The Jesters of the University of Saint Francis will present their annual spring performance on March 12 at 6 p.m. and March 13 at 3 p.m. at the North Campus auditorium, 2702 Spring Street. Tickets are $10 and are available now. Call the School of Creative Arts (SOCA) at (260) 399-7700, ext. 8001 for information.
The theme of this year’s show, “Believe You Me,” is about the evolution of ideas. Performers use music, dance, theatre, visual art and puppets to follow the adventure of an idea from its initial seed thought to its eventual demise or manifestation. Four lead character profiles are based on real people with disabilities in the greater Fort Wayne community who have successfully pursued a meaningful idea. Throughout the show, good ideas and bad ideas are personified as characters. Other characters include good fairies who help protect and nourish the ideas, bad fairies who try to diminish the ideas and fortune-tellers who provide counsel. In light of the 25th anniversary of the American Disabilities Act, “Believe You Me” celebrates the ADA as an idea that provides people with disabilities a vehicle that supports an array of other ideas.
Sponsored by the University of Saint Francis since 1978, the Jesters is a performing group of people with mild to severe developmental disabilities. The purpose of the Jesters is to enhance quality of life for people with disabilities by engaging them in the creative arts. The vision is to develop self-expression, self-esteem, socialization and other life skills while providing learning opportunities to the USF community and the community at large.
The Jesters program and this year’s performance are provided with support from the AWS Foundation and from Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne, the Indiana Arts Commission, a state agency and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
Founded in 1890 as a comprehensive university in the Catholic Franciscan tradition, USF offers more than 80 undergraduate and graduate programs through the School of Health Sciences, School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Keith Busse School of Business and Entrepreneurial Leadership and School of Creative Arts. In addition to its traditional programs, the university designs focused curricula for working adults in Fort Wayne, Crown Point and online. The university will open a Downtown Fort Wayne Campus in the fall of 2016 that will feature business, entrepreneurship and music technology programs. Approximately 2,300 students from a broad geographic region currently attend USF for its academic excellence.
