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The
History of the Sheil Catholic Center
The
First 50 Years
When the Sheil
Catholic Center celebrated its Golden Jubilee in 1989, a group
of talented and dedicated associates researched and wrote
a history of the first 50 years. We are reprinting that history
here.
Show Business
"Coffeehouses,"
a familiar form of campus dormitory entertainment in the '70s,
became a feature at Sheil, too, during that decade. The coffee
and refreshments cum talent show, mostly musical, were served
up about Saturday nights each month. Over time, they dwindled
in frequency to once a quarter and most recently to once a
year, but the guitars strum on.
There have been
more ambitious ventures into show business as well. In 1972
a student group of performers called "The Gathering"
presented Promenade and "I Do! I Do!" at Sheil Center.
In 1973 Mark McCue directed a production in the Galvin Chapel
of T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral and, in the following
year, of early 20th-Century Italian drama, Benelli's The Love
of Three Kings.
In 1981 Father
Fred Baumer led a group in the dramatic production of the
free-verse retellings of Gospel stories published by theologian
Father John Shea as part of his 1980 book, Stories of Faith.
In the group were recent Northwestern graduates Steve Lanza
and Stephanie Hogue, English professor Douglas Cole and dancer
Patricia Schuckert, who together worked out the script and
scenario; and Father John Krump, who selected and taped the
music. The result was an ensemble performance that three later
was repeated at Sheil and other places by students of Father
Baumer, who was then teaching at Chicago's Catholic Theological
Union.
In 1983 Sheil became
a center of "religious musicals" when School of
Speech student Alyse Stanko directed a production of Joseph
& the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Its success led her
to found "Dreamcoat Productions," a group that then
presented Godspell in 1984. The following year Jim Colofranson,
who sang as a freshman in Godspell, directed Two by Two.
The most recent
theatrical productions at Sheil were Mass Appeal and The Fantasticks
in 1986 and ( closing a circle starting back in 1972) a revival
of "I Do! I Do!" in 1987.
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