“The time between when they said ‘And the Jeff goes to’ and when they announced my name [felt like] four hours,” the Communication senior said. Then it was all a blur. “I don’t even know what song they were playing. I literally had no idea what to say. I didn’t write a speech, because I knew I wasn’t going to win.”

Weisman was awarded the Best Actor in a Supporting Role trophy at the 41st Annual Jeff Equity Awards, an annual ceremony honoring professional Chicago theater. It is sometimes referenced as the Chicago equivalent of New York’s Tony Awards.

Weisman was given a Jeff for his portrayal of Posner in The History Boys — a play that follows a group of young students as they come of age at a British university in the 1980s. The play, which closed earlier this month, was held at the TimeLine Theatre in Lakeview.

Weisman was not the only Wildcat to take home a Jeff. Communication ‘08 graduates Govind Kumar and Josh Schecter had both been in the cast of The History Boys, which also won for Best Ensemble. Northwestern alumni, including Spencer Kayden, Mara Blumenfeld and Doug Peck, received awards in acting, costume design and music direction, respectively. Moreover, Northwestern faculty members Ray Nardelli, Joshua Horvath and David H. Bell won trophies in sound design and choreography.

“I thanked Northwestern like seven times,” Weisman said of his acceptance speech. “I was like, ‘Thank you Northwestern, thank you, all my teachers at Northwestern, all my friends at Northwestern, everyone who goes to Northwestern, everyone who went to Northwestern, everyone who’s been to Northwestern’s campus.’”

He added that he credits the university not only with instilling a strong work ethic and passion in its students, but also for creating a vast network of support in the field.

Post-Jeff Award, Weisman has a lot on his plate. After he finishes reading more than 200 congratulatory notifications on Facebook, in November and December he will star as the Ghost of Christmas Past in A Christmas Carol at the Goodman Theatre in downtown Chicago. After that, though, he plans to return to campus to finish his senior year and perform in The Handmaid’s Tale in March, 2010.

Redd has been featured on the Comedians of Comedy Tour with comedians like Patton Oswalt. A native of Tennessee, he moved to San Francisco to start his career in comedy and currently lives in Los Angeles.

“Daniel Tosh actually recommended [Redd],” said Communication sophomore Barry McCardel, co-chair for promotions and public relations for A&O, “and we looked into him, and we think he’s hilarious.”

Tickets have not yet sold out for the show, and McCardel noted there would be a significant amount of tickets available at the door. “It’s going to be enough [so that] everyone who wants to go should have no problem being able to get a ticket,” he said. Undergraduates can buy tickets for $10 each, and graduate students can buy tickets for $15 each.

Check out the video below to sample some of Redd’s work.

Northwestern’s women’s rugby team painted the Rock on Friday, May 15 to promote their game the next day against the University of Chicago. The Wildcats trounced the competition, winning the game 49-0.

Mayfest made the announcement during Friday night’s Battle of the Bands at Tommy Nevin’s Pub.

The singer, whose full name is Estelle Swaray, is originally from London, England and is best known for her single “American Boy” featuring Kanye West, which won a Grammy award in 2009. Her album Shine was released in March of 2008.

During Thursday night’s Battle of the Bands, Mayfest confirmed that hip-hop group N.E.R.D and indie band the Decemberists would also play at Dillo Day. The group had hinted at all three headliners in a promotional video.

In addition, Mayfest announced that Rotimi and the Rainmakers won the Battle of the Bands competition, also gaining a spot on the Dillo Day lineup.

Although swine flu has not been declared a pandemic or reached areas near Chicago, Northwestern has an emergency plan ready in case the disease comes to Evanston, officials said Monday.

“Northwestern has a very well-developed pandemic plan” based on recommendations from the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, said associate professor Dirk Brockmann, who researches the spread of pandemics. Brockmann said he could not go into detail about the plan.

The U.S. government declared a public health emergency Sunday when several instances of the disease were discovered. As of April 27 at 1 p.m., there were 40 confirmed cases of swine flu in the U.S., according to the CDC. In Mexico, the swine flu has claimed more than 100 lives, according to news reports.

No cases have been confirmed in Illinois or any of its neighboring states, although health officials are currently examining potential cases in Michigan and Indiana.

The university issued a statement Monday morning saying “there are plans and procedures in place to ensure an effective response.”

“No changes to University operations or activities are currently planned as a result of swine flu,” the statement said.

The e-mail also mentioned that leaders and health personnel met Monday to discuss Northwestern’s response if the situation were to change, and that Northwestern had been preparing for the potential pandemic outbreak.

Brockmann and a team of researchers are currently working on simulations that will be able to determine the rate at which swine flu will spread in the United States and Europe and “predict the probability that a certain region will be infected” by looking at how people travel and move around. For example, there is a lot of human traffic between New York and Los Angeles, so those two areas have increased risk, he said.

“The swine flu has not reached the stage of a pandemic yet, even though there were confirmed cases in the United States and Mexico and Europe,” he said. “In respect to the entire population, that number is still small.”

The swine flu was once categorized as a respiratory disease found in pigs but can now be spread like a seasonal flu between humans. The World Health Organization has changed the alert of swine flu from three, which states that the disease is predominantly found in animals, to four, which means the disease is in a phase of “sustained human to human interaction.” Phases five and six denote “widespread human infection.”

The entire statement from the university is below.

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
Message sent – 4/27/2009
Northwestern response to swine flu

Dear Members of the Northwestern University Community:

The federal government on April 26, 2009 declared a public health emergency after several cases of swine flu were confirmed in the United States. It is expected that more cases will be confirmed in the coming days.

Northwestern University, along with public agencies across the country, has been preparing for the potential of a pandemic for a number of years. Although the swine flu has not been declared a pandemic, there are plans and procedures in place to ensure an effective response.

No cases of swine flu have been reported at Northwestern. No changes to University operations or activities are currently planned as a result of swine flu. University leaders, health services and emergency management personnel met today to plan the University’s response now and in the future if circumstances change. Northwestern will follow the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other appropriate agencies in the University’s response to this issue. The University will continue to monitor the situation and will keep the Northwestern community informed. Any Northwestern students, faculty or staff who are planning foreign travel in the near future are advised to consult the International SOS web page on the issue.

For additional information, here are several links:
US Center for Disease Control
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/

International SOS
http://urgent.internationalsos.com/default.aspx

Northwestern University Health Services
http://www.nuhs.northwestern.edu/evanston/default.aspx
http://www-chicago.nuhs.northwestern.edu/

A&O Productions will make an additional set of Ludacris tickets available for purchase at 10 a.m. Friday through the Norris Box Office’s online ticketing system. The rapper’s show, featuring opening act The Knux, is this Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Patten Gymnasium.

More than 1,000 tickets sold out within 40 minutes on April 15, leaving many students without tickets. Barry McCardel, co-chair for promotions and public relations for A&O, said that more tickets will be sold because they received confirmation Thursday that Patten could hold a higher capacity of people.

“We’ve been working over the past few days with the powers that be, the administration, the fire marshal, to have the approved capacity,” he said. “We would have liked to have sold these much earlier, but it’s taken a lot of work to get this higher capacity approved.”

McCardel declined to disclose how many tickets would be on sale, but he said the number was “a significant amount.”

Tickets will cost $15 each and will only be available to Northwestern undergraduates. Students will be able to purchase 2 tickets per WildCARD.

Chloe Benoist contributed reporting.

McGee celebrates with supporters at the Public Affairs Residential College. Photo by Max Brawer / North by Northwestern.

Mike McGee received a call from Election Commissioner Paul David Shrader at 7:21 p.m. Friday. After hanging up, he broke the silence in the PARC seminar room.

“Oh shit, we won!”

The room burst into screams as McGee and Smithburg’s supporters jumped up and down, hugging each other.

McGee will be the next president of Associated Student Government, winning 60 percent of student votes during Friday’s runoff election.

The Communication junior had won 47.9 percent of votes during Wednesday’s general election, just 33 votes shy of Medill junior Bill Pulte’s 48.6 percent. Rules required the runoff election because no single candidate won a majority of votes. Fellow candidate Luke Adams received 2.1 percent of the vote and did not participate in the runoff.

Out of 4,292 ballots cast in the runoff election, 2,526 were for McGee, while 1,684 went to Pulte. There were 82 abstentions, but the abstentions did not affect percentage counts. In the general election, 4,421 students voted.

Weinberg junior Tommy Smithburg, McGee’s running mate, will become vice president.

“It’s just the beginning,” Smithburg said, adding that he was “stunned” and “proud” of the results.

“When Mike won AVP [Academic Vice President] last year, it was a really happy moment,” said Vikram Karandikar, the outgoing executive vice president and a supporter of McGee. “But this feels so right, so good, such an accomplishment.”

McGee expressed relief and excitement about the news of his election, and particularly stressed the importance of his campaign team in keeping him motivated.

“It’s all about the people,” he said. “They’re the only reason I was able to stay up 22 hours a night, it’s thanks to all these guys and the new people that you meet.”

McGee added that he intended to “hit the ground running” and focus specifically on communication with students.

“It’s probably the first thing that we can do, and it’s probably the easiest thing we can do,” he said. “There are still people who don’t know about ASG, there are still people who don’t know about all the positions, all the committees, so I think that’s what we want to do first.”

When contacted to comment on the results of the election, outgoing ASG president Neal Sales-Griffin said that “we’re in good hands.”

A few minutes after receiving the news that they had lost the race by a margin of 40 percent to 60 percent, Pulte and Dawson shared their reactions in the hallway outside of Pulte’s room in the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity house.

Pulte with supporters outside the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity house after hearing the election results. Photo by Mike Elsen-Rooney / North by Northwestern.

“It’s very interesting to Pat and I, and I think to the rest of our team, that you can go from being 49-48 one day and then the next day you’re at a 60-40 loss,” Pulte said.

Both Pulte and Dawson declined to speculate on the cause of the shift in votes. Pulte also declined to comment about about Thursday night’s e-mail from Academic Director Muhammad Safdari and did not indicate whether he was satisfied by the ASG Election Commission’s response.

In reflection, Pulte said, “we gave it the best fight we had, I think everybody saw that. Because of the Pulte-Dawson campaign we were able to generate record numbers for this campaign. Again I just think this is a very curious situation, a very mysterious situation.”

Dawson said he was disappointed with the loss, but “glad that Bill and I ran; I think we did a lot. I think we ran a good campaign. I am interested in the fact that there was such a huge drop-off in such a short time.”

Pulte called McGee to congratulate him but reached voicemail and decided not to leave a message. “It was a well-fought race; both campaigns fought very well,” he said. “I hope that Mike and Tommy can really produce things that are really going to affect the lives of daily students; that was my goal.”

In Monday night’s presidential debate, Pulte said he would like to continue serving in ASG if he lost the race, but said Friday night he had not decided in what capacity.

Among some of his friends and campaigners outside the Pike house, Pulte commented on a helicopter flying overhead. “I chose to run because I thought there was a place I could have value.” But at least with his loss, Pulte can “go back to running [his] helicopter business.”

A brief note: We have moderated several comments on this post that used false names or were derogatory in nature. North by Northwestern promotes discussion about our articles, but we urge you to keep the discussion civil. If you have any questions or feel that other comments should also be moderated, feel free to e-mail us.

Tickets to see rapper Ludacris on April 24 sold out within 40 minutes of going on sale at the Norris Box Office’s Web site on Wednesday.

Users began to see “sold out” messages on the site within a few minutes after the tickets went on sale at 10 a.m.

According to A&O Productions Promotions and Public Relations Co-Chair Barry McCardel, some transactions did not go through, so some tickets went back on sale after being held online for about 15 minutes. He said tickets did not officially sell out until 10:39 a.m, and by that point A&O had sold over 1000 tickets.

If possible, McCardel said, A&O plans to sell an additional number of tickets at a later date. The group is working on a number of factors such as risk management to get a finalized capacity of Patten Gymnasium for the event. “We’re always working to get as many tickets out to the community as we can,” he said.

He noted that more information will be released on A&O’s Web site.

This is the second time A&O Productions has made use of online ticketing, after using it to sell Demetri Martin tickets, which also sold out within an hour. According to McCardel, the online ticketing system has been met with a positive response. “The vast majority of students seem to have a great experience with it,” the Communication sophomore said. “They’re able to buy tickets to shows like this from dorm rooms.” He added that if students have encountered legitimate ticketing errors, they should contact the Norris Box Office.

“We’re always thrilled when we’re able to book a show like this, but just as disappointed when students can’t get tickets,” he said, noting tickets probably would have sold out quickly whether they were sold physically or online. He said A&O has plans to continue to use the online system for future events.

But many students were not only disappointed when Ludacris concert tickets sold out within minutes, but were left frustrated with the online ticketing.

“At 10:03 I logged on to the A&O site to buy the tickets and then it was taking a very long time,” said SESP freshman Ally Supowitz, a first-time user of the site. “By the time it connected me, it was 10:05 and they had sold out and I refreshed it several times and I still did not have tickets.”

Despite not being able to get a ticket, Supowitz is hopeful that A&O releases more tickets. According to its Web site as of Wednesday evening, A&O is “working to secure a limited number of additional tickets to go on sale at a later date.”

McCormick freshman Sam Schwartz, also a first time user, was able to purchase one ticket out of the two that A&O allots per WildCARD.

“I kept refreshing the page from like, 10:10 to 10:20 with hopes that the tickets would become available,” Schwartz said. “So sometime around 10:21, 10:22, it said that there were tickets available so I ran through the process and it would only let me check out one ticket.”

However, out of the approximately 10 people with Schwartz, he said only about four people ended up successfully purchasing tickets. The site was frustratingly slow and A&O should have expanded its server in preparation for the high traffic, Schwartz said.

“A lot of people are dissatisfied with how it worked out,” Schwartz said.

When I first found out that Solange Knowles was performing at Northwestern, the thought that came to mind was, “Isn’t that the girl with the crazy striped eye makeup on Go Fug Yourself?” And I checked, and I was right. The sole impression that I had of Solange was that she was Beyoncé’s sister and had ridiculous fashion sense. In fact, the younger Ms. Knowles almost got to the finals in the fashion blog’s “Fug Madness” championships, losing to eventual champion Aubrey O’Day of Danity Kane. (You can’t really win against someone who accessorizes her dog to match her outfits.)

Putting aside her hilarious fashion statements, I thought I might check out her music. Turns out it’s not half bad — her latest album, SoL-AngeL and the Hadley St. Dreams, has a distinct ’60s-style flair and was produced in part by The Neptunes, members of which will be performing in N.E.R.D. on Dillo Day.

But what’s utterly fantastic is that Knowles’ music videos are just as crazy, if not crazier, than her fashion sense. And that’s saying something, considering Solange’s Twitter page features a picture of her wearing a minidress — with what looks like black plastic bits on the bottom — and Mickey Mouse ears.

Case in point? “I Decided” is a sweet, Supremes-style love song, but the video juxtaposes these cute lyrics with serious historical events through the late 20th century, like the Civil Rights movement and the falling of the Berlin Wall. By the video’s end, Knowles is on what looks like the moon, in a futuristic outfit reminiscent of one in her sister’s “Diva” video.

Clearly, when Solange does crazy, she does it well. Another example is her video for “Sandcastle Disco,” which is a good kind of crazy. Look, she can create the weather with her hand gestures! Look, she’s dancing on piano keys and drums while wearing a flamenco onesie! Also, please notice the outfit at 3:22.

Even when she’s playing it serious, she brings the crazy. Check out “T.O.N.Y,” a song about a one night stand, for an extended “Solange-on-the-toilet” scene. Behold, acting worthy of the star of Bring It On: All Or Nothing.

So to answer your burning question: Yes, I will be attending Solange’s concert on Apr. 19. Despite (or because of) her craziness, her songs are light, fun and impossible to get out of my head. And I’m not alone. An article in the Dallas Observer from last month completely agrees with me, noting that comparing Beyoncé with Solange “is like comparing apples to fruitcakes. Solange is, delightfully, the latter.” It’s her batty behavior, like this bizarre interview, that makes me curious to see what her live show is like. If it’s one-fifth as crazy as her music videos (or if she just wears Mickey Mouse ears), I won’t be disappointed.

NorthbyNorthwestern.com took first place for Best All-Around Independent Online Student Publication and the print edition took second place for Best Student Magazine in the region covering Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky.

Articles on the site took first, second and third places in the Online News Reporting category. First place went to Tom Giratikanon and Patrick St. Michel for “NBN at Dance Marathon 2008,” second place went to Giratikanon and Hannah Fraser-Chanpong for “Dillo Day 2008” and third place went to Jared T. Miller and “NU Decides caps off its voter registration effort.”

In the Online Feature Reporting category, Lauren C. Ruth won second place for her article “What it takes to be a bucket boy in Chicago,” and Dagny Salas won third for “The Cradle Adoption Agency doesn’t just change lives — it creates new ones.” Jason Plautz won first place in Online Opinion & Commentary for his “Why you should care” series.

St. Michel, Plautz, Giratikanon and Michael Lanning took first place in Online Sports Reporting for “North by Northwestern at the 2009 Alamo Bowl,” and the staff of North by Northwestern won first place in Online In-Depth Reporting for “Freshman Housing Guide 2008.”

Northwestern publications were well-represented at these awards. Stitch magazine won third place for Best Student Magazine. Medill senior Chris Gentilviso won several awards for sports writing, including second and third place in the Sports Writing category for “Avoiding injury by a neck” and “Worth the No. 1 Ranking?” written for The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and first place in Sports Column Writing for The Daily Northwestern. Medill graduate student A. Seraphina Lin won first place in the Television Feature category for “A special bond this Christmas: Brooke Wallace’s story“, published for the Medill News Service in Washington, D.C. Medill senior Katharine Euphrat won second place in Online In-Depth Reporting for “Let’s go home” for The Times while on her Journalism Residency in South Africa. Also, Medill seniors Jennifer L. Korducki and Kathleen M. de Onis recently won a second place College Television Award in the category of Newscasts for their work at the Northwestern News Network.