WELCOMING THE NEXT GNENERATION

Transitions

URI Theatre | By Diana Savino

On September 10th, theater majors joined together for an annual Majors’ meeting to welcome the incoming freshman and transfer students into their program. The meeting allowed students to mingle over pizza and brownies while getting to know their fellow classmates. The theater department staff goes above and beyond to make sure each student feels comfortable and welcomed which really helped the students connect on a different level. By sitting in on this meeting, I was able to see how strong the bonds between these theater students are and I really got a better sense of their passion.

Stephen Peterson, senior BFA Acting and Directing major, 
meets new freshmanBrigitte Kenny, Design/tech and Management major

 After all of the students were offered pizza and sweets, the staff jumped right in and gave out prizes! First, they asked all freshmen to line up on stage and pick a name from the jar to determine who had won a prize. There were many different prizes raffled off to the students such as; a free Ronzio’s cheese pizza, $25 dollar gift certificate to iCopy, coupons for Orange Leaf, Smoothy Booty, Wakefield Books, Shear Madness, and many more. Once all the prizes were given away, the staff asked for volunteers to draw names from a special bucket, this one being for seniors only. The seniors had a chance to win tickets to plays all over Rhode Island.

Once all of the prizes were given away, Paula asked the rest of the audience to stand up and introduce themselves. Hearing everyone’s energy and observing how each student provided their own personal touch on something as simple as introducing themselves, solidified just how talented these students are. 

Student seniors participating on relay race game with freshman students

The energy continued on to the senior entertainment. They had come up with a relay race to bring everyone together one last time during this meeting. The students had to crab-walk across the stage, pick up a bat and run it back to their partner, who would then spin around the bat 5 times before the partner would do the same task. Then, the two partners would go back to back and place a balloon in between them,and shimmy to the other side of the stage. Everyone came alive, screaming and cheering for the contenders, really proving how effective the majors’ meetings are. All students seemed comfortable and excited to start off the year here at URI Theatre!