The Mills Campanil

If you consider yourself alternative in your taste of nighttime recreation, music and company, or if you just want somewhere to go on Thursday nights, look no further. Thursday Night Special (TNS) is alive and well with a theme song.

This year, graduate student Michael Cox is running TNS, an informal concert series put on by the music graduate students each week in the ensemble room of the music building.

"The show is an open, uncensored forum for artists to present their work in whatever development stage it may be in. Anything goes at the Special and often does," said Cox.

Many students may have never heard of Thursday Night Special, but the program is not new.

"The Special was started a few years ago by a music graduate to give students an audience for their work. The music made at Mills is often experimental, and therefore difficult to attain an audience for," said Cox.

According to Cox, Thursday Night Special should appeal to anyone who wants and/or needs to experience something different.

"Though our performers come from the realm of the experimental arts, we welcome anything and everything anyone wants to show off," he said.

Thursday Night Special gives students a rare chance to hear and see what peers are doing with their time, Cox explained.

Senior Ruth Sears, a performance artist who appears in Thursday Night Specials, said each new show is fun and unusual. "Sometimes it's musical, and sometimes it's questionable; most of it I would even call good," she said.

Graduate student Scott Kasun, also involved in TNS, has an alternative take on the Special. "Anything goes, especially if it's highly offensive," he said.

Whether that's true or not, the Thursday Night Special audience has expanded this semester.

"It gets bigger each week," said Cox. "I've been told the turnout this year is the best the Special has ever drawn. Part of that is the new presence of the undergraduates each week."

Regarding the future of TNS, Cox said, "Each week is profoundly different from the last. As long as our performers keep coming up with interesting and, dare I say it, entertaining material, the Special will remain fresh and exciting."

He added, "I just want to see [Thursday Night Special] survive. It's rare to find this kind of freedom at a performance venue and yet vital to the life of modern music."

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