Learn more about “The School for Lies” and other 2016-17 theatre productions.

You’re a young, newly minted scholar with a Ph.D. in film and television studies from UCLA. What to do next? Tenured position at a respected university? Vice president of a major television network? Maybe a book about Academy Award-winner Sofia Coppola’s adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winner Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel The Virgin Suicides?

Or, perhaps, you help to answer one of modern life’s most burning questions: Why are people so keen on Keeping Up with the Kardashians?

If you’re Justin Wyatt, the answer is, “All of the above.”

Leaving academia for television and then leaving television for academia was always the plan, Wyatt argues. Put another way, Wyatt took theory, put it into practice, and then brought his research back to the classroom. “I knew I’d come back,” Wyatt says. “I always intended to bring all this knowledge back to the classroom.”

Wyatt, who teaches media advertising, research and criticism, as well as film theory and history, left a tenured position at the University of Arizona in 2000 for a 15-year career in television, leading primary research efforts for, among others, E!/NBCUniversal and CMT/MTV Networks/Viacom. (He served as a vice president of research at both companies.) Wyatt conducted qualitative and quantitative research for shows such as Desperate Housewives, Lost, Grey’s Anatomy and Keeping Up with the Kardashians. (FYI: Fans of the show told Wyatt that it isn’t the glitz and glamour that keeps them coming back. It’s the curiosity about living in a large, blended family and the fantasy of having a large group of squabbling sisters who, nonetheless, have your back when it comes to the rest of the world.)

And how does Wyatt bring all this experience to bear on the classroom? There are two books in progress: Catching the Phantom Viewer: Market Research & The Evolving Media Ecosystem and The Virgin Suicides: Reverie, Sorrow & Young Love. And, Wyatt’s students learn through real-world creative exercises about what it takes to work in media. A typical assignment, for instance, might be students pitching television tag lines to their classmates. “It mirrors the experience of working in a creative ad agency,” Wyatt explains.

“Students want to know what it takes to break in to the business. I tell them, ‘It’s not about how smart you are. It’s about collaboration. It’s about being able to put the ego in check so that you’re able to work with others in a creative environment.’

“I tell them, “I’m teaching you skills for your first job and also for your last job.’”

You might say Temidayo ‘Dayo’ Akinjisola was hard at work in supply chain management long before he undertook the study of it.

The University of Rhode Island senior, a  political science and supply chain management double major, had his first introduction to the concept at 5, when stocking the shelves of his father’s Cranston, R.I. convenience store, BD Mart.

Akinjisola’s mom, a nurse, worked on the weekends. So Akinjisola, his father, and his two younger siblings, sister, Toyin ’18, and brother, Jide, would spend their weekends at the store, sweeping floors, stocking shelves, and waiting on the regulars, who would chat up the children as they got their coffees, newspapers and lottery tickets.

Akinjisola’s parents, Nigerian immigrants, laid their bets on their kids. Not even school sports were allowed to get in the way of schoolwork. And, forget television. The only good TV was no TV. (Akinjisola’s father would feel the back of the television set when he returned home, just to be sure his kids stayed on track.)  “They were all about education, education and hard work,” Akinjisola said.

Arguably, so is Akinjisola. Just weeks after his May 21 commencement exercises, the 21-year-old Providence, R.I. native will report to Brown University’s campus as a Venture for America fellow. The highly competitive social enterprise nonprofit program (only 10 percent of applicants are accepted) aims to revitalize America’s cities through entrepreneurship. It pairs top college graduates with promising startups. Akinjisola will spend five weeks at a “training camp,” a deep dive into business and entrepreneurial skills-building. Then, in August, it’s off to his as-yet-to-be-determined startup, where he will work for two years.

Community building and ground-floor ventures are nothing new for Akinjisola. Nor is recognition. Akinjisola is president of the Multicultural Unity and Student Involvement Council, which received the University’s A. Robert Rainville Team Excellence Award earlier this spring in part for its work leading a student-run annual conference, “Diversifying Individuals Via Education” (DIVE RI), that has attracted college students from around the northeast. The conference inspired students from Boston University to start their own student-led diversity conference and prompted URI to offer course credit to students who work on the conference.

“Everything we do is of the students by the students and for students,” said Akinjisola, who co-founded the conference with four upperclassmen. In its first year, the conference hosted more than 200 attendees from across the northeast. “Three years later, I’m the last line of defense. It’s been really cool,” Akinjisola said.

“Student organizations offer the real-life, applicable skills you need. They enable you to cultivate and develop skills for when you leave. I’ve learned about budgeting, financials, discussing and negotiating, presenting a business proposal,” Akinjisola said. “The conference is the thing I’m most proud of. It was just an idea  and to have it happen, to have people come to it was amazing. We created that space to allow people to develop themselves.”

Akinjisola is also a resident assistant, a member of the University of Rhode Island Student Senate, treasurer of Brothers on a New Direction, a group dedicated to supporting the growth of young men of color on the University’s campus, and recruitment manager for Breakthrough Providence,  a program that pairs college students with low-income, academically motivated students in Providence middle schools – a program Akinjisola once participated in as a middle school student himself. One mentor in particular would “always hit me with knowledge,” Akinjisola recalled. “He’d say, ‘Consider yourself a blank canvas.’ Whenever he saw a problem, he made it a priority to fix it.

“That was a mantra I took on.”

Akinjisola intends to bring all of his experience to bear on his next venture. He has an idea to develop the cultural competency skills of teachers in schools with highly diverse populations. “I’ve always had great teachers who were invested in my success,” he noted.

Then, perhaps law school.

The hard work ahead serves only to energize Akinjisola. Stocking shelves, sweeping floors, planning conferences, mentoring middle school students and studying, always studying: Akinjisola’s is an education that has happened as much outside the classroom as within it. And he welcomes the chance to test theory through practice. “There are no shortcuts to being a great leader,” he said. “You have to go through experiences where you make big mistakes to learn from them.”

Big mistakes seem a farfetched future for one so successful so young. If they should happen, though, Akinjisola will likely remember the lessons of his parents, his teachers, and his mentors.

“There are a lot of problems in the world, but the world would be a better place if people did what they were passionate about,” Akinjisola said. “You can be the one to fix the problem.”

Communication studies and public relations major Colin Rumbel, student commencement speaker for URI’s Class of 2017, hopes to leave every graduating senior feeling the sense of community that he has felt at URI.

“My goal with this speech is to relate in some way to every student who is graduating—at least for one split second,” said Rumbel, who will deliver his speech at commencement exercises on Sunday, May 21. “It is also to remind my peers that although we may be on different paths, together we can be a great force to make a beautiful change in the world.”

Rumbel’s speech will celebrate lessons learned, bonds made, and even some funny moments he has experienced in his time at URI. An orientation leader for New Student Programs, Rumbel said URI was the only place he could see himself when he first stepped on campus for his tour in 2013.

“Now during my orientation sessions, I always look at the faces of students who seem awestruck. That is just how I felt on my first tour here, when I was looking for a college I could call home. That shows how special this place is and how true my first impression was,” Rumbel said.

After commencement, Rumbel looks to start his career in communications and public relations. Last year an internship at Citizens Bank cinched his communications career path. “I worked on various projects and gained many skills that I wouldn’t have been able to develop unless I took the chance and stepped outside of the classroom,” he said.

During his time at URI, Rumbel was a role model and peer leader to many fellow students, especially those enrolled in the leadership studies program. He has also worked in Commuter Affairs, was very active in his fraternity, and participated in various community service and philanthropic projects.

He has won several academic awards including the Public Relations Excellence Award for Leadership; Public Relations Excellence Award as Outstanding Mentor; the A. Robert Rainville Leadership Award-Student Organization of Leadership Consultants; a First-Year Leadership Excellence Award; and the Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity’s Most Successful Big & Little Award.

URI Today: Inner Space Center airs again Tuesday, June 27 at 8pm on WSBE HD your local Rhode Island PBS.

Jazz Festival Ovation

Scientists and science enthusiasts will examine the cell, the cosmos, and all in between at the Fall 2017 Honors Colloquium.

“Origins: Life, the Universe and Everything” features world-renown scientists going big and deep, plumbing the recesses of the universe and the universe that is the human mind. Topics addressed will include the origins of life, solar system exploration, cellular life, life on other planets, and human consciousness.

The lectures will be held on Tuesday evenings beginning at 7 p.m. in Edwards Auditorium, URI Kingston campus. The first of the 10 lectures will be held September 12, the last, December 5.

Lectures are free and open to the public.

Astrophysicist, cosmologist, inventor and educator Hakeem Muata Oluseyi opens the series with the lecture “The Birth of Being: From the Big Bang to Babies.” Oluseyi is a space sciences education manager for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and Distinguished Research Professor of Physics and Space Sciences at Florida Institute of Technology. His lecture will be live-streamed.

A frequent contributor to the Discovery Channel and National Geographic, Oluseyi speaks at science forums all over the world. He has given multiple TED talks on subjects such as the Big Bang Theory and, in one talk, explains infinity in three minutes. In 2012, Oluseyi was selected as a TED Global Fellow for his science outreach work.

As passionate about education as he is research, Oluseyi uses his life story to inspire future generations of scientists. He grew up the child of a single mom in a series of poor and, sometimes, violent neighborhoods in the South. For a new kid in such a neighborhood, going outdoors could be dangerous, Oluseyi told TED in a 2012 interview. He often stayed inside, reading about Einstein and watching PBS.

“The other side of the story is that I was also really interested in physics,” he told TEDBlog. “It’s what I did for fun. In my own communities, I was seen as some kind of weirdo nerd kind of guy. A cool nerd.”

A nerd who, before he’d left high school, had invented a computer program that did relativity calculations. A nerd who used his spare time to study scientists working in his field, reading every bit of research they generated. “When you get into a field and you’re becoming an expert, you’ve got to be current and you’ve got to read all the papers. You quickly begin to realize who all the big players are.”

Now a science star in his own right (he holds eight U.S. and four E.U. patents), Oluseyi visits sub-Saharan African schools and conducts science demonstrations. In an interview given to the American Physical Society, Oluseyi talked about his interest in making science accessible to the public.

“I find service to students and humanity as exciting as making a new scientific discovery. That is my life: I educate, I inspire and I research,” Oluseyi said. “I have to pinch myself sometimes. I couldn’t be happier.”

The Fall 2017 Honors Colloquium is sponsored by URI’s honors program. Lecture dates and presenters include:

Sept. 19: Jane Goodall, primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, United Nations Messenger of Peace and founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and the Roots and Shoots program

(Note: Tickets are no longer available for the second Honors Colloquium lecture, Jane Goodall’s “Tomorrow and Beyond: 40 Years of the Jane Goodall Institute.” URI will live-stream her lecture.)

September 26: Meave Leakey, paleoanthropologist and National Geographic Hubbard Medal recipient

October 3: Robert Hazen, earth scientist, mineralogist and astrobiologist

October 10: Emily Lakdawalla, senior editor and planetary evangelist

October 17: Jack Szostak, geneticist and 2009 Nobel Prize laureate

October 24: Paul Davies, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist and author

November 14: Heather Berlin, neuroscientist, educator and TV host

November 28: Sara Seager, astronomer, planetary scientist and author

December 5: Anil Seth, neuroscientist, editor, author and blogger

Visit URI Honors Colloquium, for more information about the speakers and their lectures.

This year, we welcome our most accomplished first-year class (average GPA of 3.53) to date. To ensure a smooth transition to college life, we’ve put together a brief guide to getting off to a great start. Go, Rhody!

1. Make yourself at home. You’ll find students and staff waiting when you arrive to help you move into one of the 26 student residences on campus. Many have been renovated. Some are brand new and others certified environmentally green. Ninety-five percent of first-year students live on campus in one of 16 residence halls. Fall 2017 move-in dates for first-year residents are September 2 and 3. Upper-class housing (except Wiley Hall) move-in dates are September 4 and 5. Check out our move-in guide, for detailed schedules, room assignments and tips on what to bring. The first day of classes is September 6. Check bus.apps.uri.edu to catch a ride or get your parking permit.

2. Find your people. 16,680 students descend on URI this month. That includes 3,250 first-year students, more than 13,400 undergrads and 2,003 graduate students. Don’t miss the First Night 2017 Block Party for food, fun and fellow students representing the 180+ clubs and organizations on campus. We’ve got clubs and organizations dedicated to a range of interests: sports, politics, the arts, activism, health, wellness, and more. Interested in Greek life, aerospace or raising guide dogs? Want to play cricket or Quidditch? Ghost hunt or ballroom dance? Or, perhaps, a game of humans versus zombies is more your thing? We’ve got you covered.

3. Catch a game. Our men’s basketball team won the 2017 Atlantic 10 Championship, earning a trip to the NCAA Tournament. Our women’s rowing team and men’s baseball and outdoor track-and-field teams all captured Atlantic 10 championships, too. And our women’s sailing and equestrian teams also competed with distinction on the national level in 2017. View our club sports offerings. For all game schedules, team rosters and other stats, visit GoRhody.com.

4. Play. URI offers some of the top athletics facilities in the region, including the Anna Fascitelli Fitness & Wellness Center, the Bradford R. Boss Ice Arena, the Keaney Gymnasium, the Robert P. Arrigan Sailing Pavilion, and the Tootell Aquatic Center. So run, lift, sail and swim. By the way, we offer 518 classes in spinning, yoga and Pilates each year, too.

5. Eat. Really well. What’s on the menu? Anything you want. URI won two gold medals in 2017 for award-winning dining. And you’ve got options: Hope Commons won top honors twice in national competitions (we recommend the retro-style burger bar). The recently renovated Butterfield Hall is a favorite for made-to-order burritos and soft-serve ice cream. Use your Ram Account for Starbucks coffee, Ram Escape fruit smoothies and groceries at the Corner Store, as well as a number of restaurants and retail locations in the Kingston Emporium.

6. Attend an event. Legendary primatologist Jane Goodall will be on campus Sept. 19 as part of the Fall 2017 Honors Colloquium’s series, “Life, the Universe and Everything.” And award-winning actress, comedian, author and television host Whoopie Goldberg headlines Alumni and Family Weekend, October 20-22. Check out the URI Events calendar for a complete list of all activities throughout the school year.

URI President David M. Dooley says, “Building a community in which every member is welcomed, supported, and valued is essential to our University’s identity and our mission. It is who we are.”

And we’re glad you’re a part of it.

Developing compassion: It figures prominently in the work of URI’s Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies this year. And, at the invitation of the Center, some special visitors to the University are bringing attention to the idea of cultivating compassion in the practicing of an art form that is more than 2,000 years old.

Seven Tibetan Buddhist monks of the Drepung Loseling Monastery visiting URI this week are working on a colored-sand mandala in the Memorial Union’s lounge. The monks, also called lamas, have created hundreds of such colored-sand mandalas for religious centers, museums, and colleges and universities. In complexity, beauty and vibrancy, mandalas rival cathedrals’ stained glass windows and, like them, invite contemplation — with one important distinction. Whereas a stained glass window is meant to last for centuries, a mandala’s longevity is measured in hours.

In Buddhist tradition, mandalas are destroyed to illustrate life’s impermanence. Come Friday, Sept. 22 at 12 p.m., the Avalokitesvara Mandala of Compassion the monks have created will be destroyed, as well.

In the meantime, the monks will paint from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. through mid-morning Friday. The monks are part of The Mystical Arts of Tibet, a world tour endorsed by The Dalai Lama and co-produced by Richard Gere and the Drepung Loseling Monastery in Atlanta and India.

“Tibetans believe that the external world reflects the state of mind of its inhabitants. We believe that every individual has [the] potential to transform [their] minds and thereby contribute to environmental transformation,” said monk Nyima Tsering at Monday’s opening ceremony. “It is our hope that the creation of the mandala will contribute to healing, to harmony in this area, and to each of its inhabitants.”

The process

The construction of the mandala begins with the monks scouting for the optimal location, a process which includes getting permission from authorities both visible and invisible, Tsering said. The site is then consecrated through a ceremony involving chanting and meditation.

The monks then create an outline of the mandala on a wooden platform. Once completed, they begin the laying of the colored sand upon it. The sand is poured from metal tools, funnels called chak-purs. Monks hold the chak-pur in one hand and run a metal rod over its grated surface, which causes the sand to flow in fluid motion.

They work continuously for eight hours a day and always finish on time, noted Paul Bueno de Mesquita, professor of psychology at the University of Rhode Island and Center director.

The schedule

The monks’ visit coincides with the United Nations’ International Day of Peace, Sept. 21. The Center has planned a number of events in the quad in observation of the occasion including the formation of a human peace sign at 12:30 p.m., a performance by the Ukelele Peace Orchestra at 1:30 p.m., and a 7 p.m. candlelight vigil.

The public is invited to all events including the closing ceremony on Friday. Those present may choose to receive sand from the mandala. What remains will be taken to Ellery Pond and released in a gesture meant to spread the blessing of the mandala to the university and the greater community.

When it comes to choosing writers to headline the Ocean State Writing Conference, URI has a knack for picking winners.

No less than seven internationally renowned writers have received major literary prizes after agreeing to participate in the conference. This year’s conference begins Thursday, Oct. 26, and features keynote speaker Masha Gessen, journalist, best-selling author, translator and activist — and a National Book Award finalist this year.

Timeline:

• 2007: novelist Dinaw Mengetsu receives a MacArthur Fellowship, a cash prize of $625,000, in the same year he presents at URI.
• 2011: keynote speaker and novelist Jennifer Egan wins the Pulitzer Prize soon after committing to URI.
• 2013: playwright Ayad Akhtar wins the Pulitzer after headlining the conference. In the same year, fellow presenter Richard Blanco is tapped by President Barack Obama to be his inaugural poet.
• 2014: Graphic memoirist Alison Bechdel wins a MacArthur Fellowship in the same year she presents at URI.
• 2015: poet Gregory Pardlo wins a Pulitzer soon after his URI appearance, a conference which also featured poet Tracy K. Smith, who, in 2017, became the current U.S. Poet Laureate.

Note: Gessen’s address on Friday, Oct. 27, from 4 to 5:30 p.m., is free and open to the public. It will take place in Swan Hall Auditorium, 60 Upper College Road. Take a look at this year’s other featured speakers and conference schedule.

To call Camp Runamuck — the homeless community that sprang up under Providence’s Crawford Street Bridge in 2009 — a tent city? That was to give it airs. It was a hovel. Garbage in want of a bulldozer.

Tents were little more than duct-taped tarps delineating borrowed property lines. The communal kitchen: a plastic table and grimy coolers. And the blue tarp shielding the toilet from view was little protection in a stiff wind.

But to Hillary Brady ’12, sent to cover the tent city story for “The Good Five Cent Cigar,” it was a rich experience, one that prompted her to work in a field dedicated to preserving American culture at the largest and, arguably, most esteemed museum in the world.

“It was eye-opening,” said Brady, now outreach coordinator for the Smithsonian Institution Archives in Washington, D.C. “To have the opportunity to practice what I learned in the classroom outside of the campus was invaluable,” Brady said. “My education shaped how I work now.”

After earning a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism from URI as well as a master’s from Brown University, Brady worked as a research assistant for Digital Public Library of America, collaborating with museums, libraries, and archives globally, creating digital exhibitions and materials for primary and secondary school teachers. In her current position at the Smithsonian, Brady works with people across the Smithsonian’s digitization teams as well as with archivists and historians to share rich and complex stories of science and history.

“Everyone needs to tell their story,” Brady said. “To craft a good story, to do that well, is a marketable skill. I use all of what I learned at URI every day.”

Justine Mirek ’19 is busy. Nail-biting, stomach-churning, tic-inducing, insomnia-provoking busy. The kind of busy fueled by chips and cookies chased with supersized cups of coffee or Red Bull.

Mirek’s final two weeks of the semester include exams, projects, a presentation, a portfolio review, internship responsibilities, preparations for studying abroad in Australia next semester and a search for a summer job. And yet the public relations and film major looks calm, serene even.

“This is my stressful week,” Mirek says. “But I usually plan out my studying or plan out time to complete assignments. Knowing I’ve set time aside to do the work alleviates the stress.”

Mirek is involved in planning Campus Recreation’s “Stress Less Week,” happening through December 21 at the Anna Fascitelli Fitness and Wellness Center. Events planned include making your own stress ball, a pound-it-out exercise class and sound healing.  Fascitelli’s Wellness Resource Center offers self-guided meditation, zen board painting and meditative coloring.

For students who feel they can’t carve out time from studying to take advantage of Stress Less Week, campus experts offer their advice to beat back stress.

Take water into exams

Hydration is critical, said Professor Kathleen Melanson, who teaches general and sports nutrition in the Nutrition and Food Sciences department. “One of the first symptoms of dehydration is fatigue, so reaching for coffee is a bad idea.” Try green tea or seltzer flavored with fruit.

Eat vegetables

Fatigue from sleep deprivation can trigger increased ghrelin production, a hormone that triggers feelings of hunger, which can drive a person to eat more foods higher in sugar and fat. A diet rich in less-processed, less-refined foods can make a big difference, Melanson said.

Get over FOMO

Students should get 8-to-9 hours of sleep a night. The average college student is getting about 6-to-7 hours. One less hour a night means losing a night’s sleep a week. Sleep habits of first-year students tend to be the worst. They try to manage new schedules and maintain old friendships late into the evening, said Sue K. Adams, associate professor and program director of URI’s Human Development and Family Studies Department. And students’ sleep is often interrupted by devices.

And then there’s FOMO, shorthand for Fear of Missing Out, which is now being studied by psychologists. Students are loathe to be the first to sleep for fear of missing something, Adams said.

Adams said plan for sleep. “Tell people ‘I’m going to bed now.’ Set a time after which you’re done with your phone and go to bed when you’re tired,” Adams said. “And realize you have to go to bed when you’re tired.”

Breathe, then move

Buddhist Geshe Thupten Tendar of URI’s Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies counsels students to assess their feelings when stressed. Then, sit in a comfortable position, take three deep breaths, and stretch to loosen the body. A simple activity such as singing a song or taking a walk can also help, Tendar said.

“People thought that with tech, wealth, opportunity and education all problems would be taken care of but people are still experiencing suffering,” Tendar said. “Focus on the mind rather than a solution outside.”

Think Big. It’s what we do every day here at URI.

URI students danced their way into history at a student-run fundraiser that raised more than $153,000 for a local children’s hospital and exceeded organizers’ fundraising goal by more than $50,000.

The 1,400-plus students  who participated in RhodyThon danced for eight hours, beginning at 6 p.m. Saturday, March 24. Hasbro Children’s Hospital, a pediatric hospital in Providence, is the beneficiary of their fundraising efforts. RhodyThon was the largest, first-year dance marathon in the history of such events for the Children’s Miracle Network, a national association of hospitals of which Hasbro is a member. A full 100 percent of the proceeds from the event benefit Hasbro patients.

For Hailey Flavin ’18, RhodyThon’s executive director of student affairs, the event was the culmination of a year’s work.

Flavin, who participated in a Children’s Miracle Network dance marathon at Elon University, introduced the idea to Vice President of Student Affairs Kathy Collins last summer. Collins told her to run with it. Flavin and a team of 14 fellow students managed every detail, from recruiting sponsors and rallying student support to creating a website, developing programming, and marketing the event.

Flavin said she was proud to see students coalesce around a cause and credited that in part to the inspiration provided by cancer survivor Violet Graney, whose father, Dan, is dean of students. Violet, 3, was born with a rare form of cancer, infantile fibrosarcoma. She received her treatment at Hasbro.

URI beat the previous Children’s Miracle Network record-holder by more than $40,000, an incredible feat considering URI’s size and student population in relation to other state universities, said Collins. Equally amazing was the collaborative nature of the event, she added.

“It brought students together from across the university,” Collins said. “I loved watching our women’s volleyball team, men’s basketball team, LEAD,  Greek life students, and others working on this together. This event truly was a shared experience for many of our students.”

Flavin said she was overwhelmed by her fellow students’ response to the event and was brought to tears when she and her fellow organizers took to the stage to share the fundraiser’s then-tally of more than $147,000.

“I am overjoyed that people found the same love for this event as I did,” explained Flavin, a senior journalism major with a leadership studies minor who also serves as president of the Panhellenic Council. “People I barely knew were reaching out to me and telling me the event changed their lives and that they wanted to join the leadership team in the future.”

While happy that URI set a record with RhodyThon, Flavin hopes it’s a record soon broken.

“I cannot wait to come back after graduation and see the continuing growth and success of this event,” Flavin said. “I want to come back in 10 years and cry the same tears of joy in awe at how much the event has grown.”

Learn more about “The School for Lies” and other 2016-17 theatre productions.