Wexner Center holds first meeting on plans for new grant

The Association of Performing Arts Presenters gave an $140,000 grant to the Wexner Center for the Creative Campus Innovations Grant Program. Out of 140 campuses that applied for the grant, the awards were given to six. The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation runs the fund.

With the grant money, the Wexner Center is teaming up with the OSU Department of Theatre and the Builders Association to develop a cross-disciplinary, multimedia performance.

A meeting Monday kicked off the project at the Drake Performance and Event Center, where Daniel Gray, acting chair of the theater department, introduced a room of students and staff members to members of the Builders Association, a New York-based theater company, and gave a brief overview of the project.

The title of the project will be “Road Trip,” and its main theme will be centered around the mortgage crisis and middle-class families being forced out of their homes and hitting the road.

“We draw from real-world events,” said Marianne Weems, theBuilders Association artistic director while describing the company’s previous productions performed at OSU, such as “Alladeen” and “Super Vision.” Both were multimedia plays.

“Road Trip” will not only be based on financial and physical hardships, but it will also draw heavily from John Steinbeck’s novel “The Grapes of Wrath.” The novel is primarily centered around the hardships a family faces when it’s driven from its home because of changes in the agricultural industry during the Great Depression.

“We’re the second theater company ever to get the rights to (the novel),” Weems said.

Charles Helm, director of the performing arts at the Wexner Center, is heading the Creative Campus project. In line with President E. Gordon Gee’s “One University” theme, this performance strives to connect and collaborate with different colleges and departments across the university and the community, Helm said.

The project calls for participants, both students and staff members, to sit in on certain classes that are not related to the arts, including classes in the College of Engineering, the Fisher College of Business and the College of Humanities. Helm said using the research information will create a more involved and rich theater experience.