UPlayers give reason to party: UPlayers 50th
By Courtney Lyons
Lance Writer
August 27, 2008
 University Players is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
In those 50 years, University Players has brought you the beauty of human emotion through their theatrical presentations.
In addition, the School of Dramatic Art (SODA) is celebrating its 40th year of providing exceptional theatre training to students from across the country and around the world.
There is certainly much to celebrate and the drama students are preparing to party with four special anniversary events and six shows.
In 1958 Daniel Patrick Kelly was hired and began formalizing productions done on campus, creating University Players.
The theatre originated in two surplus army barracks, known as “the huts,” one for set and costume construction and the other as a theatre.
Much later, University Players found its permanent home in the campus’s own Essex Hall.
In the recent years SODA has built its home in the new $8.5 million Jackman Dramatic Art Centre, located across from Macdonald Hall.
The founding of University Players, however, was only the beginning for Kelly.
Ten years later, UWindsor experienced the birth of the SODA; the first of its kind in an Ontario University.
The school began a training program for actors; a training program which can now boast that it has trained some of the best actors of the country.
Within film and television former grad success stories include Star Wars, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, Stargate Atlantis, Slings and Arrows, and Little Mosque on the Prairie to name a few.
Within the theatre community many former drama students have gone on as the leaders and stars of Canadian Theatre.
Hardly a season has passed without a Windsor grad gracing the boards at Shaw or Stratford festivals.
It isn’t all acting for SODA over in the Jackman Dramatic Art Centre.
The school boasts five drama degrees and one certificate: Bachelors of Fine Arts in Acting, General and Honours Bachelor of Arts, Bachelors of Drama, Education and Community, Bachelor of Art in Drama and Communication, and Certificate in Arts Management.
Each degree is specialized in a particular focus.
To celebrate the anniversary season, both the University Players and SODA have events planned. To kick the school year off, the first of four events will be the Hip Hip Hooray Anniversary Party on Sept. 10, in the Jackman Dramatic Art Centre.
This will be an open house of performances and a special welcome to our new University President as well as honoured SODA alumni Antoni Cimolino, General Director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.
Come see the performances, displays, and activities, and load up on champagne (if you’re old enough), mouth-watering hors d’oeuvres, and punch.
The event runs from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $25 and available at the box office located in Essex Hall.
Also from Sept. 18 to the 28, the first show of the University Players’ six show season, Measure for Measure, will be presented.
The Shakespeare classic with its contemporary twist is sure to shock and delight viewers in ways that Shakespeare, strippers and Drag Queens only can.
Ticket prices for University Players vary from as low as $5. For a University Players Student Friends Card, students may see shows at a discounted rate of $5.
The friends’ card is a six punch card available for purchase from the box office for $30. Individual tickets are $17 in advance or $11 right before the show if tickets are available.
For more information about the anniversary season and events please contact the box office at (519) 253-3000 ext. 2808 or outside the theatre in Essex Hall.
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