2008 Studio - VCUarts - Virginia Commonwealth University

In Spring of ‘08, Mark Ramont, associate producer of Ford’s Theatre, joined
Theatre VCU as a visiting artist to direct Cabaret, a Broadway musical hit set in
1929 Berlin.
Ramont has won awards for his productions of Jeffrey, Amadeus, Goodnight
Desdemona (Good Morning, Juliet), Lips Together, Teeth Apart, Mass Appeal and
Agnes of God, and has directed for numerous theatre companies.
Cabaret is set in Germany in a time when the Nazis are rising to power, the
economy is destroyed, and millions of unemployed people roam the streets. Enter
into this chaos an American cabaret dancer, working at the downtown Kit-Kat Klub
where anything goes on the stage. The story revolves around this dancer and a
young American writer, while the sub-plot involves the doomed romance between
a Jewish fruit vendor and a German boarding house owner. The club emcee is a
continual metaphor for the current state of society in Germany at that time.
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Jacob Dodd, adjunct faculty member and coordinator of technology for the
Department of Photography and Film, has received much acclaim for his film
Nunna Mia e la Barca (My Grandmother and the Boat). The film delves into
his Italian grandmother's daily life and her Italian heritage. It connects his
grandmother's present domestic routine with her past experience of enduring
the sinking of the boat, the Andrea Doria.
In Fall 2008, the award winning French feature film writer/director Claude
Miller, the director of “Un Secret” (2007), “La Classe de Neige” (1998), and
“The Accompanist” (1992), will be the Distinguished Director in Residence at
VCUarts Cinema. He won the Cesar for screenwriting in 1981 for “Garde a vue”
and is one of the major producer/directors in France.
Professor Miller is also the President of La Femis film school in Paris. Early in
his career, he worked with Robert Bresson, Jean-Luc Godard and on over 11
feature films with Francois Truffaut.
Nunna Mia e la Barca took first place at the James River Film Festival, was an
award nominee at the Rosebud Film and Video Festival and has been screened
in numerous other national festivals.
Dodd is currently working on a short 35mm narrative film titled “Darkness
There,” inspired by the life and tales of Edgar Allan Poe. The film was shot in
June at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum and the Maymont Italian and Japanese
Gardens in Richmond. “Darkness There” explores Poe’s dark romanticism
through the fictional blending of his stories with authentic historical artifacts.