FOR MORE INFORMATION

CONTACT:  Mary Anthony

mary.anthony@trinity.edu

Sept. 14, 2009

Art Historian Lane Relyea to Open 2009-2010 Stieren Arts Enrichment Series at Trinity University

SAN ANTONIO – An author, pianist, and artist are among the distinguished array of outstanding leaders and talents in the fields of journalism, drama, art, and music coming to Trinity University as part of the 2009-2010 Stieren Arts Enrichment Series.  All events are free and open to the public.  Fall guests are:

• Lane Relyea will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 8, in Chapman Auditorium.  He is an art historian and associate professor of art theory and practice at Northwestern University.  His writing has appeared in Art Journal, Art in America, and Artforum.  He has also published monographs on Polly Apfelbaum, Richard Artschwager, Jeremy Blake, and Wolfgang Tillmans, and contributed to such exhibition catalogs as Helter Skelter and Public Offerings.  After teaching for a decade at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, in 2001 he was appointed director of the Core Program and Art History at the Glassell School of Art in Houston.
   

• Director Alan Muraoka will present “From Sesame Street to the Great White Way: An Evening with Director Alan Muraoka” at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 26, in the Stieren Theater.  As an actor, he is most recognizable for his role in the Emmy-winning series, Sesame Street, where, for 11 seasons, he has played “Alan,” the proprietor of Hooper’s Store.  Other television appearances include 30 Rock, One Life to Live, All My Children, and Brotherhood.  He has appeared in six broadway productions, most notably, Miss Saigon, playing The Engineer.  As a director, his regional and New York credits include the critically-acclaimed Falsettoland, High School Musical, and Karaoke Stories.  He is in residence at Trinity this fall as director of Urinetown and teacher of a masterclass in auditioning.

• Author Junot Diaz will present “An Evening with Junot Diaz: A Reading with Commentary” at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29 in the Chapman Center Great Hall.  He is an award-winning novelist and short story writer.  His publications include the critically-acclaimed short story collection Drown (1996) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), which was selected by both TIME and New York Magazine as “The Best Novel of 2007.”  Diaz has also been awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award, the John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize, and The Anisfield-Wolf Award, among other honors.  His short fiction appears regularly in The New Yorker and has appeared four times in The Best American Short Stories.

Speakers in the spring semester are Nelita True, pianist, performing on Friday, Feb. 5; Dustin Lance Black, director and writer, on Monday, Feb. 8; Jim Torok, painter, on Thursday, March 4; So Percussion, percussion quartet, on Saturday, March 6; George Wilson, film aesthetician, on Tuesday, March 9; and Katy Siegel, art historian, on Thursday, March 11.

The Stieren Arts Enrichment Series is made possible through an endowment created by Jane and the late Arthur T. Stieren of San Antonio.  For more information, contact Mary Anthony at 210-999-8441.

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