BLUR theater students improvise during the 2012 camp.

Sweet Briar College’s third annual Blue Ridge Summer Institute for Young Artists, known as BLUR, will be held June 16 through July 7 on its campus. This year, the camp has added music and technical theater to its repertoire of theater, creative writing and visual arts.

BLUR founder and director David Griffith, who teaches creative writing at Sweet Briar, is expecting the largest and most geographically diverse group yet — between 35 and 40 students from 16 states.

“We have students coming from every corner of the country,” he said. “That’s our goal at BLUR: bring as many distinct voices and visions to the artistic conversation as possible so that our sense of what is possible is enlarged.”

Launched in 2011, BLUR is a collaborative, three-week residential camp for high school students interested in the arts. It’s built on the founding principle of blurring the boundaries between art forms to imagine new ways of seeing, thinking and creating. While participants concentrate in one area, spending two-thirds of their day deeply immersed in their disciplines, the rest of the time they work collaboratively on projects in other mediums.

BLUR partners with Sweet Briar’s theater troupe-in-residence, Endstation Theatre Company, and the adjacent Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA). In addition to having the opportunity to learn from the crew and cast, BLUR students will attend performances of all three plays in Endstation’s Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival, including Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” and “Cymbeline” and the musical “Violet.” They will also visit the VCCA to meet with artists from around the world.

More information about this year’s camp is here and at sbc.edu/blur. You can follow BLUR on Facebook at BLURatSBC, Twitter at blur_institute and on Tumblr at bluratsbc.

— Janika Carey

Endstation’s 2012 Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival included Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors.”

Endstation Theatre Company has expanded its Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival beyond the campus of Sweet Briar College for the 2013 season. Two of three plays — Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” and “Cymbeline” — will also be performed at historic locations and theaters in downtown Lynchburg.

According to Endstation’s artistic director Geoffrey Kershner, it’s a “season of travel,” and that applies to the musical “Violet,” as well. The musical, he says, “tells the story of a young woman who travels across the country on a journey of self-discovery.”

The festival will open with “The Taming of the Shrew,” directed by Kershner, on Friday, May 31, with a special 10-performance engagement at the Renaissance Theatre in downtown Lynchburg until June 9. The downtown leg of the production is made possible with the support of the city of Lynchburg and a James River Arts and Culture District Project Grant. Audiences will enjoy a special pre- and post-show 15-percent discount to the locally owned restaurants Dish and Bull Branch.

The second leg of “The Taming of the Shrew” will be performed outdoors on the grounds of Sweet Briar College from June 15 to July 7. During the Sweet Briar performances, audiences are encouraged to bring blankets and picnic at dusk while enjoying wine and beer made available by local vineyards and breweries.

While Endstation has taken its troupe off campus only once before, transplanting Shakespeare into a (more) modern context is a recurring theme. Last year, Macbeth found himself in the midst of the Civil War; this year, the company’s take on “The Taming of the Shrew” is inspired by the historic vaudeville theaters that existed in downtown Lynchburg at the turn of the century. In “Cymbeline,” the second play of the summer, a troupe of Depression-era actors bring Shakespeare’s fairytale world to life with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and “Violet: the Musical” is set against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement.

Directed by Walter Kmiec, “Cymbeline” will be performed on the grounds of Sweet Briar College from June 14 to July 14, followed by a Central Virginia historical tour July 19 to 21 — at Old City Cemetery on July 19, Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest on July 20, and concluding with a special family event at Presbyterian Homes and Family Services on July 21. The family night will include study guides for children and ice cream for the whole family.

Last year’s production of “Macbeth” was staged in the dell below Guion Science Center.

The only ‘stationary’ play of the festival, “Violet” will be performed at Sweet Briar’s Babcock Fine Arts Center June 28 to July 14. Directed by Chad Larabee, it features lyrics by Brian Crawley, music by Jeannine Tesori and is based on the book “The Ugliest Pilgrim” by Doris Betts. “Violet” follows the emotional transformation of a young woman scarred by her father in an accident. She sets off on a bus journey from her small North Carolina town in the Blue Ridge Mountains to Oklahoma, in hopes that a televangelist can heal her scar.

“[Violet] explores faith, racism, self-worth and acceptance of that which we can never change,” Larabee says.

The musical was one of the most acclaimed off-Broadway shows in the 1990s, astounding critics and audiences with its inventive score of gospel, rock, country and rhythm and blues.

General admission tickets for each performance are $15 for adults and $7 for students. Premium tickets are $22 for adults and $15 for students. An all-access, premium-seating pass for unlimited performances is available for $90 per person. For more information and a complete schedule, and to purchase tickets, please visit endstationtheatre.org or call (434) 826-0391.

— Janika Carey

A non-competitive ‘fun run,’ this race is the culmination of the region’s Girls on the Run spring program. Central Virginian girls ages 8 to 13 have been training for 10 to 12 weeks in preparation for this event, which recognizes and celebrates their efforts.

Saturday’s event will also include runners from the spring 2006 team, said Central Virginia council director, Mary Hansen. The girls, who are now graduating high school or entering their senior year, will assist with the opening ceremony, and eight of them will participate in the race.

“We thought it would be fun to introduce them to the younger girls,” Hansen said.

Among them are Girls on the Run junior coaches Meghann Hansen, for the R.S. Payne Elementary School team, and Jessica Winters, who is in charge of Madison Heights.

The Lynchburg-based Girls on the Run council has already held three races at Sweet Briar since the two women’s organizations announced a partnership in August 2011 — one in the fall of 2011, one last spring and a third race this past fall. As in November, the picturesque route will take runners from the old train station through campus and along the Dairy Loop, winding its way past the riding center and through the woods.

Sweet Briar is a proud supporter of Girls on the Run’s mission, which is “to inspire girls to be joyful, healthy and confident” and to “educate and prepare girls for a lifetime of self-respect and healthy living.” Girls on the Run also provides opportunities for Sweet Briar students to volunteer, mentor the younger girls and share some of the benefits they’ve experienced in an all-women’s educational environment.

Dozens of volunteers, including Sweet Briar students and employees, will help with course setup, work pre-race activities such as the happy hair table, or serve as running buddies for the 280 registered girls as they tackle the challenging 5K course.

For more information, visit girlsontherunva.org or call (434) 607-2024.

Sarah O’Brien ’13 catalogs old farm tools from the plantation and dairy.

Sweet Briar College’s agrarian past is the focus of the upcoming exhibition “ ‘I have lately bought me a Plantation’: A Brief Survey of Farming and Land Use at Sweet Briar,” which opens at 1 p.m. Thursday, March 21, in Whitley Gallery at Sweet Briar Museum. It will be on view through March 2014.

The result of a practicum project undertaken by senior Sarah O’Brien, the exhibition provides a brief overview of Sweet Briar’s farming history, from the days of the Fletchers, who founded the College, to the later 20th century, when the dairy was still in operation. O’Brien, a history major, says her interest in the subject was not just academic.

A milk bottle from the old dairy farm at Sweet Briar.

“I was born and raised on a farm, so I wanted to know the history of farming at Sweet Briar before it became a college,” she said, adding that it was her intention to create a narrative through which visitors can access the College’s past. The hardest part, she said, was deciding which items to include.

The final selection features an eclectic mix of artifacts, such as early 19th-century letters in which Elijah Fletcher wrote to his brother about farming; ceramic drainage tiles from the old tilled fields (courtesy of the archaeology lab); old farm tools; documents and photos related to the College’s early days farming for profit; and milk bottles, milk cans and signage from the era of the dairy.

Museum hours during the academic year are 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. For more information, contact Karol Lawson at klawson@sbc.edu or (434) 381-6248.

Madeleine Coleman ’16 (right) inputs settings on the GigaPan, a robotic device that takes multiple exposures with a mounted camera in order to stitch together high-resolution panoramic photos. Janet Stevens’ biology class used the device to observe changing fall foliage. The course is “Economic Botany,” a Y:1 Program seminar that examines biological properties that make plants valuable to humans. Students also use iPads and photographic technology to study plant communities on campus.

— Photo by Meridith De Avila Khan

Current research suggests that the cabin was built during the antebellum period to house enslaved laborers, who lived in dozens of similar dwellings on the Sweet Briar Plantation. This cabin, located behind Sweet Briar House, is the only one that survives.

Sweet Briar’s 19th-century cabin in 1927

Indiana Fletcher Williams’ overseer, Logan Anderson, likely lived in it during the 1880s. When the College was founded in 1901, Sterling Jones Sr. and his family resided in the cabin until the mid-1920s. Following that period, the cabin was used to house the alumnae office, a theater classroom, a coffee shop, a chapel and a farm tool equipment museum. It has been in continuous use for about 170 years.

In 2012, the College was awarded a Virginia Foundation for the Humanities grant to re-interpret the complex history of this building and to create an exhibition that highlights the history of African Americans at Sweet Briar. For now, the historic structure is open to the public on the following days:

November:
Friday, Nov. 9: 1-5 p.m.
Tuesday, Nov. 13: 10:30 a.m.-1:15 p.m.
Thursday, Nov. 15: 10 a.m.-noon
Tuesday, Nov. 27: 10:30 a.m.-1:15 p.m.
Thursday, Nov. 29: 10 a.m.-noon
Friday, Nov. 30: 1-5 p.m.

December:
Tuesday, Dec. 4: 10:30 a.m.-1:15 p.m.
Friday, Dec. 7: 1-5 p.m.

Hours are weather-dependent. In case of freezing conditions, please check the cabin tours website at tusculum.sbc.edu/africanamericans.

For more information about the cabin’s history, contact Lynn Rainville, director of the Tusculum Institute, at (434) 381-6432 or lrainville@sbc.edu, or visit the institute’s website at tusculum.sbc.edu.

A non-competitive ‘fun run,’ this race is the culmination of the region’s Girls on the Run fall program. Central Virginian girls ages 8 to 13 have been training for 10 to 12 weeks in preparation for this event, which recognizes and celebrates their efforts. Anyone wishing to run along must register online. Registration is $25 until Nov. 14. Beginning Nov. 15, the registration fee will be $35. Pets or strollers are not permitted. For more information, visit girlsontherunva.org or call (434) 607-2024.

The Lynchburg-based Girls on the Run council has already held two races at Sweet Briar since the two women’s organizations announced a partnership in August 2011 — one in the fall of 2011 and one this past spring. As in May, the picturesque route will take runners from the old train station through campus and along the Dairy Loop, winding its way past the riding center and through the woods.

Sweet Briar is a proud supporter of Girls on the Run’s mission, which is “to inspire girls to be joyful, healthy and confident” and to “educate and prepare girls for a lifetime of self-respect and healthy living.” Girls on the Run also provides opportunities for Sweet Briar students to volunteer, mentor the younger girls and share some of the benefits they’ve experienced in an all-women’s educational environment.

Dozens of volunteers, including Sweet Briar students and employees, will help with course setup, work pre-race activities such as the happy hair table, or serve as running buddies for more than 515 registered girls as they tackle the challenging 5K course.

McGill’s overnight accommodations during the visit will be a sleeping bag on the wooden floor of the 19th-century cabin behind Sweet Briar House. The cabin is the former home of both enslaved and freed blacks who worked at Sweet Briar during its days as a plantation and as the College was being established — and it is the object of McGill’s visit.

Sunday’s event also will include guided tours of the slave cabin and of Sweet Briar House, presented from the perspective of African-Americans who would have worked there.

In 2010 McGill began traveling to antebellum plantations, spending the night in former slave dwellings to bring attention to the importance of preserving and interpreting the historical structures. As a field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, he was struck by how few outbuildings and dependencies survive relative to the many antebellum mansions that have been preserved as part of our heritage.

“The reason for the scant existence of these dwellings is debatable,” McGill says. “My solution to the problem is the Slave Dwelling Project.”

In the past two and a half years, he’s slept in dozens of slave quarters, rural and urban, from Connecticut to Texas. In doing so he also calls attention to the efforts of those who are actively working to preserve the sites that do still exist.

Although he began the project sleeping solo, McGill usually has company during his overnight stays and expects that will continue to be the case.

“I want others to share the experience, therefore becoming vested supporters for extant slave dwellings,” he says.

Sweet Briar will be his second stop in Virginia — his first trip to the state and his first stay on a college campus for the project. He will be at Bacon’s Castle in Surry on Oct. 5-6. While on campus, he will discuss with audiences why he carries on with the project and its future, along with a look back at some of the 37 sites he has visited.

The Sweet Briar cabin is the only one remaining of 28 that once stood on the property. Before College founder Indiana Fletcher Williams’ death in 1900, her overseer Logan Anderson occupied the cabin. Campus brick maker Sterling Jones lived there with several of his children during the College’s earliest years. By 1930, updated with running water and electricity, it served as the Sweet Briar Alumnae Association’s first home.

The building has since been used as a classroom, student clubhouse and “farm tool” museum. It is mostly empty now, as work to re-interpret the site gets under way to reflect its history as an African-American dwelling and its role in the development of the College. A grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities is supporting the research.

The Slave Dwelling Project’s visit to Sweet Briar is sponsored by the Tusculum Institute. Additional information is available here. McGill also blogs at lowcountryafricana.com.

Although space is limited, members of the community who wish to share the experience of staying in the cabin may contact Tusculum Institute director Lynn Rainville at (434) 381-6432 or lrainville@sbc.edu for more information.

—  Jennifer McManamay

The $8.8 million dollar project — the money for which is already in hand, thanks to generous donors who designated contributions to support it — also includes renovations to the original library. Anyone familiar with the plans inevitably hastens to explain that “renovations” refers to essential upgrades such as air conditioning, improved ventilation and better lighting. The library is one of the campus’ most important buildings, both in purpose and in architecture.

“Nothing will be torn off of the original Cram structure,” says librarian Lisa Johnston, having personally calmed the fears of many a Cochran devotee.

To the contrary,  some of its grand elements will be restored, including the ability to look through the sweeping round-top windows along the original rear wall. The new atrium design will open the view now blocked by the Dana Wing, and reveal the brick exterior wall that was covered up by the 1960s addition.

The elegant, south-facing gallery adjacent to the Powell Reading Room also will be restored. It will again display art, as it was intended to, as well as provide a pleasant workspace.

The College is working closely with VMDO Architects and the builder, C.L. Lewis, to ensure the project will qualify for federal tax credits for historic preservation. Environmental sustainability also is a priority, influencing decisions about materials, design and construction to make it a “green” as possible, says Scott Shank, Sweet Briar’s vice president for finance and administration.

Ralph Adams Cram, the College’s chief architect during its formative years, dedicated Cochran Library on Founder’s Day in October 1929. It was a time with parallels to today. Then, as now, some desired features of the building were scaled back because of cost constraints, according to former art history professor Aileen Laing (Sweet Briar College and Ralph Adams Cram: Dreams and Reality, 2001).

But the College and Cram were lucky, too. Cochran was nearly complete when the stock market crashed on Oct. 29 of that year. This time around, Sweet Briar was forced to overcome difficulties presented by the recession that began in late 2007.

Laing also notes that Cochran was the last and most architecturally rich building that Cram was directly involved in at Sweet Briar. Nevertheless, proper library spaces of 50 or 80 years ago haven’t always stood the test of time, says Sweet Briar libraries director John Jaffe.

This is particularly true in the application of digital technology. That’s why the 1960s “book storage facility” will become sun-washed “people spaces,” where students can study alone or work collaboratively, always within reach of an electrical outlet and an Internet connection.

“This project will create a library for this generation,” says Jo Ellen Parker, president of the College. “It will enable students and faculty members to work together in new and digitally sophisticated ways. The best academic libraries today provide points of connection between scholars, both locally and globally.”

The new construction won’t add significant square footage. But with so much of the library’s overall holdings in digital form and the addition of compact shelving to house the core collection, less space is required for physical materials.

That makes room for an improved and expanded special collections display, an additional high-tech classroom, and a self-service vending café so students won’t have to leave the building for a snack or a great cup of coffee.

The librarians also look forward to the College’s Academic Resource Center relocating to the library, where they can work hand-in-hand with ARC staff to better support students’ needs. But what really makes them beam is the addition of elevators to every floor of the building. It’s “huge,” says Liz Kent, noting they will no longer have to move classes for students who can’t negotiate the stairs.

Work is expected to continue into the summer of 2014. The west wing, portions of which extend into the Fletcher Hall parking lot, should open by May or June 2013.

Shank says it will be some time before any steel goes up, however. “You’ll see dirt being moved, but you won’t see a lot of visible construction going on for a couple of months.”

Two years from now, patrons will see a clear and intentional visual distinction between the past and present. Johnston loves what she sees on paper.

“I think the cool thing about the design is the way the new addition features the historical structure and builds a bridge between the two very different styles of architecture,” she says.

It also preserves the library’s longstanding place as the “vibrant center of intellectual life on campus,” President Parker says. “This renovation and expansion will create a space that reflects the vitality, tradition and beauty of our academic community.”

— Jennifer McManamay

Quamia Dennis works on the lyrics for a song during her morning writing lab.

It’s a Thursday morning in July, and the second session of UVa’s Young Writers Workshop is in full swing.

In a tiny classroom a handful of songwriting students have picked up their guitars, their fingers searching for notes that might inspire words. Handwritten signs taped to the wall with bright pink duct tape read “Contribute,” “Take risks” and “Revisions.”

In the kitchen lounge just outside the classroom, another student is listening to hip-hop beats on his computer, his head nodding as he scribbles down lyrics.

For 30 years, high school kids from across the country and abroad have been gathering during the summer to immerse themselves in their art. There are workshops in fiction, poetry, non-fiction, script- and songwriting. Some students have been coming for years; others became counselors and now teach some of the writing labs. The second session, which lasts three weeks, typically draws 50 percent of its applicants from workshop alumnae, according to assistant director Jeff Martin.

One thing is different in 2012: It’s the first time the workshop is taking place on the campus of Sweet Briar College, and not at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

“It’s been wonderful,” says Margo Figgins, founder and director of the program, which admits between 150 and 200 students each year.

After last year’s hiatus due to renovations at UVa, she’s glad to have found a new home for her young writers — at least for the moment. It’s too early to say whether Sweet Briar will become a permanent residence, but so far the campus seems like a natural fit for the program.

“The location here is much nicer,” says scriptwriting student Natcher Pruett, a 17-year-old from Minneapolis. It’s his second time participating in the workshop.

Students Libby Brennan (from left), Katherine Thompson, Helena Chung and Sarah Yung don’t mind writing in the company of other poets.

“It’s nice to wake up in the morning and see the mountains when you look out of the window.”

Chicago native Leah Barber, 16, agrees. “I really like Sweet Briar College as a location because it brings character to the program.”

Despite her urban background, the quietude of the campus doesn’t bother her. On the contrary, she says, it’s nice not having distractions.

“You can really focus on your writing,” she says. In her case, that’s poetry.

Some students call the landscape “inspiring” — a vibe Martin feels, too.

“One of the biggest differences I’ve noticed in shifting from Charlottesville to Sweet Briar is that, odd as this may sound, the land seems to have a calming effect on both the students and the parents,” says Martin, who’s been with the program since 2001.

“In Charlottesville there was construction around us every summer for more than a decade, and we were right on a major road, so it was a very busy space — both literally and to the eye — and never really quiet. Here, though, I’ve noticed from as early as registration — when the parents and their children first drive onto campus — that the land gets their attention: they talk not just about how pretty it is, but also about how quiet it is, and how peaceful.”

The campus environment emerged as a theme so often that it prompted Figgins to speculate on its impact.

“It’ll be interesting to see what role the landscape plays and how it enhances their experience,” she says.

Director Margo Figgins is also an associate professor at UVa’s Curry School of Education.

But there’s something else that students are benefitting from just as much as the landscape.

“The other major difference that helps immerse the students in the Young Writers experience is that here at Sweet Briar they’re surrounded by other arts programs, which wasn’t the case in Charlottesville,” Martin says.

“Between BLUR [Sweet Briar’s interdisciplinary arts camp] and [the College’s theater company-in-residence] Endstation, we’ve had opportunities for collaborations that we’ve never had before, and the effect of that is pretty powerful — after a while students simply accept that they’re surrounded by all kinds of different artists, and when art becomes the comfortable norm, the creation and sharing of it becomes much easier to do.”

Scriptwriting students assisted Endstation playwrights with some of their new scripts, and all workshop participants attended at least one Blue Ridge Summer Theatre Festival performance.

The Young Writers Workshop also collaborates with the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, which is located just across U.S. 29. VCCA fellows come to campus to read from their works and to teach electives — classes that fall outside of the students’ disciplines, but are always tied to writing. They’ve explored “Queer Theory in Beatles Songs,” invented a sock puppet world based on a YouTube video of an old MTV show, and delved into the art of a concept album, which involved listening to “Ziggy Stardust.”

“The VCCA is such an amazing resource,” says poetry student Zoe Jeka, 17, from Maryland.

Pruett, Barber and Jeka’s eyes light up when they talk about their classes. One of their favorite experiences was the 24-hour play, a workshop tradition in which students write and rehearse an original play in just one day. Barber and Jeka also loved finding random science books in the library to use as inspiration for their poetry.

During the academic year, assistant director Jeff Martin teaches composition, literature and fiction writing courses at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro.

On weekends, counselors organize field trips to local orchards and farmers’ markets; during writing labs, students occasionally visit coffee shops and antique stores in Lynchburg. Sometimes, activities are meant to inspire, other times they’re just for fun. But in the end, the one thing everyone wants to do — all the time — is write.

It’s not uncommon for program participants to spend lunch breaks talking entirely about what they’ve been working on, Barber says. Most of the time, she adds, students can’t wait to get back to work. “We’re always writing.”

With just days before this year’s workshop ends, all three students say time has gone by way too fast. They’re not ready to part from newly found friends and return to their high schools, where writing is just one of many subjects.

“I wish it was all summer,” Barber says with a sigh.

Martin knows from experience that there will be “lots of tears” come closing day. “Which is a little sad to watch, but it also means we did our job,” he adds.

— Janika Carey