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Jennifer Pacenza

Jennifer Pacenza

A former scholar in Renaissance literature and drama, Jennifer Pacenza has had an enduring love for all types of theater and performance. After coming from Texas to Bloomington in 2009, she was inspired by the wealth of performance talent, organizations, and venues found here. She has been writing about theater for the Limestone Post since January of 2017. When not immersed in the world of theater and performance, Jennifer works in communications at Indiana University and enjoys reading comic books, painting miniatures, and playing fantasy RPGs with her husband and son.

Posts by this contributor 17 results

Behind the Curtain: The Ways the Stage Teaches

Just as theater teaches us about ourselves and about the world we live in, local youth theater programs help students (of all ages) learn literacy, creativity, self-determination, critical-thinking skills, and empathy, writes Jennifer Pacenza. In her latest column for Limestone Post, she looks at how theater does much more than just entertain. Click here to read the full story.

Behind the Curtain: IU’s ‘The Goat’ Built On Vulnerability and Trust

‘The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?’ is “a difficult play for both directors and actors,” writes LP’s performance columnist Jennifer Pacenza. But IU’s production of this Tony Award-winning play by Edward Albee is also “emotional but liberating,” one that will give audiences “a flurry of emotions — love, betrayal, disgust, pity, and delight.” Click here to read the full story.

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Behind the Curtain: New Film on ‘Life and Slimes’ of Gameshow Host Marc Summers

Marc Summers, host of the gameshow Double Dare, is back in town for the screening of the documentary On Your Marc at IU Cinema. Writer Jennifer Pacenza talked to Summers and BPP’s Chad Rabinovitz about “Summers’s deeply personal story” and the 2016 BPP play, Everything In Its Place, during which much of the documentary was filmed. Click here to read the full story.

Honoring the Body with Body-Positive Fitness

While many people use exercise regimens hoping to achieve impossibly thin, sculpted bodies promoted by “diet culture,” few people are physically or even genetically capable of achieving such results, says writer Jennifer Pacenza. Experts she talks to say a body-positive fitness model is more important for achieving physical and mental well-being. Click here to read the full story.

Behind the Curtain: Jewish Theatre of Bloomington’s ‘Church & State’

Politics, like theater, relies on the relationship between the stage and the audience, writes LP columnist Jennifer Pacenza in her Behind the Curtain preview of Church & State. The latest production of Jewish Theatre of Bloomington puts this relationship center stage in a “funny and heartrending play with a powerful message about God, guns, and politics.” Click here to read the full story.

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Behind the Curtain: ‘Nice Nails,’ A Play That Cuts to the Quick

Social issues are rarely black and white, as revealed in Nice Nails, a play by Aaron Ricciardi, presented by IU’s theatre department. LP columnist Jennifer Pacenza looks Behind the Curtain at the circumstances in which a Korean family, a South African immigrant, and a trans man are entangled in labor-law violations in Long Island nail salons. Click here to read the full story.

Behind the Curtain: Maya and Hoosiers Share Culture Through Opera

Mary Grogan, creator and director of ÓperaMaya, is introducing Bloomington to the Maya culture — and introducing opera to the Maya in Mexico. ÓperaMaya tours, festival-like, all over the Yucatan Peninsula, where few have experienced the art form. Writer Jennifer Pacenza talks to Grogan about what this means for Bloomington and the Maya. Click here to read the full story.

A New Year’s Resolution: Living Body Positive

“Body positivity” is a philosophy, a movement, and, perhaps most of all, a commitment to how one looks at their body. Looking ahead to 2018, writer Jennifer Pacenza considered past resolutions, which ultimately made her feel worse about herself. But with the help of others in Bloomington, she has resolved to be more body positive. Click here to read the full story.

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Behind the Curtain: Friends Play Female ‘Odd Couple’ in New MCCT Production

Longtime friends Sarah Mae Ruggles and Emily Bedwell have acted in the Monroe County Civic Theater for years, and now they play opposites in Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple (Female Version). Jen Pacenza looks Behind the Curtain at Olive and Florence in this hilarious performance playing at The Waldron this weekend. Click here to read the full story.

Behind the Curtain: Va-Va-Va-Vaudeville

It’s a juggernaut! It’s a celebration of Bloomington’s amazing talent! It’s an extravagant array of performers — jugglers, dancers, comedians, aerial acrobats, burlesque performers, musicians, and even clever canines! It’s Va-Va-Va-Vaudeville! Jennifer Pacenza takes you Behind the Curtain of this variety show playing this weekend at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. Click here to read the full story.

Behind the Curtain: ‘As Bad As They’ [a play]

Bella Bravo’s play As Bad As They explores the darkness of opioid addiction and the impulse of nonaddicts, especially loved ones, to exert a new form of control over the addict. And it’s a comedy. In her column, Behind the Curtain, Jennifer Pacenza calls this timely play “local theater as a form of activism.” Click here to read the full story.

Behind the Curtain: The Joy of Summer Theater

Attending summer theater allows us to truly enjoy the moment, says Jennifer Pacenza in her Limestone Post column, Behind the Curtain. And local theater lovers have many shows to choose from in the next few months. In this preview of the IU Summer Theatre season, Jennifer says the lineup promises some “lasting summer memories.” Click here to read the full story.