Activated Art at the Ackland

By popular demand, the Ackland Art Museum at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is again presenting “ekphrastic theater” in its galleries. Through an upcoming series of live theater performances entitled ACTIVATED ART, works of art in the Ackland’s permanent collection may be experienced in unexpected and thought-provoking ways.

Ekphrasis is a rhetorical device in which one artistic medium attempts to define the essence of another, giving a work further life by telling its perceived story. Each performance of ACTIVATED ART comprises five ten-minute plays, each inspired by a different work of art in the Ackland Art Museum’s permanent collection.

Written by four distinguished North Carolina authors—Dana Coen, Howard L. Craft, Ian Finley, and Marianne Gingher—and the first-place winner of a student play-writing competition, Wynton Wong, these original plays construct dramatic narratives perceived in painting and sculpture, in an effort to capture the works’ most essential nature.

The five plays presented at each ACTIVATED ART 2013 performance are:

The Spectacle of our Misery by Dana Coen

The Minstrel by Howard L. Craft

The Interior of the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam by Ian Finley – Directed by Serena Ebhardt.

Art Class by Marianne Gingher

Switch by Wynton Wong
The plays will be performed in the Ackland’s galleries, in front of the art that inspired them. A discussion with the playwrights and directors follows the two Friday evening performances.

Performances:

Friday, 5 April, 8:00 PM – A discussion with the playwrights follows this evening’s performances.

Saturday, 6 April, 8:00 PM
Sunday, 7 April, 6:00 PM
Wednesday, 10 April, 8:00 PM
Thursday, 11 April, 8:00 PM
Saturday, 13 April, 8:00 PM
Sunday, 14 April, 6:00 PM
Friday, 19 April, 8:00 PM – A discussion with the playwrights follows this evening’s performances.

Saturday, 20 April, 6:00 PM
Sunday, 21 April, 8:00 PM
Tickets:

Tickets are $10 each and may be purchased in person at the Ackland Museum Store, on the corner of Franklin and Columbia Streets, in downtown Chapel Hill, or by phone: 919.962.0216.

PLEASE NOTE THAT SEATING LIMITED. LAST YEAR’S PERFORMANCE WAS SOLD OUT BEFORE WE OPENED. RESERVE YOUR TICKETS EARLY.