The Doudna Fine Arts Rededication Celebration will pay tribute to music, art and the theater near the end of October.

“The idea was to recognize all three of the arts,” said Michael Watts, assistant dean of the College of Arts and Humanities.

To do so, the College of Arts and Humanities is bringing Second City, Mavis Staples, Antoine Predock and Ruth Duckworth to Eastern. However, the rededication celebration from Oct. 24 to Oct. 26 will also showcase Eastern’s own talent.

“It’s going to be really busy,” Watts said of the weekend. “It’s intended not just for students.”

Watts said the biggest draw for students would probably be Second City.

The theater

Second City, an improvisational theater troupe based in Chicago, will perform at 7 p.m. Oct. 25 in The Theatre. Tim Baltz is excited about the performance because the group will be spending two nights in the area.

“We always do better when we are in a place for two nights instead of one,” said Baltz, who has been a performer with Second City for more than two years.

He said they perform better because they have time to get to know the people and the area.

“We are really going to dig our heels into the campus,” Baltz said.

The performance will be two acts of mostly scripted, satirical comedy.

“It’s going to be a lot of social and political satire,” said Baltz, who did not want to give away any of the scenes. “Anything is sort of game in a Second City show.”

Baltz said someone to watch out for in the show is Mark Raterman.

“He has the best role,” Baltz said. “He gets to play political roles we are all familiar with.”

During the show, there will be moments where the audience can give input, and the input would be intertwined in some improv scenes.

Baltz became interested in improv while growing up in Joliet.

He said he and his friends would go to Chicago once or twice a year to the Improv Olympic Theatre (now known as iO Chicago) and it “blew his mind.”

Baltz said to do improv you have to be a risk taker, which is how he describes himself.

“The pressure is fun, and the risk factor is high because it could not work,” he said. “I like that in improv that the sky is the limit – you can do anything.”

Also representing theater will be Hello Dali, a student improv group formed in 1992 by a group of theater students. Hello Dali will perform at noon Oct. 25 in the Movement Studio. Watts said the group would also interact with Second City.

The Music

Mavis Staples, a rhythm and blues and gospel singer from Chicago, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 24 in the Dvorak Concert Hall.

Staples recorded with The Staple Singers, worked as a civil rights activist and began a solo career. The Staple Singers was her family’s band that began in 1950 and had hits like “Uncloudy Day,” “I’ll Take You There” and “Respect Yourself.”

Watts said Staples will likely attract more faculty and staff as well as community members than students, but said some are interested in her performance.

“There’s some students who found out about her coming that are pretty excited,” he said. Watts said when looking for an artist to bring to Eastern for the rededication ceremony they wanted to bring someone unique.

“We looked outside of what the music department does,” Watts said.

The music department will also put on a concert to represent one of the three fine arts by showcasing the music department’s major ensembles. Watts said the department would perform two new pieces.

The concert will feature the premiere of “Cortege, Consecration and Jubilee” by Alfred Blatter and “Of Beauty” by Delores Dufner and Richard Rossi as well as other works by the Wind Symphony, the Eastern Symphony Orchestra, the Concert Choir and the Jazz Ensemble.

“The music department has its own following with a mix of students and people in the area,” Watts said.

The Arts

Antoine Predock, design architect of the Doudna Fine Arts Center, will also make an appearance for the rededication ceremony. Predock will give a lecture at 2 p.m. Oct. 25 in the Lecture Hall.

Watts said if the lecture were anything like the one he did during the design phase of Doudna, he would talk about his work and the building.

“That day will be kind of interesting,” Watts said.

Also to celebrate the arts will be the dedication of Ruth Duckworth’s “Attendant Spirit,” a 15-foot, 2,500-pound bronze sculpture to be placed on the north side of Doudna. The dedication will be at 11 a.m. Oct. 24 in Doudna’s Performance Courtyard.

Duckworth, 89, is a sculptor who specializes in ceramics. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award for the National Museum of Women in the Arts in 1993, and was named a visionary by the Museum of Arts and Design in 2003.

An exhibit of Duckworth’s ceramics and bronze sculptures will also be on display at the Tarble Arts Center from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Oct. 24, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Oct. 25 and 1 – 4 p.m. Oct. 26.

Tickets

All of the events are free, but Second City’s show, Staples’ performance and the Music Department’s Major Ensemble concert all require tickets. Those tickets will be available Oct. 10 at the Doudna Patron Services Box Office.

Watts said the Emerging Artists Series/EIU Foundation, the Excellence in the Fine Arts Fund/EIU Foundation and the departments fund Doudna’s public arts programs.

Watts said Dean James Johnson decided that because it’s the rededication celebration of Doudna it would be nice to offer the events for free.

Kristina Peters can be reached 581-7936 or at deneic@gmail.com.

Antoine Predock, design architect for the Doudna Fine Arts Center’s renovation, will speak at the rededication ceremonies for the center on Oct. 25.(Photo Courtesy of the College of Arts and Humanities)

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Above, Chicago-based improv troupe Second City performs one of their shows. Second City will perform Oct. 25 at the Doudna Fine Arts Center as part of its rededication.(Photo Courtesy of the College of Arts and Humanities)

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Ruth Duckworth, right, created a sculpture, “Attendant Spirit,” which will be unveiled during the rededication ceremonies.(Photo Courtesy of the College of Arts and Humanities)

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JoBu will bring its rock/reggae fusion jam band sound to Mac’s Uptowner for a show at 10 p.m. Saturday. (Photo Courtesy of Jobu)

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