Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Monday, March 25, 2013
Counting down to Art Attack XXX
 |
| Kiera Zittelman Concerts Director seeconcerts@umd.edu |
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
It’s Eric Time!
|
| Kiera Zitelman Concerts Director seeconcerts@umd.edu |
I first heard Eric Hutchinson when I was in high school at Montgomery Blair in nearby Silver Spring, MD. (Fun fact: Eric is also a Blair graduate and a Takoma Park native.) His self-released album, Sounds Like This, came out in 2007. I had heard about him through friends who were proud to see a fellow Marylander release his own fun, catchy pop/rock album. Soon after that, gossip blogger Perez Hilton got a hold of Eric and felt the same way. A few mentions from Perez helped send Sounds Like This to #5 on the iTunes Store and #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. Perez wasn't the only Eric convert – Warner Bros. Records picked up Sounds Like This for a major label release in May 2008.
Since then, Eric has been selling out venues in the DC area (including a few visits to the 9:30 Club) and around the country. He has also been working on covers and new original songs. He has toured with G. Love & Special Sauce, OneRepublic, O.A.R., Guster, and the Lumineers and been compared to Jason Mraz, Stevie Wonder, and the Beatles. Last April, he released Moving Up Living Down and went on an acoustic album tour in the fall. This Thursday, he’ll hit Ritchie with a full band and a special opening acoustic set from DC reggae-rockers Dale and the ZDubs. We hope to SEE you there!
P.S.
You can check out some of Eric's videos here:
Rock and Roll: http://bit.ly/XWyaQY
The Basement: http://bit.ly/WiwvZD
Watching You Watch Him: http://bit.ly/WEID6q
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Behind the Scenes
 |
| Bryan Friia Cinema Director seecinema@umd.edu |
My name is Bryan Friia, and my position in SEE is the Cinema Director. In this role, I am responsible for coming up with ideas for movies to screen on campus. The majority of the time, these events take the form of Free Monthly Movies that are normally films that have just finished up in theaters or are just coming out for home release. Due to the popularity of these titles, we try and always screen them on multiple days so that we can accommodate everyone’s busy schedules.
In addition to these regular movie screenings, we also try and provide other events throughout the semester. In the past we have helped coordinate outdoor movies on the mall, advanced screenings of films before they are in theaters, and marathons of popular movie sagas. We have shown popular titles like Flight and Pitch Perfect before they were in theaters, and we have also had Harry Potter and Batman movie marathons following the conclusion of each series. This semester we are starting things off with an Oscar Series. This will consist of three films that are in the running for Academy Awards. The movies will be screened each week leading up to the awards ceremony. The idea is to give students the opportunity to see movies that they may have missed or would like to see again free of charge in Hoff Theater.
We had initially planned on showing Argo, The Master, and Lincoln for this event. As you may have seen, however, Lincoln has been replaced by Moonrise Kingdom. Due to the fact that we book these movies before they are available on DVD, we are still dependent on the requests of the movie’s production company. In this case, Lincoln is being held in theaters longer than it was initially planned. Therefore, it will not be available for us to screen as previously scheduled. We will no be showing Argo on Feb. 6th, The Master on Feb. 13th, and Moonrise Kingdom on Feb. 20th. All movies will be shown at 7pm in the Hoff Theater.
We are still very excited about this event and all of our SEE events that are coming up in the spring semester. If you are interested in staying in the loop on all of our events please check out our website at http://www.see.umd.edu/. Additionally, if you have any cinema related questions, feel free to email me at seecinema@umd.edu.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Where's Fall Concert?
 |
| Kiera Zitelman Concerts Director seeconcerts@umd.edu |
As the leaves fall and Thanksgiving nears, you might be
asking, “Gosh, when are we going to hear about SEE’s fall concert?” The answer
is: not this semester.
Here’s what happened behind the scenes: we ran a survey of
several artists we thought the campus might like. You all told us who you
wanted and we pursued those musicians. We had a first, runner-up, and back-up
option. This is what happens for every SEE event. It’s why we’re always
bothering you to fill out our surveys – we really do want to know what you
think! Some of our best event ideas come from student suggestions we hadn’t
thought of on our own. (Sadly, though, we do not have the budget for any member
of the Knowles-Carter family, so don’t ask.) We always research what students
want and let that be the deciding factor in our choices. Initially, all these
artists were available and within our budget, which comes from your student
activities fees. But circumstances change very frequently in the music
industry, and for those musicians we did go after with serious offers to play at Ritchie Coliseum this fall, schedules changed abruptly. Certain artists were no
longer available when we thought they were. So we made the decision to delay the
concert to the spring semester.
This isn’t the first time this has happened in SEE’s long
history, and it won’t be the last. The good news is that it doesn’t mean we’re
not having a concert besides Art Attack XXX at the end of the spring semester.
It just means the concert will be in the first half of the spring semester, and
then you will have Art Attack XXX to prepare for (besides all the other movies,
lectures, special events, performing arts, musical arts events, and comedy
shows we bring) – to summarize, the SEE team and myself I
are going to give you an awesome spring semester. Get ready.
To get a link to our upcoming concerts survey for spring
concert and Art Attack XXX, like Student Entertainment Events on Facebook, follow
@SEE_UMD on Twitter, send an email to seecommunicationsys@umd.edu to
get on our list serv, or check out our website, www.see.umd.edu.
And email me at seeconcerts@umd.edu
with your ideas and feedback anytime!
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Reflecting Upon Homecoming Comedy Show 2012
 |
| Maddy Bersch Public Relations Director seepublicrelations@umd.edu |
University of Maryland community, SEE hears you. We’ve read your emails, messages, and tweets
about Craig Robinson’s performance at the Homecoming Comedy Show on October 18th,
and would like to respond.
This comedy show had been in the works for months; SEE
Comedy Director, Eliana Geller, began researching potential artists this past spring. Based on survey results and artist availability,
Craig Robinson was selected to headline the show. The SEE Executive Board was excited to bring
Robinson to campus based on his success as Darryl on “The Office,” as well as
past stand-up performances. We hoped his
backup band would bring a fun atmosphere to the show.
However, Craig’s performance was not what we expected or
anticipated. We agree with many of you
that his behavior was unprofessional and inappropriate for a university event. We were just as shocked as you were, and are
embarrassed over this misrepresentation of our student-run organization. We expressed our dissatisfaction with his
performance and unprofessionalism to his agent, who then apologized and
informed us that he was not aware of incidents such as this at any other
college performance. Discussions are
still ongoing, which limits how much we are able to share at this time. That being said, per outstanding ticket
policy, we are unable to issue refunds.
While we understand that many of you were disappointed with
Craig’s performance, we do hope you enjoyed Jermaine Fowler and Michael Ian
Black’s opening performances.
Lastly, we would also like to use this opportunity to invite
you to take our survey gauging interest for events later this year. We value student opinion and want your input
for future events. The survey may be
found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SEE_UpcomingEvents.
Maddy Bersch, SEE Public Relations Director, may be reached
at seepublicrelations@umd.edu.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Homecoming Comedy Show 2012: How It All Happens
 |
| Eliana Geller Comedy Director seecomedy@umd.edu |
A new semester means so many different things to different people. To some it can be the excitement or dread of a sparklingly new course load. To others it can be the annoyance of having to live in yet another dorm room without air-conditioning. But to the directors of SEE, it means gearing up for a new year of programming and planning. While other SEE directors were working on awesome events such as Bo Burnham’s show, a PlayStation Tour, the Back-to-School Slam and a showing of The Hunger Games on McKeldin Mall, I was planning an event that would hopefully put nearly 7000 Terps into laughing hysterics. That event was the Homecoming Comedy Show, SEE’s largest event of the fall semester.
My first move in preparing for the show was contacting talent agencies to research comedians that would be in our price range. These comedians also had to be interested and available to perform at UMD. (This is one of my favorite parts of the planning because agents often divulge a detail or two about some of the comedians). Based on the information the agents gave me, I put together questions for the Art Attack survey, which reaches more students than any other survey we put out during the year. When the results came in, Craig Robinson turned out to be #1 in the eyes of the UMD student body. And so, I pursued him to headline the Homecoming Comedy Show (HCS). Craig has a huge following among UMD students because of his roles in NBC’s The Office, and the movies Pineapple Express and Hot Tub Time Machine. He puts a new spin on stand-up comedy since he performs while sitting at a keyboard, often accompanied by a band. I think he’s a great choice for the show!
Generally, for HCS, the Comedy Director will choose one headliner and one opener to perform. I chose Michael Ian Black as an opener because firstly, he is hilarious and secondly, I thought his stand-up would bring a different element to the show. Michael Ian Black has performed at numerous universities and is especially popular among 90s kids who’ve watched him on the I Love the 90s series on VH1. I thought he would be a perfect fit for UMD. When I was talking to Craig’s agent, he suggested I add a comedian to the line-up to host the show. This is a common practice in comedy clubs. This person works as a transition between the acts with a few jokes in order to make the show flow better. I really liked that idea and thought it would bring a new dimension to the Homecoming Comedy Show so I looked into Jermaine Fowler, an up and coming 24-year-old comedian from DC who is incredibly funny.
After the line-up was decided, it was a matter of organizing the production and the promotion of the show. SEE’s production and promotion teams have this down to a science. I am so amazed at what this group of students is capable of – whether it is renting a stage and organizing people to build it, or sending out press releases to local newspapers. Without them, no SEE event could ever occur. Now that we’ve released the event, we must Promote! Promote! Promote! to get the word out to students and non-students alike. Look for us near Stamp, we’ll be the ones in front with a giant floor piano!
SEE is so excited for the Homecoming Comedy Show and we hope you are too! See you at Cole Fieldhouse this Thursday!
Tickets are available at www.umdtickets.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)