We can't say every department on the 40 Acres should give itself over to the students for a week every two years, but man, does it work for the Department of Theatre & Dance. Its biennial David Mark Cohen New Works Festival – in which upward of 30 student-generated pieces of drama, dance, design, and film get their day in the sun – is a blast of concentrated creative energy that packs the exhilarating buzz of a quintuple espresso with a cappuccino chaser. Some works are so innovative and dynamic that they find life beyond the festival. The latest example: The Psyche Project, a rowdy, irreverent, wildly funny retelling of the Greek myth, which gets an encore run in the department Sept. 10-12.
