Student Tribune
Spring 2022 Co-Curricular Opportunities
Creative Arts and The Sixth Act are offering some fantastic co-curricular
options for faculty to consider while finalizing Spring 2022 Course
Information Sheets. Details are below. Please contact Maria Brandt at
mbrandt@monroecc.edu with any questions.
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Visiting Creative Nonfiction Writer, Nadia Owusu
Wednesday, February 16, 12 PM, CNF Workshop
Zoom Link: https://monroecommunity.zoo
m.us/j/84641175716
Recording: Nadia Owusu - reading from Aftershocks (suny.edu)
Nadia Owusu is a Ghanaian and Armenian-American writer and urbanist. She was
born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and raised in Italy, Ethiopia, England, Ghana,
and Uganda. Her first book, Aftershocks, A Memoir, topped many
most-anticipated and best-book-of-the-year lists, including The New
York Times, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue,
TIME, Vulture, and the BBC. It was a New York
Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. Nadia is the recipient of a
2019 Whiting Award. Her lyric essay, So Devilish a Fire won
the Atlas Review chapbook contest. Her writing has appeared
or is forthcoming in The New York
Times, The Lily, Orion, Granta, The Paris Review Daily, The
Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Catapult, Bon
Appétit, Travel + Leisure, and others. By day, Nadia is the
Director of Storytelling at Frontline Solutions, a Black-owned consulting firm
that helps social-change organizations to define goals, execute plans, and
evaluate impact. She is a graduate of Pace University (BA) and Hunter College
(MS). She earned her MFA in creative nonfiction at the Mountainview
low-residency program where she now teaches. She lives in Brooklyn.
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Visiting Playwright, Donna Hoke
Thursday, March 17, 7 PM, Black Box Theater, Reading and Conversation
Friday, March 18, 12 PM, 8-200, Playwriting Workshop
Please contact Maria Brandt at mbrandt@monroecc.edu for PDFs of
Hoke’s plays
Donna Hoke’s work has been seen in 47 states and on five continents.
Plays include BRILLIANT WORKS OF ART (Kilroys List), ELEVATOR GIRL
(O’Neill, Princess Grace, and Austin Film Festival finalist), SAFE
(winner of the Todd McNerney, Naatak, and Great Gay Play and Musical Contests),
and TEACH (Gulfshore New Works winner). She has been nominated for the Primus,
Blackburn, and Laura Pels prizes, and is a three-time winner of the Emanuel
Fried Award for Outstanding New Play (SEEDS, SONS & LOVERS, ONCE IN MY
LIFETIME). She has also received an Individual Artist Award from the New York
State Council on the Arts to develop HEARTS OF STONE, and, in its final three
years, Artvoice named her Buffalo's Best Writer—the only woman to ever
receive the designation. Donna served the Dramatists Guild Council since 2012,
is an ensemble playwright at Road Less Traveled Productions, blogger, moderator
of the 13,000+-member Official Playwrights of Facebook, New York
Times-published crossword puzzle constructor; children's and trivia book
author; and founder/co-curator of BUA Takes 10: GLBT Short
Stories. Speaking engagements include Citywrights, Kenyon Playwrights
Conference, the Dramatists Guild National Conference, Chicago Dramatists, the
Austin Film Festival, and a live Dramatists Guild webinar. Her commentary has
been seen on #2amt, howlround, The Dramatist, the Official
Playwrights of Facebook, Workshopping the New
Play (Applause, 2017), and at donnahoke.com.
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Sixth Act Night at
Geva, Somewhere Over the Border
Thursday, April 14, 7:30 PM, Tickets $15
Please contact Maria Brandt at mbrandt@monroecc.edu to secure
tickets
Inspired by the real-life journey of the writer’s mother (Reina
Quijada) from El Salvador to the US – and by L. Frank
Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of
Oz – Somewhere Over the Border embraces the
factual and the fantastical in its depiction of one young girl’s pursuit
of the American dream. As Reina travels north to the Mexican border, she
gathers friends, faces down dangers, and holds tight to the memory of the
little boy she left behind. Set in the 1970s and propelled by cumbia, Mexican
mariachi boleros, American rock and hip hop, this new musical is both fable and
family history – and a testament to the determination born of love.
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Fifteenth Annual Sixth Act Student Playwriting
Competition
Thursday, May 5, 7 PM, Black Box Theater
This competition encourages MCC students to write plays for an audience, to
provide MCC students a competitive venue for their scripts, to offer winning
playwrights the opportunity to see their scripts performed as staged readings
with an eye towards future play development, and to offer VaPA students the
opportunity to participate in the new-play-development process. Three winning
playwrights receive cash prizes. One winning playwright also will have his/her
play submitted to a nationwide competition. Scripts will be accepted for
consideration beginning in September.
Brandt, Maria
English/Philosophy
01/05/2022