Entertainment

STEP INTO THE LIGHT The Class of 2006 knows how to throw a party. In their first two years at Denison, they hosted an all-night bowl-in and an all-campus luau in Slayter. In their junior year, they got to thinking about how long it had been since Denison had a decent dance party. Lasers, thought Aaron Rosenthal, we gotta have lasers! Yeah, and foam! added Beth Wood, who had attended a party on another campus that featured the sudsy, organic substance. What resulted was April’s all-campus Follow the Light Dance Party, with one huge tent on the Campus Common, one laser light dance floor, one foam pit, and 800 revelers getting their groove on. Some students criticized the $13,000 price tag, but Rosenthal notes that it was the lowest cost-per-head event of the year, comparing it to happenings like D-Day, Aestivalia, and big-name visiting lecturers. Plans are still coming together for a throw-down in the ‘06 senior year, but if all goes as Rosenthal hopes, it will be something “late, loud, and live.”

MAKE ‘EM LAUGH When it comes to improvisational comedy in Chicago, there’s the legendary Second City Improv Company, which has launched the careers of many famous actors and comics–including a few Denisonians (see “Funny Man”, page 28)–and then there’s the more family-friendly ComedySportz Chicago, which “plays a happy second to Second City,” according to Executive Producer Dave Gaudet ‘88 (right). Over the years, Gaudet has delighted in working with a number of fellow Denisonians, including Katherine Gotsick ‘88 (left) and Meghan Kelly ‘02 (center), most of whom developed their passion for play as members of Burpee’s Seedy Theatrical Company (see “Leap Before You Look”, page 22). In August, the three were among the Chicago contingent to compete in the ComedySportz World Championship in Los Angeles. Gaudet reports that his rollicking crew played hard amid a pool of 21 teams, but by tournament’s end found themselves placed, um, a happy third.

PARTY ON How do you throw a 200th birthday party with 2,400 guests? Well, if you’re the Village of Granville, you slap a few hundred tables down along Broadway and call it the Mile Long Picnic–one of a year’s worth of events commemorating the village’s 1805 founding by settlers from Granville, Mass., and Granby, Conn. Granvilleans are quite proud of their land’s rich history, which includes tales of prehistoric moundbuilding cultures, Welsh clans, Civil War heroes, Underground Railroad passages, and a baptist seminary and women’s college that later merged to form a small but heavy-hitting liberal arts college. Several current and former professors at that college were contributors to a new, comprehensive three-volume history of the village, Granville, Ohio: A Study in Continuity and Change, which was published by the Granville Historical Society under the auspices of the Denison University Press. (The books can be ordered at www.granvillehistory.org)