Stories from the Story Booth

You may be wondering why a story booth has appeared in the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s lobby, outside the Kay Theater. We learn something new almost every day about why this project is important to us but our intention in doing it was to collect narratives from the people that matter to us, people like you, about the performing arts.

Each morning I come into work, I review the newest videos from the booth and approve them so that they are posted to our website. I approve almost all of the videos – whether they include positive and negative feedback – and only pass by those that include inappropriate language or behavior.

With each video, I get to know another piece of who we are and how people see the work that we do. We’ve had students, faculty, patrons, donors, children, artists and staff members use the booth this semester and I wanted to share my three favorite videos so far.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night’s Dream opened the season for the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies and was a bilingual, co-production with the National Academy for Chinese Arts in Beijing. I love the enthusiasm these patrons have for the performance as they anticipate what’s to come.

I'm just really excited for what I anticipate will be an extremely beautiful performance.

Nora Chipaumire

Nora Chipaumire is a dancer and performance artist who is presenting her piece Miriam in April of 2013 but has spent several days on campus as part of her residency work, teaching in the School of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies. She also spent some time with my department, Marketing & Communications, talking about the process of creating Miriam. I invited her to use the booth to tell us a story and this is what she created.

I loved Joan Armatrading growing up… For some reason, I just loved this image of the woman with her guitar and a big afro and I wanted to be that.

Griffith Kazmierczak

The University of Maryland is fearless. Fearless about academics, fearless about innovation, fearless about the arts. Griffith Kazmierczak studies trumpet in the School of Music and speaks beautifully about the courage it takes to be creative.

…To me, courage is not the absence of fear but the overcoming of it.

Your story?

I encourage you to visit our Story Booth to tell a story of your own, or view all the Story Booth videos.