Associate Professor of Theater David Wiles is a cast member of “Johnny Baseball” at Park Square Theater in St Paul. The new musical looks at life and love through the lens of America’s favorite pastime: baseball. The play is the story of Johnny O’Brien, a hard-luck right-hander on the 1919 Red Sox and traces the American institution of baseball from the “Curse of the Bambino” through the Red Sox 2004 World Series win. The playwrights have taken a few liberties with their story, bending history a bit in order to effectively tell a love story set in the backdrop of a racially integrating Major League Baseball League.

Each term, Carls shake, leap, and twirl to student-choreographed dances in the ever-popular Ebony II show. This winter brought more cheer-worthy dances and crazy costumes galore.

In conjunction with the popular Northfield Arts Guild Gallery exhibit “NRTHFLD: The Nirthfolde Visitors’ Bureau,” professor of art David Lefkowitz will unravel the mysteries of this “slightly askew” take on Northfield in a public lecture on Wednesday, Jan. 30 from 7:30 to 9 p.m. in the Weitz Center for Creativity Cinema. Entitled “Quasi-Fictional Places: The Nirthfolde Visitors’ Bureau and Other Original Facsimilies,” Lefkowitz’s talk will introduce audiences to “Nirthfolde…a bucolic, yet bustling burg situated in a parallel universe that neatly overlaps Northfield, Minnesota, and that has existed relatively unnoticed for over a century and a half.”

Carleton College’s Weitz Center for Creativity will host a special screening of “Cemetery Stories: A Rebel Missionary in South Africa,” a film directed by Carleton professor Cherif Keita, which explores an early effort at resistance to white authority in South Africa and its little-known connection with Northfield. The screening, part of the College’s Humanities Center’s Perspectives in Public Humanities series, will take place on Thursday, Feb. 7 beginning at 7 p.m. in the Weitz Center Cinema. This event is free and open to the public.

Melinda Russell, Professor of Music, presented “Visualizing Music: Helping Undergraduate Non-Majors Show What They Hear,” in November at the College Music Society Meeting in San Diego.  The talk showed how an assignment where students draw a ‘map’ of a piece can help undergraduates demonstrate their understanding of the structure and features of a piece of music. The work grew out of a VIZ grant to explore musical mapping.

Student Director, Julian Pozniak and Production Coordinator, Lawrence Burnett presented a fully staged, all-student production of “La Serva Padrona” last weekend at the Weitz Center for Creativity.

The popular Ebony II dance show was as flashy and exciting as ever this fall with sparkles and spandex galore! Most of all, it was filled with impressive moves choreographed and danced entirely by students.

This year, homecoming weekend meant not only a plethora of athletic events, but also music, dancing, and great fun. Despite being under construction as a part of the Evans renovation, The Cave still provided great music, kicking off the weekend with a concert at the Grand in downtown Northfield.

Carleton College’s Perlman Teaching Museum, located in the Weitz Center for Creativity, is featured in a MN Original episode entitled “Museums Creating Community.” Produced with the Minnesota Association of Museums, the episode looks at the role and value of museums as they reflect their communities, preserve traditions and inspire generations. Minnesota has over 600 museums, representing a diverse array of perspectives and artistic genres, as well as numerous chapters in the state’s history.

We’ve gathered some of our top images from all the wonderful activities in the first year of the Weitz Center for Creativity to share at the end of the academic year.