Theatre design and technology alumna Ally Reichard and senior theatre design and technology major Taylor Falzarano prepare for a performance at last year’s UCF Celebrates the Arts at the Dr. Phillips Center. UCF Celebrates the Arts is a cultural festival that features various artistic performances and exhibitions.
Courtesy of School of Performing Arts
UCF Celebrates the Arts, a vibrant and immersive cultural festival, takes over the Dr. Phillips Center through April 12, showcasing the exemplary work of UCF students and faculty.
Offering many free events in a centralized location, this annual festival offers an accessible way for not only UCF students but also the greater Orlando area to experience art across various media.
Highlights of this two-week-long festival include orchestral, jazz, dance and choral performances, art and architecture exhibits and this year’s musical: “Legally Blonde.”
UCF Celebrates the Arts hosts events with a focus on diversity and accessibility, like “Exceptional Knights,” a sensory-friendly orchestra for all to enjoy, and “What, Like It’s Hard?,” a presentation about women in production navigating the world of show business.
Addy Wood, senior theater stage management major, said she feels grateful to be a part of a program that offers free events because it is a great opportunity to share art with the world.
She said it also allows those participating and performing to advertise themselves to the arts job market.
“It’s a great way to represent ourselves, but it’s also a great way to represent UCF, and how much we care about the arts and we care about sharing the talents of our students and everything,” Wood said.
Wood said that this year’s festivities will feature more STEM-based exhibitions, such as Music and the Brain, an immersive event featuring live music by the Pegasus String Quartet and presentations from leading scientists examining how live music interacts with the mind.
These STEM exhibitions will be featured just rooms away from events like the Flying Horse Big Band concert, where the band will play UCF jazz director and band leader Jeff Rupert’s multi-movement piece titled “An Artist’s Frame for Orlando.”
“So it’s like arts and science coming together to sort of show the Orlando area what UCF can do,” Wood said.
Wood, in her fourth year of participating in UCF Celebrates the Arts, is stage managing this year and said one of her favorite parts about working on the festival is learning things she wouldn’t otherwise learn in a school setting, like working with a union and doing everything completely hands-on.
Wood said that the festival not only offers these opportunities to UCF students and faculty but also extends them to the broader community through events like choral and orchestral invitationals, which offer high school students the opportunity to participate and perform in concerts alongside UCF students with VIP concert access.
“It’s one of those ways that we connect with the community and also utilize the opportunity that we have to be at the Dr. Phillips Center, and sort of extend that into other artistic communities to make sure that they have the opportunity to be in the Steinmetz, which is an amazing space,” Wood said.
Gil Bloom, senior theater design and technology major, said that a highlight of the festival for him is the opportunity to work in the Dr. Phillips Center’s Steinmetz Hall. He said it’s an incredibly advanced theater with a unique, transformative design.
“Every single aisle is motorized and can flip,” Bloom said. “The top half is seats and below is dance floor, and so every single aisle in the Steinmetz space can be lifted, flipped and then put down to whatever height you want, so they can take every seat, flip them over, and then raise the level so that they’re flush with the stage, and then you have a giant dance hall.”
Bloom is this year’s projections programmer for “Legally Blonde” and said that, typically, the musical dominates the festival. Many students take part in bringing production to life: the sets are student-built for a student cast managed by student stage managers.
Bloom said that last year’s UCF Celebrates the Arts musical, “Fiddler on the Roof,” had over 200 students working on it and that this year’s team size should total around the same.
“We also have a wardrobe crew, and the run crew, and our board operators and our A2’s on stage — it just takes so many people to put on a production that size,” Bloom said.
Elliott Bertrand, senior theater major on the stage management track, has been participating in UCF Celebrates the Arts since his freshman year. Bertrand is a company manager this year, handling the hospitality side of the event.
Bertrand said that while many universities host their own art festivals, they typically take place on their respective campuses or in smaller venues, making the location of UCF Celebrates the Arts extremely unique.
“I see professional shows at the Dr. Phillips Center all the time,” Bertrand said. “I see touring shows of people who are doing the jobs that I want to be doing someday, and then I get to go and work in that same venue a little later with a lot of the same people who are making that happen.”
Creative Clash, a UCF Celebrates the Arts activity, will feature talented artists competing head-to-head on April 4 at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in a timed, large-scale drawing competition.
Courtesy of School of Performing Arts
Bertrand said he likes to think of this festival as an opportunity not only for students in his major, but also across various majors and disciplines to work at a higher professional level alongside both their classmates and Dr. Phillips staff. He said that roughly 1,800 students and faculty will participate in some way this year.
“We’re working with staff for the Dr. Phillips Center who work there full time, and also professional crew members at the Union theater venues, IATSE members,” Bertrand said. “It gives us the opportunity to learn on the job and learn from seasoned professionals while still being in somewhat of an educational environment and being able to experiment and try things and fail in a comfortable environment.”
Bertrand said that UCF Celebrates the Arts provides students with the unique opportunity to see the work and talent of their classmates’ buildings across campus that they might otherwise overlook.
“The music building is right next door to the theater performing arts center,” Bertrand said. “I don’t really go over there often, but I know that there’s a ton of amazing things happening in there every day that I’m going to get the opportunity to see in the next two weeks.”