UW News

December 6, 2007

See the world and study it, too: UW launches travel-study tours program

The biennial UW Theatre and Concert Hall Tour to London, led by English Professor John Webster, has been so popular that in 2006, more than 70 percent of the tour’s participants were repeat clients. Regulars include a husband and wife who have joined Webster on every tour but one since Webster began leading in 1981 and another couple who met on one tour and came back married the next.


Building on this success, the UW is launching a new series in February 2008: UW Travel-Study Tours. Administered by UW Educational Outreach, the tours are led by UW faculty and designed to explore a specialized theme or intellectual pursuit. Groups are kept to a maximum of 25 to 30 in most cases to ensure personal interaction with the tour leader. Offerings for 2008 include the following:



  • Cuernavaca, Mexico: Spanish Language & Cultural Immersion, Feb. 3-16, 2008. For adults over 50. Led by Cynthia Duncan, interdisciplinary arts and sciences, UW Tacoma.



  • London, England: London Theatre & Concert Hall Tour, March 14-29, 2008. Led by John Webster, English, and Roderick Swanston, Royal College of Music.



  • Washington State: Rivers, Islands and Wine Country, March 7-9/March 28-30/April 11-13, 2008. Led by UW faculty and local experts.



  • Washington State: Rainforest, Dry Falls and Mountains, April 25-27/May 16-18/June 6-8, 2008. Led by UW faculty and local experts.



  • Santa Fe, New Mexico: Discovering the Textiles of Santa Fe, April 8-13, 2008. Led by Layne Goldsmith, art.



  • Sedona, Arizona: Painting the Sedona Landscape, May 13-18, 2008. Led by artist Joella Jean Mahoney


The success of the UW London tour has inspired and helped shape the development of the new UW Travel-Study Tours program. Now gearing up to lead his 15th tour to London, Webster reflects on the experience of welcoming back so many regulars since he took over in 1981 (the tour originated two years earlier under a different faculty leader).


“We’ve seen lives evolve, friendship circles form and change,” says Webster. “And many of our regulars are just as enthusiastic as they were on their very first trip.”


It can also be said that the experience is “all in the family.” One oft-returning couple is second generation: The parents were longtime participants, but the tour outlived them and now the son and his wife are regulars.


This kind of devotion isn’t surprising, given the results of tour follow-up surveys. In 2006, the year of the most recent tour, the group gave both the tour and its leader an over-all rating of 4.9 on a 5.0 scale.


Webster’s collaborator, Roderick Swanston, enhances the experience, Webster says. Swanston, a London musician, opera critic, historian and teacher, is now retired from the Royal College of Music and is highly sought after as a tour guide.


Webster and Swanston keep themselves attuned to the changing needs of the group. For example, Webster no longer schedules an evening performance on the first night — not after an experience years ago when he noticed his entire group fall asleep during an entertaining play by Michael Frayn. He now leaves one free day a week, as well, allowing people to schedule excursions outside of London (some have even taken the Chunnel to Paris for a weekend).


The UW Theatre and Concert Hall Tour to London provides tickets to 12 events over 14 days. Webster selects five plays and five concerts, with two additional performances chosen according to the season’s offerings. He chooses a mix of forms and styles, usually including on the drama side a few repertory plays presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, plus two or three new productions, including an experimental performance.


Most evenings are devoted to performances. Morning sessions feature Webster and Swanston leading a discussion of the preceding day’s event and a preview of the event to come. “I’m not there as a cheerleader,” says Webster. “My job is not to tell folks it’s a good or bad performance, but to help them engage with the event themselves and make up their own minds about the experience.”


Every performance thus becomes an opportunity for engrossing conversation. “We were all a little afraid that first year of the Royal National Theatre’s production of Shaw’s Man and Superman. It’s long — so long that lots of companies leave the third act out,” Webster remembers. “Yet it turned into one of the most unforgettable performances I have ever witnessed when the famous actor Daniel Massey actually dropped a line in that very difficult Act Three. At first we were all horrified — but then after the prompter had called out his line, when he picked up both line and pace as if nothing at all had happened, the audience simply exploded into applause.”


The question for the next morning wasn’t about whether this was a good production, Webster recalls. “Instead it was all about the absolutely fascinating question of how forgetting a line for that single moment could have made for such incredibly good theatre.”


Webster will also never forget After Aida, a play based on the life of Verdi. Although there were about 30 people in the production plus the Welsh National Orchestra, the audience was sparse — very sparse. “But the funny thing is that the play was actually pretty good,” says Webster. So the next morning, he turned the conversation to the business of theater: Given the huge investment of money and time a new play demands, what did the backers see that inspired their decision to put this play on? What happened that so few people came?


For more information on UW Travel-Study Tours, go to http://www.extension.washington.edu/ext/travel/


Educational Outreach is not the only UW unit offering tours with faculty participation. Some of the tours offered by the UW Alumni Association do so as well. For information about those tours, go to www.uwalum.com.