DeFrantz to direct 'Of Thee I Sing' at Emerson College
Associate Professor Thomas DeFrantz is directing the Emerson Stage/Musical Theatre Society of Emerson College production of "Of Thee I Sing," the Gershwin show that was the first musical to win a Pulitzer Prize for drama. The course of politics and true love encounter political and romantic complications all the way to the Supreme Court while the president is being sued and impeached for his treatment of a woman with a shady past, the vice president is a nonentity who can't name the states, and the fate of the country hangs on a beauty contest that will determine who will wed the most eligible bachelor. Though it sounds like CNN mixed with "The Bachelor," this show was written in 1931. Performances are April 3-12, Thursdays and Fridays at 8 p.m. and Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. at the Brimmer Studio Theater (69 Brimmer St., Boston). Tickets are $12. For more information, call 617-824-8369.
Photographs of life in Bhutan on display in local coffee shops
"DZONG: Life in the Sacred Fortresses of Bhutan," a small exhibition of big photographs taken by teams of photographers from MIT and Friendly Planet during expeditions to Bhutan, is on display at both Toscanini's locations in Cambridge (Central Square and Harvard Square) and at the Someday Cafe in Davis Square through April 30. A dzong is the medieval fortress-monastery which presides over the provinces of Bhutan. Friendly Planet is a nonprofit organization founded by Michael Hawley of the Media Lab to build schools in developing countries. The MIT participants included seniors Rebecca Hurwitz and Ming Zhang; Christopher Newell (Media Lab administrative assistant); and alumni Sandy Choi (S.B. 1999) and Hawley (Ph.D. 1993). Hawley says that 50,000 photos were taken, a mix of film and digital, all GPS stamped, scanned at grain resolution, de-noised and printed with the latest high-end HP 5500. "We were stunned at how dazzling the final results are," he said. "Among other things, they clearly prove that film photography is largely obsolete."
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 2, 2003.
