Dear friends,

It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the 2025–2026 season of the Department of Theatre and Dance. Each year, our stages become places where stories take flight and foster meaningful conversations, offer moments of escape, and where movement and music bring awareness to pressing issues and new ideas. Most importantly, they are spaces where our students and faculty bring their artistry, research, and imagination to life before a live audience.

This season offers a remarkable range of productions that showcase the depth and variety of our department: from the magical journey of Into the Woods to the urgent and contemporary storytelling of Hype Man: A Break Beat Play. We continue our strong commitment to dance with the dynamic Visions in Motion concert and the student-driven innovation of A Collective in Muse. We close the season with a bold, reimagined staging of The Great Gatsby, immersing audiences in both the glamour and the disillusionment of the Jazz Age.

These productions represent the collaborative efforts of more than 100 students—actors, dancers, designers, technicians, stage managers, and creators—who bring classroom learning into a professional-caliber performance environment. Guided by our extraordinary faculty and staff, our students take risks, experiment with new ideas, and grow as both artists and individuals.

I am deeply grateful to our Dean, Associate Deans, faculty and guest artists for their vision, to the College of Fine Arts for their unwavering support, and to you—our community of patrons—for making it all possible. Theatre and dance thrive through shared experience, and your presence ensures that our students’ voices are heard.

We are thrilled to share these productions with you, and I invite you to join us in celebrating the artistry, passion, and innovation that define the Department of Theatre and Dance at the prestigious College of Fine Arts at the University of Kentucky.

With excitement and gratitude,
Susie Thiel
Chair, Department of Theatre and Dance

Welcome to A Collective in Muse, part of the 2025-2026 Mainstage season of the Department of Theatre and Dance. Just like our five shows, this project grew from a variety of places: my own personal research in Immersive Theatre, faculty discussions of including a Mainstage show that is more “experimental” in nature, and most importantly, the desire to showcase the incredible range and depth of our student artists here at UK. 

We often think of muses as great sources of inspiration, beings that stir passion in us. According to Merriam-Webster, to be “in muse” is to be in a state of deep thought or dreamy abstraction. The work that you will see tonight is unlike anything else you have encountered. Five students: Seven Kessler, Autrey Brown, Eli Vann, Hersch Nathan, and Zander Chojnacki have spent the last few months developing these pieces based on research proposals they submitted in September and represent each of their ideas of being “in muse.”

These proposals were imaginative, daring, and beyond the traditional training of a theatre program. Students told us what they were inspired to create and explore with the resources accessible to them through the Department of Theatre and Dance, our incredible faculty mentors, and unwavering support from the College of Fine Arts. The result is five productions that have been completely student driven from start to finish, which stretch both our student performers, designers, and technicians in new ways alongside our audience. I am constantly blown away by our students’ artistry, vision, and desire to create deeply meaningful work. I am elated to be able to share their work in this way and deeply grateful to the support of our faculty, department, and leadership in the College of Fine Arts.

It is my great honor to present to you this Collective in Muse, and I hope that you will walk away feeling a bit “in muse” yourself. 

Kate Field
Artistic Director, A Collective in Muse
Assistant Professor of Scenic Design

Just Something About You by Seven Kessler
Guignol Theatre
film starts every 20 minutes  

Dante’s by Autrey Brown
Lucille Little Black Box Theatre
performance starts every 30 minutes 

Hippolyte by Eli Vann
Briggs Theatre
experience starts every 20 minutes 

Assembled by Hersch Nathan
Guignol Theatre Lobby
performance starts every 15 minutes, beginning at 7:30 p.m.

Aunt Leaf directed by Zander Chojnacki
Fine Arts Building courtyard
starts at the top of every hour (7, 8, 9 p.m.) and runs for 40 minutes

Producer
Susie Thiel

Artistic Director
Kate Field

Technical Director
Zak Stribling

Production Stage Management
Noah Orberson
Cadence Willoughby

Run Crew
Rilley Roswall

Master Electrician
Alex Korfhage