THE HOLLOWER at New Light Theater Project

Otto is visited by an investigative podcaster who is half-pig, half-man. She also has a teenaged occult enthusiast houseguest who is making a claymation film about seventeenth century witchcraft in her kitchen. If you guessed that this describes a new play by Liza Birkenmeier (MFA '12), you should rush to New Light Theater Project, where THE HOLLOWER runs through June 9.

Lauren Wimmer '18 at the Playwrights' Center and Ars Nova

Great news: Lauren Wimmer (MFA '18) will be our sixth graduate to be selected as a Core Apprentice at the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. Every year, three emerging U.S. playwrights are chosen every year to receive a nine-month mentorship and to workshop a new play. The last student so honored was Savannah Reich in 2016.

Wimmer's thesis production, THE DEATH OF HAYDEN WAVERLY, THE MOST POPULAR PERSON IN THE WORLD, will travel with its Carnegie Mellon artistic team to Ars Nova in New York this summer as part of the notorious ANT Fest.

RADIO ISLAND by Liza Birkenmeier '12 at the Powerhouse Theater

RADIO ISLAND by Liza Birkenmeier (MFA '12) will premiere in New York Stage and Film's mainstage season at the Powerhouse Theater on the campus of Vassar College. Powerhouse is known for nurturing the development of shows like HAMILTON, THE HUMANS, THE HOUSE THAT WILL NOT STAND, THE WOLVES, JUNK, BRIGHT STAR, and THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE.

Fun facts: Rob Handel, who was Liza's teacher at Carnegie Mellon, grew up in Poughkeepsie and was a member of the Powerhouse apprentice company in the 1980's. He returned twenty years later for the mainstage premiere of his own play A MAZE.

Liza will herself return to the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama in 2018, when her commissioned play THE WAY OUT WEST is given its world premiere as part of our own mainstage season.

France-Luce Benson '08 in THE NEW BLACK FEST at the Lark

A staged reading of DEUX FEMMES ON THE EDGE DE LA REVOLUTION by France-Luce Benson (MFA '08) was a part of THE NEW BLACK FEST at the Lark, a festival of diverse and provocative work by Black theater artists from throughout the Diaspora.