalez.
Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for the 12th Annual Aster Film Festival on Saturday and Sunday, April 12-13, from 10:45 AM - 6:45 PM on each day, in the Film Forum, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.
PMA Alum Gloria Majule ‘17 has received a MacDowell Fellowship in Theatre Arts for the Spring-Summer 2025 season. Majule, along with the other fellowship recipients will arrive at MacDowell’s historic campus in Peterborough, NH from March through August 2025 for an average stay of four weeks.
From his formative years at Cornell as a dual Government/PMA Theatre major to his time at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business with many pursuits in between, Jorge Silva ’12 reflects on his dynamic career trajectory and the professional roles that have shaped his journey.
PMA Lecturer and A&S Advising Dean Aoise Stratford’s play The Unfortunates just completed its run with the Spirit Gum Theatre Company, at the Mountcastle Forum in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Performances for the season took place on January 31 – February 2 and from February 7 – February 9. The play, written by Stratford, and directed by Ashley Pearson, is published by TRW and was a Time Out New York Critics Pick.
Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for a Free Screening of Assemblage (1968, 59 minutes) on Wednesday, March 5, at 7:30 PM in the Film Forum, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.
Mitchell is best known as the writer/director/star of the rock musical and film “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”
PMA Professor J. Ellen Gainor is the co-editor of The Fourth Edition of The Norton Anthology of Drama. Gainor’s co-editors are Stanton B. Garner Jr. (University of Tennessee) and Martin Puchner (Harvard University). The anthology will be published on July 1, 2025 by W. W. Norton & Company.
The University’s online learning platform, eCornell, offers a dizzying variety of content; here’s a sampling, from AI to wines to real estate.
For more than half a century, Cornell’s Adult University has offered summer courses on the Hill — from cooking to cycling and beyond.
Before Time / After Time, a film collaboratively devised by PMA Professor Bruce Levitt, will screen virtually as part of the Prison Library Support Network’s Abolitionist Futures Series on March 10, from 7:00 - 8:30 pm. The screening will be following by a discussion with the creative team and ensemble members. The film was facilitated by project leaders Levitt, Shaun Leonardo and multidisciplinary visual artist and journalist Isaac I. Scott, who led an art workshop at PMA in Spring 2024.
The Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA) is looking to hire a Assistant Manager of Finance and HR.
Join PMA and the Cornell Student Create Club for Creating Conversations: A Fringe Artists Performance Event. This event series will feature award-winning artist Christopher Moncayo Torres’s solo-ish show NO SABO and will take place on Thursday, February 27, at 7:30 PM in the Black Box Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.
PMA Podcast Episode 65: Associate Professor Kristen Warner
PMA Assistant Professor Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz has published an academic article called “Choreographing Deportation in David Herrera's TOUCH” in Dance Research Journal, a top journal in dance and performance studies. The article examines performances treating the topic of deportation.
PMA Professor Mendi Obadike and AAP Professor Keith Obadike will participate in a virtual webinar panel called “Music as Monument” as part of the Monument Lab’s Public Workshop series. The event will take place on Wednesday, February 12, from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. EST on Zoom.
Playwright Gloria Oladipo '21 is also an award-winning cultural critic and journalist with The Guardian.
PMA Ph.D. Candidate Victoria Pihl Sørensen has published an article called “Colonial Reproductive Coercion and Control in Kalaallit Nunaat: Racism in Denmark’s IUD Program" in NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research. Victoria’s co-authors are Naja Dyrendom Graugaard and Josefine Lee Stage.
Renowned sound artist Bill Fontana will visit the class PMA 3104/5104: Sound, Music, and Public Space -- an interdisciplinary course taught by PMA Professor Mendi Obadike and AAP Professor Keith Obadike -- on Feb 5 at 12:15 pm. Please contact Mendi Obadike at mlo72@cornell.edu for the Zoom link if you would like to attend.
This month’s featured titles – most by A&S authors – include a work of nonfiction about honeybees, a kids’ picture book, and a novel set in rural Nova Scotia.
Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for an Evening with John Cameron Mitchell, Carol B. Epstein Guest Artist. The event will take place on Friday, March 7, at 6:30 PM in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. The evening will feature a talkback conversation, moderated by PMA Professor Nick Salvato. Mitchell will also be participating in a masterclass with PMA students.
"Sanctuary from the Storm: Making (My) Room with The Torkelsons," will explore Sheppard’s fondness for the 1990s television show and what the show’s representation of home spaces can tell us about the way television influences living practices.
The film's snub in the Best Cinematography category may be due to the use of an immersive first-person camera style, says film scholar Kristen Warner.
Assistant Professor of the Practice Danielle Russo has been selected as a New York Community Trust Artist in Residence at Gibney for January 2025.
PMA Assistant Professor Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz will be a featured speaker for The Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities on Wednesday, January 29, from 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM.
Austin Bunn's twist-laden thriller is set on one of the most extreme environments on earth.
"Chats with the Chair" invites PMA majors, minors, and those interested in the department to join the chair for food and fellowship.
Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for LeRoy Neiman: The Life of America’s Most Beloved and Belittled Artist: A Book Talk by Dr. Travis Vogan. The event will take place on Wednesday, February 5, at 5:00 PM in the Film Forum, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. The talk will be moderated by PMA Chair Samantha N. Sheppard.
PMA Ph.D. Alums Caitlin A. Kane and Erin Stoneking are the co-editors of a newly published anthology called Dramaturgy and History: Staging the Archive. The anthology was published in October, 2024 and is available to purchase from Routledge Press.
Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts on Saturday, January 25 at 7:30 p.m. in the Class of '56 Dance Studio Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.
Join us for an exciting general information session where you can explore various ways to participate in PMA's live and mediated productions. Meet passionate directors and filmmakers who will share insights about their projects and casting requirements.
PMA Ph.D. student, writer, and film producer, Rejoice Abutsa has published a book review in the Journal of the African Literature Association, alongside other leading scholars in the field, Matthew H. Brown, Ying Cheng, Alessandro Jedlowski, Stephanie Newell, and Paul Ugor. The subject of the review is the book Lagos Never Spoils: Nollywood and Nigerian City Life, written by Connor Ryan, from University of Michigan Press.
Christmas, Every Day, a short film directed, shot, edited, and produced by Cornell Alum Faye Tsakas ‘13 premiered on December 10 as part of the New York Times Op-Docs series. The film was also produced by Enrique Pedraza Botero, Rowan Ings, and Lauren Howell.
PMA Department Chair Samantha Noelle Sheppard’s essay "Fit Check" about women’s sportswear can be found in the newly published book Look Good, Feel Good, Play Good: Nike Apparel, from Nike/Phaidon Press.
The event invited undergraduate and graduate students from all disciplines to display their projects at the historic A.D. White House.