Creative Arts Events

• Mercer Gallery Events
• Creative Reading Series
• Theatre Programming
• Sixth Act Programming
• Instrumental and Vocal Concerts

• August 25 through September 19, 2025
• Artist Lecture: Wednesday, August 27, 3:00 p.m.
• Opening Reception: Wednesday, August 27, 4 to 6:00 p.m.

• September 25 through October 31, 2025
• Lecture/ Remembrance: Thursday, September 25, 4:00 p.m.
• Opening Reception: Thursday, September 25, 5 to 7:00 p.m.

• November 6 through December 12, 2025
• Opening Reception: Thursday, November 6, 5 to 7:00 p.m.
• Lecture and Discussion: TBD 
• MCC Student Tour of WALL\THERAPY Murals: TBD 

• January 20 through February 13, 2026
• Artist Lecture: Thursday, January 22, 4:00 p.m.
• Opening Reception: Thursday, January 22, 5 to 7:00 p.m.

• February 23 through April 3, 2026
• Opening Reception: Thursday, February 26, 5 to 7:00 p.m.

• April 13 and April 24, 2026

• April 30 through May 15, 2026
• Opening Reception and Award Ceremony: Thursday, April 30, 5 to 7:00 p.m.

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Kristen Gentry is the author of Mama Said, longlisted for the 2024 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. She received her M.F.A. from Indiana University. Her award-winning fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appeared in Electric Literature, Crab Orchard Review, and other journals. She lives and writes in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.  

• Fiction Reading: Tuesday, October 7, 2025, 7:00 to 8:00 p.m., Monroe A
• Fiction Workshop: Wednesday, October 8, 2025, 12:00 to 12:50 p.m., 8-200
• Free and Open to the Public

Philip Metres is the author of twelve books, including Fugitive/Refuge (Copper Canyon, 2024), Shrapnel Maps (Copper Canyon, 2020), The Sound of Listening: Poetry ad Refuge and Resistance (University of Michigan, 2018), San Opera (Alice James, 2015), and I Burned at the Feast: Selected Poems of Arseny Tarkovsky (Cleveland State, 2015). His work—poetry, translation, essays, fiction, criticism, and scholarship—has garnered fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Watson Foundation. He is the recipient of the Adrienne Rich Award, three Arab American Book Awards, the Lyric Poetry Prize, and the Cleveland Arts Prize. Metres has been called “one of the essential poets of our time,” whose work is “beautiful, powerful, magnetically original.” He is professor of English and director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University. He lives with his family in Cleveland, Ohio.

• Pre-recorded Reading
• Poetry Workshop: Wednesday, October 15, 2025, 12 to 12:50 p.m., 8-100  
• Free and Open to the Public

Jung Hae Chae is a Korean-American writer and the author of the forthcoming memoir-in-essays, Pojangmacha People, winner of the 2022 Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize. Previously, she won the Emerging Writers Contest in nonfiction from Ploughshares and the annual Nonfiction Award from Crazyhorse. Jung Hae’s writing can be found in AGNI, Guernica, New England Review, Ploughshares, swamp pink (formerly Crazyhorse), and in anthologies including the Best American Essays and the Pushcart Prize collection. She has been supported through fellowships from MacDowell, Millay Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and Sustainable Arts Foundation, as well as scholarships from Bread Loaf, Sewanee, Community of Writers, among others. When not writing, she likes to cook and hike with her daughter in Northern New Jersey.

• Pre-recorded Non-Fiction Reading
• Zoom Non-Fiction Workshop: Wednesday, November 5, 2025, 12 to 2:50 p.m., 8-200
• Join the Zoom link for remote access to workshop 
• Free and Open to the Public

Vinh Nguyen has crafted and showcased his animated films in many festivals, some winning multiple awards. Recently, his film I Had To was part of the One Take Docu Series which was screened at The Little theatre in Rochester, NY. As a graduate student, he also has been a part of many film projects, including Animation Supervisor on the Coca-Cola Refreshing Films advert in which he and his team worked on an animated portion of the project's commercial and multiple other roles (i.e. key frame animator, inbetweener, clean up artist, VFX artist) helping students tell their stories. He’s most excited to make films because it acts as a medium for storytelling. Specifically, working with those who want to tell their stories but don’t necessarily have the means to. After studying at MCC, Nguyen received his BS in Creative Writing at SUNY Brockport and his Masters of Fine Arts in Animation from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

• Friday, February 13, 2026
• Workshop and Conversation: 9 to 9:50 a.m., Location and Zoom Link TBA (please contact Maria Brandt for further information)
• Free and Open to the Public

Kai Coggin (she/her) is the Inaugural Poet Laureate of Hot Springs, AR, and author of five collections, most recently Mother of Other Kingdoms (Harbor Editions, 2024). Coggin is a recipient of a 2024 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship, along with an INTERCHANGE Community Grant, and the 2023 Don Munro Leadership in the Arts Award for Visionary Service. Her poems have been published in POETRY, Academy of American Poets, Best of the Net, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. Coggin is a Certified Master Naturalist, a K-12 Teaching Artist in poetry with the Arkansas Arts Council, and host of the longest running consecutive weekly open mic series in the country—Wednesday Night Poetry. She lives with her wife in a peaceful valley, where they tend to wild ones and each other. www.kaicoggin.com

• Poetry Reading: Tuesday, April 14, 2026, 7 to 8:00 p.m., The Forum
• Poetry Workshop: Wednesday, April 15, 2026, 12 to 12:50 p.m., 8-200
• Free and Open to the Public

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Through engaging storytelling and interactive elements, this theatrical experience highlights the interplay between architecture and capitalism, encouraging a deeper understanding of how our built environment shapes societal values and is influenced by economic forces. In this collaboration between RoCo and MCC, game theory dynamics will immerse audiences into collaborative decision making and strategy as they move about an interactive game board that is influenced by Rochester’s architecture.

• Friday, September 12, 6:00 p.m.
• Saturday, September 13, 6 p.m.
• Friday, September 19, 6:00 p.m.
• Saturday, September 20, 6:00 p.m.
• Location: Park next to ROCO (137 East Avenue)
• Cost: Free

Pushed to the boiling point, three female coworkers concoct a plan to get even with the sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot they call their boss. In a hilarious turn of events, Violet, Judy and Doralee live out their wildest fantasy – giving their boss the boot! While Hart remains "otherwise engaged," the women give their workplace a dream makeover, taking control of the company that had always kept them down. Hey, a girl can scheme, can't she?

• Friday, November 21, 2025, 7:30 pm
• Saturday, November 22, 2025, 7:30 pm
• Sunday, November 23, 2025, 2:00 pm
• Cost: 
• $8.00 MCC Students
• $10.00 MCC Community
• $12.00 General Public
• Location: MCC Theatre (Robin and Tim Wentworth Arts Building 4)

The Eureka Day School in Berkeley, California, is a bastion of progressive ideals: representation, acceptance, social justice. In weekly meetings Eureka Day’s five board members develop and update policy to preserve this culture of inclusivity, reaching decisions only by consensus. But when a mumps outbreak threatens the Eureka community, facts become subjective and every solution divisive, leaving the school’s leadership to confront the central question of our time: How do you build consensus when no one can agree on truth?

• Friday, March 27, 2026, 7:30 p.m.
• Friday, March 28, 2026, 7:30 p.m.
• Friday, March 29, 2026, 2:00 p.m.
• Cost:
• $8.00 MCC Students
• $10.00 MCC Community
• $12.00 General Public
• Location: MCC Theatre (Robin and Tim Wentworth Arts Building 4)

You know what Dragons really love? Tacos of course! A boy and his dog are watching a TV show about dragons when they unexpectedly get caught up in the ‘Dos and Don’ts’ of what to serve to dragons to eat. Dragons love tacos, but if they accidentally eat spicy salsa…watch out!

• Wednesday, May 20, 2026, 6:30 pm
• Cost: Free
• Location: MCC Theatre (Robin and Tim Wentworth Arts Building 4)

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Formed in 2004, The Sixth Act provides co-curricular support for the study of drama across disciplines at MCC. To this end, The Sixth Act (1) develops co-curricular events and materials for MCC faculty and students, especially those who might teach or study plays or playwriting, and (2) provides enrichment opportunities to encourage all MCC faculty, students, and staff to see and talk about plays produced at MCC and in the Rochester area. The Sixth Act seeks as its leaders faculty, staff, and students drawn from a variety of academic disciplines and departments. The Sixth Act is supported by MCC’s Creative Arts Committee and School of Humanities and Social Sciences. For more information visit the Sixth Act webpage or contact Maria Brandt at mbrandt@monroecc.edu. 

Jonathan Spector is a playwright based in Oakland, California whose work has been produced on and off Broadway, regionally, and internationally. His plays include Eureka Day (NY Times Critics’ Pick, Glickman Award, Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award, Rella Lossy Award, WhatsOnStage Award nom., Drama League Award nom.); This Much I Know (Glickman Award, Bay Area Theater Critic Circle Award, Edgerton Award); Birthright; Best Available; and Siesta Key. Spector’s plays have been produced at theaters including Manhattan Theater Club, The Old Vic/Sonia Friedman Productions, Aurora Theater, Hampstead Theater, Theater J, Miami New Drama, Asolo Rep, Syracuse Stage, InterAct, Shotgun Players, Mosaic Theater, Colt Coeur, Just Theater, the State Theater of South Australia and The National Theater of Austria, among others. He is currently under commission with Manhattan Theater Club, Roundabout Theater Company and La Jolla Playhouse.

• Tuesday, April 21, 2026, 7 to 8:00 p.m., Black Box Theater, Reading and Conversation
• Wednesday, April 22, 2026, 10 to 10:50 a.m., Black Box Theater, Interdisciplinary Theatre Workshop
• Wednesday, April 22, 2026, 12 to 12:50 p.m., 8-200, Playwriting Workshop
• All Events Free and Open to the Public

• Thursday, May 8, 2025, at 7:00 pm
• Black Box Theater
• Free and Open to the Public

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All Concerts are held in the MCC Theatre, Robin and Tim Wentworth Arts Building, Building 4. Free and open to the public.

• Tuesday, October 14, 2025, 2:00 pm
• Tuesday, March 3, 2026, 2:00 pm
• Wednesday, May 6, 2026, 7:30 pm

• Wednesday, December 3, 2025, 7:30 pm

• Wednesday, October 15, 2025, 1:00 pm
• Wednesday, October 15, 2025, 2:00 pm (Tributones)
• Wednesday, March 4, 2026, 1:00 pm
• Wednesday, March 4, 2026, 2:00 pm (Tributones)
• Wednesday, May 13, 2026, 7:30 pm (Combined Vocal Concert)

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