Current Productions

Announcing our 2024–2025 season!

Tickets 

Spring 2025

Studio Series
By guest artists Renée Archibald and Mallory Rubin, Jessica Bertram-Williams, and shannon stewart and Tahni Holt

January 30th - Febraury 01, 2025, Freimann Studio Theatre

The Harper Joy Theater’s annual Studio Series presents three works of contemporary performance from regional and nationally recognized artists. Each performance is followed by an informal post-performance discussion with the artists led by a scholar from across campus. Each event is  completely different and ticketed separately, and you are encouraged to see all three performances!

January 30, 8:00 pm
SHIFT
Renée Archibald and Mallory Rubin
Post-performance discussion moderated by Michelle Jenkins, Associate Professor of Philosophy

SHIFT is a new dance created and performed by Renée Archibald and Mallory Rubin with an original score by Jason Finkelman. The duet explores transformation, the discomfort and shock of discovery, how our needs can move us, and finding and losing each other through the process. Archibald and Rubin are interested in an in-between-ness– a sort of recognition of self as not stable and independent. When we are seen by each other, in this seeing, we become something different than before. When we are with each other, through time, we are changed. 

Renée Archibald grew up in Maryland and studied ballet with Joyce Morrison at Frederick School of Classical Ballet. After earning a BFA in contemporary dance at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, she moved to New York City where she danced independently with choreographers including Rebecca Lazier, Ann Liv Young, and Christopher Williams. From 2000-2010 her own choreographies were presented in New York at The Kitchen, Dance Theater Workshop (now NYLA), by Movement Research at the Judson Memorial Church, Danspace Project, Roulette, and The Chocolate Factory. After earning an MFA at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Renée joined the faculty at Whitman College. In addition to her choreographies made with students here at Whitman, her collaborative work with Melinda Ring, Shiny Angles in Angular Time, was presented in Portland by Flock and Performance Works NorthWest, and in New York at The Chocolate Factory, where it was a New York Times “pick.” Despite her life’s saturation in dance and performance, she continues to fall in love with learning about and through dance and performance over and over again. 

Mallory has loved to move since she was little, but spent her time making visual art, acting, weight lifting, horseback riding, in competitive crew, doing ceramics, and yoga, until she found dance her junior year of college–and fell in love with it. She created her own major, Embodiment Studies, to pursue her interests in movement and the body, combining knowledge from multiple disciplines such as somatics, biology, philosophy and psychology, recently graduating in 2024. Her thesis was called “Choreographing Relational Interiorities” consisting of a year-long inquiry exploring personal dynamics between dancers, culminating in an original evening-length performance of four duets. She is driven by her curiosity to understand how the movement between us forms unique relationships. Interested in pursuing a career in dance and choreography, she is currently exploring further education and other opportunities in her continual search of being able to move, speak, and share with others in a meaningful conversation about how we relate to each other in this world. 

January 31, 8:00 pm
held by the bath//until you return
Jessica Bertram Williams
Post-performance discussion moderated by Ralph Craig III, Assistant Professor of Religion

Jessica Bertram Williams (she/her) is a Southern-born movement artist whose work centers storytelling, play, and community. She holds degrees in Dance & Movement Studies and Anthropology & Human Biology from Emory University, along with an MFA in Dance from the University of Colorado Boulder. Jessica’s research and teaching are guided by Black feminist and womanist thought. Her movement practice is rooted in improvisation, classical modern dance, and African Diasporic traditions. Her choreographic work, influenced by Africanist aesthetics, fosters communal engagement, vitality, and ancestral connection. Jessica's work has been recognized and awarded within university and college Dance Departments, in addition to the American College Dance Association, the Ferst Center for the Performing Arts, the Dairy Arts Center, 7Stages Theatre, and The Atlanta Contemporary Museum. As an educator, community organizer, and mentor, she has worked across the Southeast and West Coast. Her artistic practice explores identity, spirituality, and creativity with a commitment to social transformation. Currently, Jessica is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Whitman College in Washington, where she continues to support the next generation of artists.

February 1, 8:00 pm
A field, A forest
shannon stewart and Tahni Holt
Post-performance discussion moderated by M Acuff, Professor of Art

For the past two years dance artists shannon stewart and Tahni Holt have woven their interests together creating a kinship in deeply researched embodied forms. It is a form of love and friendship that brings together creation and community, in a way that mirrors their individual practices as artists and organizers/builders in the respective places they live. Shannon and Tahni’s work resides in the study of interconnected systems–ecology, history, performative bodies (including non-human), and expansive understandings of communication. Together they have danced FOREST in Portland, OR, Lawrence, KS, New Orleans, LA. And now Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. 
www.shannonstewart.org // @thsurrealshannonstewart
www.tahniholt.com // @tahniholt

Doubt: A Parable by John Patrick Shanley
Directed by Professor Chris Petit

Harper Joy Theatre presents, Doubt: A Parable, an American Drama telling the story of a fictional Catholic school. Tension between the progressive parish priest and the rigidly conservative and distrustful principal nun leads to a power struggle and doubts about moral character all around. 

The Spitfire Grill by James Valq and Fred Alley
Based on the film by Lee David Zlotoff
Directed by Dr. Laura Hope
Music Direction by Jackie Wood
Vocal Direction by Julie Jones

Harper Joy Theatre is excited to present our return to musicals! The Spitfire Grill is a sweet story of forgiveness, acceptance, and finding your dream. Meet Percy Talbott as she returns to small town Wisconsin and works to find her place. The music is engaging and accessible. We can not wait to share this beautiful conclusion to our 2024-2025 season with you!