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YSU News Briefs July 14, 2008
Category: News Briefs
Jul 11, 2008
Ron Cole, 330-941-3285

Below are a variety of items about upcoming events and other news notes on the campus of Youngstown State University:

  • Theater student directs play at NYC festival
  • Teachers attend Materials Camp at YSU this week
  • YSU faculty/staff awards, publications, presentations 

Theater student directs play at NYC Festival

  YSU student Brandon Martin

When Youngstown State University theater major Brandon Martin was choosing a senior project, he wanted to do more than entertain. He wanted to move people to action.

Martin said he found a vehicle to do just that – a play that suggests five prison inmates have been unjustly sentenced to death row for their roles in a riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility at Lucasville, Ohio, 15 years ago.

He’ll be directing Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising at the prestigious New York International Fringe Festival next month. Performances will be in the Barrow Street Theatre, 27 Barrow St., in New York:   Friday, Aug. 8, 9:30 p.m.; Saturday, Aug. 9, noon and 7 p.m. ; Sunday, Aug. 10, 5 p.m.

Before heading to New York, the show will be performed 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 1 at Kent State University’s Trumbull Campus in Warren.

The play was written by Niles attorney and civil rights activist Staughton Lynd, with co–authors Gary Anderson and Christopher Fidram. “There’s an emotional tie to this play. It’s about real people, and there’s something you can do about it,” Martin explained. “That’s what makes it different.”

Martin’s production, one of 200 acts to be staged at the 12th Annual Fringe Festival, was chosen from more than 800 plays competing for inclusion in what is billed as one of the largest multi–arts events in North America.

FringeNYC, as it’s also called, has been a launching pad for several successful theatrical projects, including the Tony Award–winning musical Urinetown. “The Fringe Festival is sort of a theater contest, so there will be judges and awards. You never know what could happen,” he said. “It’s a really good place to do theater.”

Frank Castronovo, chair of the Department of Theater and Dance, said Martin’s place on the Fringe program speaks well of the YSU program. “It’s an indication that our students are learning their craft, and learning it well enough to do it in a professional setting,” he said. “We’re proud of Brandon for this achievement.”

Martin, who lives in Youngstown, first heard of the Lucasville drama in 2005 when he was performing in the Oakland Cent er of the Arts production of The Exonerated. Lynd invited cast members to audition for Lucasville, Martin won a role in the play and subsequently performed in seven Ohio cities on a tour sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio.

Set to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in August, Martin decided to produce the play locally as his senior project, with Ray Beiersdorfer, YSU geology professor and fellow Exonerated cast member, acting as his faculty advisor. The YSU theater faculty has also been supportive, said Beiersdorfer, noting that he’s collaborated with faculty from more than a dozen different disciplines in his 15 years at YSU.

For his senior project, Martin directed and played a small role in a three–performance run of Lucasville at Bliss Hall on the YSU campus in April. The play impressed audiences enough, he said, that many signed petitions calling for new trials for the five inmates.

Beiersdorfer proposed that they try submitting a videotape and the script of Lucasville to the Fringe Festival, as well, and it was accepted. The cast of 12 will include four YSU students, including Martin.

Martin is already working with Beiersdorfer to promote the project.οΎ  “We could end up with a full–house or we could have an empty theater,” Martin remarked. “It’s all about how well we promote the show.”

Beiersdorfer said media interest in the play is already building. Time Out NY, an entertainment magazine, featured Lucasville in a recent issue, and New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty, an activist group, has contacted him as well. “They want to get the word out about the play to their membership,” he said.

  Cast and crew of Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising, are, in the front row from the left, YSU theater student Brandon Smith, Sam Perry, YSU professor of geology Ray Beiersdorfer, YSU alum and part–time faculty member Susie Beiersdorfer, YSU part–time faculty memberBrooke Slanina, Greg Mocker and Monica Beasley–Martin. In the back row from the left are YSU theater student Brandon Martin, Chazz Sutton, Jim Cannacci, Ric Panning, Lessley Harmon and YSU theater student Arcale Peace.



Teachers attend Materials Camp at YSU this week
Thirty–one middle and high school math, science, technology and industrial arts teachers from throughout Northeast Ohio will attend the Materials Camp for Teachers Monday, July 14 to Friday, July 18 at Youngstown State University.

Teachers will learn the basics of materials science technology as taught at the high school level. They will work hands–on with metals, ceramics, polymers and composites, and will develop a greater appreciation for the importance of these materials to modern life.

The camp is presented by the Warren chapter of the American Society for Metals, ASM International, ASM Materials Education Foundation, the Industrial Information Institute for Education Inc., Materials Research Laboratories Inc., V&M Star Steel in Youngstown, Solar Atmospheres in Hermitage, Pa., the Youngstown Business Incubator, the Green Team, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, and YSU’s Center for Transportation & Materials Engineering. 

YSU faculty/staff awards, presentations, publications
John Feldmeier, assistant professor, Physics and Astronomy, was a co–author of the paper “Expansion Velocities and Core Masses of Bright Planetary Nubulae in the Virgo Cluster,” published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Lead author was Magda Arnaboldi of the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany. Feldmeier also presented a poster titled “Measuring the Production Rate of Planetary Nebulae in Spiral Galaxies” at the 211th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas, and he co–authored two additional presentations titled “Burrell–Optical–Kepler Survey (BOKS): Exo–planet Search in Cygnus” and “A Collisional Debris Trail Around the Virgo Elliptical M86.”

Paul R. Carr, assistant professor, Educational Foundations, Research, Technology and Leadership, had an article published in the Journal of Educational Policy Studies, Volume 5, Number 2. The article is titled “Experiencing Democracy Through Neo–Liberalism: The Role of Social Justice in Democratic Education.”

Zbigniew Piotrowski,
professor, Mathematics and Statistics, recently addressed the Mathematics Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His lecture was titled “Continuity on Product Spaces.”

Cryshanna A. Jackson, assistant professor, Political Science & Pre–Law Center, presented a paper at the Annual Conference of Minority Public Administrators in Hamilton, Bermuda. The paper is titled “Examining the University of Akron’s Compliance to the Three–Prong Test Under Title IX NCAA Gender Equity Rules.” 

Frank X. Li
, assistant professor, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, presented a paper titled “Theoretical Analysis of Single Electron Spin Surface Detections,” at the 3rd IEEE Nano/Micro Engineered and Molecular Systems Conference 2008. The meeting was in Saya, Hainan, China.

Einar T. Ingvarsson, assistant professor, Psychology, co–authored an article titled “An Evaluation of Intraverbal Training Procedures to Generate Socially Appropriate  Responses to Novel Questions,” published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Issue 40. Co–authors were Jeffrey H. Tiger of the Munroe–Meyer Institute, Gregory P. Hanley and Kasey M. Stephenson, both of the University of Kansas.  Ingvarsson was also appointed to the editorial board of the European Journal of Behavior Analysis.


Priscilla N. Gitimu, assistant professor, Human Ecology, co–authored a paper titled “Identification of Strategies Used to Accomplish a Spatial Visualization Task in Apparel Design,” published in Clothing and Textile Research Journal, Issue 26(1), 2008.  Another article by Gitimu, titled “Influences of Training and Strategical Information  Processing Style on Spatial Performance in Apparel Design” and based on her doctoral dissertation work, was awarded third place in a ranking of outstanding journal articles by the Journal of Career and Technical Education Research.

 

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