Professional activities

Prof. Daniel Patterson of the Theatre and Dance department attended the annual conference for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education in Los Angeles during the week of Aug 1-8. Professor Patterson regularly works with the “Playworks” new play development focus group at this conference and this year was an actor in a piece entitled Pemberton, by playwright Ron Purlman. Professor Patterson played an eccentric famous novelist named Pemberton in this allegorical piece about a man who can’t find an ending for his last work: his life.

Dr. Jose Lezcano (Professor of Music) performed a solo recital and adjudicated an international guitar competition at the Rosario Guitar Festival (May 13-16); he also performed at the Carrera Music Festival in Quito, Ecuador (June 1-5); with members of the New Jersey Symphony in April in Boccherini’s Guitar Quintet in D, and performed solo or collaborative recitals in Sarasota (May 3), and at summer concert series in Westin, Vermont, and Claremont, New Hampshire. His Viola Concerto received its South American premiere with soloist Brett Deubner and the Quito-based Carrera Festival Orchestra on June 4.

Mark C. Long, professor of English and American Studies, was an invited speaker at a conference at the University of Washington, Seattle, focused on reading and textual traditions. His presentation, “The Problem of Reading, the Practice of Writing,” has been published in the conference proceedings, The Natural History of Reading. In addition, Mark’s review of Out of the Shadow: Ecopsychology, Story and Encounters with the Land, by Rinda West, appears in the Summer 2010 issue of Western American Literature.