If anyone knows how to embrace a theme it’s an artist, so you can bet there are Halloween happenings at UNCG’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. Here are some performances with varying degrees of chills and thrills to help you celebrate the Spooky Season.
Night of the Living Dead
October 27–29, various showtimes
Sprinkle Theatre
This performance presented by UNCG Theatre resurrects filmmaker George Romero’s cult classic, in which fallout from a satellite probe shot to Venus returns to Earth carrying a mysterious radiation that transforms the unburied dead into flesh-eating zombies.
“It’s a campy homage to the first modern zombie film from 1968,” says the show’s Director and School of Theatre professor Jim Wren. “We’re having a blast both paying tribute to and parodying this creepy classic.”
Wren is especially proud of the design team’s work in creating an entire black-and-white world on stage to replicate the movie. He adds that the cast has been working hard to take on the role of the undead.
“Zombies (although, interestingly enough, they are never called zombies in the film- they use the term “ghoul”) will be taking over Sprinkle Theatre for the Halloween weekend. We’re especially excited about the opportunity to perform a late-night show to get folks in the Halloween spirit. This will truly be an event!”
Visit vpa.uncg.edu/theatre for showtimes and tickets.
Collage Concert
October 28th @ 8:00 pm
UNCG Auditorium
School of Music faculty and students are conjuring up a night of spine-tingling sensations for the 16th Annual Collage Concert in UNCG Auditorium.
Conductor Carole Ott Coelho says it will be a night that is sure to get you in the Halloween spirit, with performances from spooky standards of the Western European tradition to newly composed music by composition faculty and students.
“The choirs will perform a piece by Kristopher Fulton titled Medusa, which is two minutes of fierce serpentine music. There will also be phantoms, witches, zombies, skeletons, James Bond villains, and some surprises! Our new Director of Orchestras, Jungho Kim, will perform Selections from Phantom of the Opera with the University Symphony Orchestra, and will close the second half with the final movement of Carmina Burana with the orchestra and combined choirs. There will also be original work by students in the PopTech program.”
Performers will be in various locations in the auditorium—many in costume—and the experience will be enhanced by special lighting.
“I put together the flow of the concert, but it is truly a high energy collaboration among our many world-class faculty-artists, fantastic students, James Goins’ (Auditorium Production Manager) brilliant lighting design, and the whole auditorium staff,” says Ott Coelho. “We hope the audience will have fun with us, and we invite them to come in costume.”
For tickets visit collage.uncg.edu
Organ Spooktacular
October 30th @ 7:30 pm
Organ Recital Hall
Not to fear—your own organs will remain intact— but the School of Music organ pipes will be rocking with eerie tunes for this one.
When the audience enters the hall, the lights will be low, and the traditional opening piece is Bach’s famous Toccata in D Minor.
Organ professor Marya Fancey says the evening is fun for all ages.
“The program is a mix of spooky music and regular organ repertoire that we can work into the theme. At the end, performers invite the audience to sing Halloween ‘carols’, and we give out candy at the end.”
Free to attend
Story by Terri W Relos