Reading by Grand Valley State University creative writing professor Amorak Huey, a widely published poet and former Grand Rapids Press assistant sports editor whose most recent collection is Ha Ha Thump. Followed by a poetry and short fiction open mike
Mar. 8: All invited to read and discuss their poetry or short stories. Bring about 6 copies of your work to share. Hosted by local poets and former college English teachers Joe Kelty and Ed Morin.
Mar. 22: Readings by Jennifer Clark, a Kalamazoo poet who has a forthcoming 2nd collection Johnny Appleseed: The Slice and Times of John Chapman, and InsideOut Literary Arts Project (Detroit) interim director and Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Detroit project coordinator Alise Alousi, whose work is featured in Inclined to Speak: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry. Followed by a poetry and short fiction open mike.
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7-9 p.m., Crazy Wisdom, 114 S. Main. Free. 665-2757
RC students present an original play that has been conceived, written, and rehearsed within the past 24 hours.
Mar. 17 & 18. RC students present the acclaimed contemporary NYC-based playwright David Adjmi’s award-winning 2012 tragicomic satire of the empty-headed narcissism of the congenitally rich in the guise of the daily life of the doomed queen on the eve of the French Revolution.
8 p.m., Keene Theater, East Quad, 701 East University. Free. 647-4354.
Mar. 17 & 18. RC students present the acclaimed contemporary NYC-based playwright David Adjmi’s award-winning 2012 tragicomic satire of the empty-headed narcissism of the congenitally rich in the guise of the daily life of the doomed queen on the eve of the French Revolution.
8 p.m., Keene Theater, East Quad, 701 East University. Free. 647-4354.
RC drama instructors Martin Walsh and Kate Mendeloff’s students direct and perform 8 short plays by Ives, an acclaimed contemporary American playwright best known for his one-act comedies.
7:30 p.m., RC Keene Theater, East Quad, 701 East University. Free. 647-4359.
Literati is pleased to partner with the University of Michigan’s Sweetland Center for Writing and WCBN Radio for the latest installment of Word^2: Writer to Writer, a series which puts a UM professor and member of the Sweetland faculty in conversation about writing.
This month, Writer to Writer welcomes Clare Croft, a historian, theorist, and dramaturg working at the intersection of dance studies and performance studies. She specializes in 20th and 21st century American dance, cultural policy, feminist and queer theory, and critical race theory. In all of these areas, Croft considers how dance is a way of thinking and a mode for asking questions. What does it mean to acknowledge that people have bodies and that they use their bodies to make meaning, create community, and critique social structures?
Croft’s current book project, Funding Footprints: Dance and American Diplomacy (Oxford University Press), examines the history of U.S. State Department funding of international dance tours. Croft’s writing about dance has appeared in Dance Research Journal, Theatre Journal, and Theatre Topics, and is forthcoming in Dance Chronicle. From 2002-2005, Croft was a regular contributor to The Washington Post, and from 2005-2010, she covered dance, as well as theatre and musical theatre, for the Austin American-Statesman.
In 2010, Croft’s article, “Ballet Nations: The New York City Ballet’s 1962 U.S. State Department-Sponsored Tour of the Soviet Union,” received the American Society of Theatre Research’s Biennial Sally Banes Publication Prize, which recognizes the publication that best explores the intersections of theatre and dance/movement. Croft was also the 2007 recipient of the Society of Dance History Scholar’s Selma Jeanne Cohen Award. At the University of Michigan, Croft teaches courses in the BFA and MFA dance programs, as well as in the BFA interarts program.
Mar. 22: Readings by Jennifer Clark, a Kalamazoo poet who has a forthcoming 2nd collection Johnny Appleseed: The Slice and Times of John Chapman, and InsideOut Literary Arts Project (Detroit) interim director and Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Detroit project coordinator Alise Alousi, whose work is featured in Inclined to Speak: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry. Followed by a poetry and short fiction open mike.
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7-9 p.m., Crazy Wisdom, 114 S. Main. Free. 665-2757
Written and directed by RC Creative Writing student Clare Higgins.
AUDREY KELLAN is a brash, well-spoken but socially clueless young woman in her early twenties who has recently had to leave her university due to a dangerous “incident”. She moves back in with her mother while attending some court-mandated therapy before she is allowed back at school. Meanwhile, she finds a job at a local comic shop, befriends slacker and secret beat poet, REN, and reluctantly makes a friend or two at therapy, as well. Her tense relationship with her mother starts to lift as Audrey discovers new romance in her therapy group: a young man named ADAM who, though they have barely spoken, is bound to be her soul-mate. Meanwhile, CALEB, another young man in the group who is dealing with problems of his own tries to get closer to Audrey, to her constant rebuff, eventually earning her friendship. As Audrey becomes more connected in her hometown, she believes she is making the kind of progress others want from her. But when she is deemed still unfit to return to school, and her therapist warns her she might be making the same mistakes she made leading up to “the incident”, Audrey leans into disaster. Will she find her way out of her own chaos, or will she remain nothing but Loveless in Lakewood?
Written and directed by RC Creative Writing student Clare Higgins.
AUDREY KELLAN is a brash, well-spoken but socially clueless young woman in her early twenties who has recently had to leave her university due to a dangerous “incident”. She moves back in with her mother while attending some court-mandated therapy before she is allowed back at school. Meanwhile, she finds a job at a local comic shop, befriends slacker and secret beat poet, REN, and reluctantly makes a friend or two at therapy, as well. Her tense relationship with her mother starts to lift as Audrey discovers new romance in her therapy group: a young man named ADAM who, though they have barely spoken, is bound to be her soul-mate. Meanwhile, CALEB, another young man in the group who is dealing with problems of his own tries to get closer to Audrey, to her constant rebuff, eventually earning her friendship. As Audrey becomes more connected in her hometown, she believes she is making the kind of progress others want from her. But when she is deemed still unfit to return to school, and her therapist warns her she might be making the same mistakes she made leading up to “the incident”, Audrey leans into disaster. Will she find her way out of her own chaos, or will she remain nothing but Loveless in Lakewood?
