Arts & Culture

Kristin Bauer Van Straten, BFA ’88, is best known for playing the fashionable, no-nonsense vampire Pam De Beaufort on HBO’s True Blood. But when she was younger, she was interested in another art, painting, which led her to Washington University.

Environmental catastrophe upends the social order. Private functions fuel corporate profits. Oppressed masses rebel against privileged politicians. Don’t laugh. This is “Urinetown.”

Over the last two decades, printmaker Dennis O’Neil has collaborated with artists from around the world while helping to expand the limits of screen print technology. Beginning Oct. 5, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will present “Process & Innovation: 20 Years of Partnerships in Print at Hand Print Workshop International.”

In “Topographic Memory,” architect Bruce Lindsey, of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, explores how we interpret both photography and the natural world.

In “Raindropped,” playwright Scott Greenberg, a senior in Arts & Sciences, explores the idea of falling from grace, both figuratively and literally. This weekend, “Raindropped” and two other student plays will receive their world premiere staged readings as part of Washington University in St. Louis’ annual A.E. Hotchner New Play Festival.

Legendary saxophonist Freddie Washington will launch Washington University in St. Louis’ fall Jazz at Holmes series Thursday, Sept. 21. The series will include 10 performances by locally and nationally known musicians, including Italian guitarist Filippo Cosentino and the university’s director of jazz performance, William Lenihan (pictured).

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will fly “Untitled (Dividing Time),” a flag created by artist Robert Longo, as part of “Pledges of Allegiance,” a national public art series organized by Creative Time in New York.

The tomb of a Maya ruler excavated this summer at the Classic Maya city of Waka in northern Guatemala is the oldest royal tomb yet to be discovered at the site, the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Guatemala has announced.

With its fine slashing lines and dark, inky shadows, Rembrandt’s “The Three Crosses” is mournful, majestic, and exemplifies the artist’s experimental approach to printmaking. This fall, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present the historic etching, and more than 100 other prints, as part of “Renaissance and Baroque Prints: Investigating the Collection.”

Concrete is the most widely used construction material in the world. Billions of tons are produced annually. But for the 2017 Solar Decathlon, Team WashU wanted to demonstrate a new and more sustainable approach.