MSC clubs provide fun^antasy Semester shows f eatu re A&M d i recto rs by Maureen Carmody Battalion Staff The Theater Arts program at Texas A&M will be providing more entertainment and learn ing opportunities for students this year than in the past. It will be bringing four plays to campus this semester and will also sponsor 12 one-act plays, which will be directed by stu dents. Five student plays a year is usually the amount produced. Richard Sodders, a theatre arts professor and director for one of the plays, said the in crease in activities is to give stu dents all the experience they can in working in the theater. The first play of the semester will be Blood Wedding, written by Federico Garcia Lorca and di rected by Robert Wenck, a thea ter arts professor. Blood Wedding is a modern tragedy which tells the story of a mother that loses all of her men in a feud with another family- She is left all alone after her last son is killed during a fight over his new bride. The play will run Feb. 9 through the 12 at 7 p.m. in Rud der Theater. Tickets are on sale now at the MSC Box Office. The second play will be Buried Child, written by Sam Shephard and directed by Mary Ann Mitchell, a theater arts pro fessor. Buried Child, winner of the 1979 Pulitzer Prize, is a drama which eventually reveals the secret a farm family has har bored for years. This play is not recommended for children. Auditions for Buried Child will be Wednesday, Jan. 19 and Thursday, Jan. 20 in Rudder Forum beginning at 7 p.m. Both meetings must be attended. Scripts are available in the theater arts office in the A&A building. The play will run from Feb. 24 through the 26 and March 3 through the 5 in Rudder Forum. The third play will be Transit. This will be the first staging of an original musical by Sue Dauphin, Houston theater cri tic, and Penelope Kosztolnyik from Bryan. It will be directed by Richard Sodders. Transit is a musical comedy set on board a merchant tanker, the S.S. Shuttlecock. The first mate's wife disguises herself as the captain in order to save his job. Showings will be at 7 p.m. in Rudder Theater on April 13 through the 16. The final show will be The Contrast, written by Royall Tyl er and directed by Jill Moore, a student of theater arts. Moore is participating in the University Undergraduate Fel lows program. This will be the first time the theater arts section will be involved in the Fellows program. Sodders said the prog ram can be used by theater arts students with a high scholastic average as a type of thesis. The Contrast is a comedy sa tire on British manners. It will be shown at 7 p.m., April 26 through the 29 in Rudder Forum. In addition to these plays, there will be 12 one-act plays at mid-semester which will be di rected by students in the dire cting class, Sodders said. The plays will be chosen by the stu dents. For more information about auditions call theater arts at 845- 2621. Ticket for all shows can be picked up at the Texas A&M stu dent center box office. The tick ets are $3.50 per person, $2.50 for students. The one-acts stu dent directed plays are free. Times and dates will be announced later in the semester. by Tracey Taylor Battalion Staff The MSC Opera and Perform ing Arts Society will begin this semester's concert series with brass with a concert bv a five- piece group on Feb. 3 at 8 p.m. in Rudder Auditorium. The Canadian Brass, labeled the "Marx Brothers of Brass" by the New York Times, is an inter nationally renowned quintet which is best known for combin ing comedy with their stage per formance of traditional music. The group takes this approach because they say it's their re sponsibility to bring the audi ence to the music rather than the music to the audience. But, the group's talent ex tends beyond comedy. Their musical repertoire ranges from classical works of Bach, Handel, Purcell, Vivaldi, and Debussy to ragtime works by Jelly Roll Mor ton and Scott Joplin to Fats Wal ler hits. The Canadian Brass is Freder ic Mills and Ronald Romm, on trumpet, Graeme Page on French horn, Eugene Watts on trombone, and Charles Daellen- bach on tuba. Other OPAS events sche duled for this semester are: — The Broadway show "Evita" on Feb. 14 — Eugene Fodor on Feb. 18 — Pianist Murray Perahia on March 7 — The Pittsburgh Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas con ducting on April 13. For more information or for tickets for all OPAS events con tact the Rudder Auditorim Box Office at 845-1234. Town Hall looks for spring shows by Kelley Smith Battalion Staff Town Hall has scheduled fewer programs for this semester than last fall, but is still working on getting other programs and hopes to add up to three more concerts to its schedule to the three that are already planned "There are typically more (Town Hall) programs in the fall than in spring," said Suzanne Becker, advisor for Town Hall. Town Hall currently has scheduled the Harlem Globet rotters on Feb. 1, Evita on Feb. 14,15,16, and Larry Gatlin on March 3. Spring programs are diffi cult to plan because other acti vities are already scheduled on most of the weekends. When a dance or choir concert is already planned. Town Hall does not like to program against them, Becker said. This causes a problem be cause the artists prefer to per form on the weekends. Several programs made available to Town Hall have been turned down because there is another school activ ity or program already sche duled for the dates that the artists were available. Town Hall also tries to stay away from weeknight sche duling because this type of programming often interferes with students' test schedules. There may be some Thursday night concerts, however, be cause up until April there are only four weekend nights that do not have other events already scheduled, Becker said. Movies brings A&M action, adventures OPAS spring show brings brass quintet by Patrice Koranek Battalion Staff If you and your buddies want to see a good movie but are out of money there is a solution to the problem. The MSC Aggie Cinema has scheduled a wide variety of movies at a price suited to most pocketbooks. For only $1.50 you can see most of the movies on the cinema schedule including recent hits like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Fire fox, The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas and Bladerunner. In addition to showing recent box office hits, Aggie Cinema will also show classics such as Gone With the Wind, The Sound of Music, Doctor Zhiva go, Citizen Kane, The King and 1 and Bambi. But maybe you don't want to see good movies. In that case "bad movies" are offered too. On May 6, Aggie Cinema will sponsor Piranhacon, a series of the worst films ever made. According to the cinema sche dule, "total lack of taste" was a basic requirement in selecting the films for Piranhacon. The film winners for Piranhacon this year include She Gods of Shark Reef, Muscle Beach Party and Girls in Chains. Films of the science fiction genre will be shown by Cepheid Variable, the science fiction and fantasy committee of the MSC, when they present Aggiecon, a convention of sci-fi enthusiasts. Mar. 24 through 27. Aggiecon is the largest con vention of its kind in the South west and Cepheid Variable will present several speakers and films on science fiction and fan tasy during the four-day event. ft/lop keA. wAiili in 1H LL. (fold. . . 1U ki. (fellow (fold 'i&pe. luacelel Iff fit (fellow fold ■poli<ed liiocelel iamond Room 3731 E 29th - 846-4708 Bryan 707 Shopping Village 693-7444 College Station