New Student Play to be Staged at Fringe Festival

AJ Golio and Shannon Morrall in the February
performance at Fordham
Contributed photo

Purgatory, the land of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners atoning before going to heaven, is the setting for a new play written and performed by Fordham students.

My Personal Hell, a comedic murder mystery written and directed by Fordham College at Rose Hill senior Jonathan O'Neill, will be staged in August at FringeNYC, the largest multi-arts festival in North America.

The play, which was first produced by Fordham Experimental Theatre at Collins Auditorium, centers around Tucker Tomkins, a twenty-something photographer (played by Rose Hill junior AJ Golio) who is shot and killed. When he arrives in Purgatory, he is told that in order to get into heaven he must solve his own murder.

From the afterlife he witnesses how his friends, loved ones, and neighbors carry on in his absence, as he and two detectives try to deduce his killer. Suspicious characters include quarreling politicians, Tucker's hot-headed fiancée, his agoraphobic best friend, and pretentious journalist, among others.

O’Neill said he’s been working on the play for the last two years.

The cast of My Personal Hell at Fordham in February
Contributed photo

“It was an effort to combine traditional, large-ensemble mysteries such as Death on the Nile, And Then There Were None, and Murder on the Orient Express with a touch of post-war French drama along the lines of No Exit,” he said.

“The play has gone through another draft since our performance at Fordham in February; the characters are the same but the scenes have almost all been rewritten.”

The cast and crew of My Personal Hell features Timothy Rozmus, GSB '13, as the assistant director and includes:

From Fordham College at Rose Hill: AJ Golio, Michael Brown, James Flanagan, Shannon Morrall, Alyssa Marino, Michael Guariglia, Devin Chowske, Joseph Gallagher, Elle Crane, Sarah Hill, Giancarlo Milea, Christopher Pedro, James Murtagh, and MaryClare Demenna.
From the Gabelli School of Business: Pat McCarthy, Vincent Pellizzi, and Collin Wright.

The production takes place at Loretto Auditorium, 18 Bleeker St. in Manhattan.

Sunday, Aug. 10 at 7:45 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 17 at 3:30 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 21 at 2 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 23 at 9:30 p.m. and Sunday, Aug. 24 at 4:45 p.m.

Tickets are available at http://www.fringenyc.org/basic_page.php?ltr=M#MyPers

—Patrick Verel

Fordham's Resident "Wild Man" Is Back for More

When Matthew Maguire, the head of Fordham University's theater program, performed his one-man show "Wild Man" in January 2010, the New York Times lauded it in a review as an "affable, absorbing, buzz-inducing production."

Maguire is back again, with "Wild Man in Rome," a new incarnation of that play. Here's what he has to say about the production, which will be directed by Elizabeth Margid:

"The Wild Man runs a gauntlet to escape the Devil, and his flight takes us on special tour of the Eternal City.  Wild Man in Rome asks:  Where is our wild side and how do we unleash it?"

"Wild Man in Rome" will run November 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 23, and 24 at 8 p.m.

Wild Project

195 E. 3rd Street, between Aves A and B.

Tickets are $18, $13 for students

For tickets, visit www.thewildproject.com or call (212) 352-3101 

—Patrick Verel

Student Play Honored in Theater Festival

The cast of Cowboys Don't Sing

Cowboys Don’t Sing, an original musical created by members of the student club Fordham Experimental Theatre, was honored at the West Village Musical Theater Festival.

The play, which was written by Dennis Flynn, FCRH '12, Johnny Kelley, FCRH '13 and TJ Alcala, FCRH '13, first debuted at the Collins Auditorium’s Black Box Theater at Rose Hill in February. 

It was one of 24 plays selected for the festival, which ran from June 13 to June 17 at the Bessie Schonberg Theatre in Chelsea. After a watching a segment of the plays in the festival, members of the audience voted on the submissions. At the end of the festival, Cowboys Don’t Sing took home several awards:

For the series competition, (five shows):

Best Dead Guy: Steve Tyson; Best Actor: Matt Van Orden; Best Song: Racist Song; Best Script; Best Lyrics; and Best Direction: Dennis Flynn 

For the entire festival:

Best Lyrics; Best Script; Best Direction: Dennis Flynn; and Best Musical 

Flynn said the show, a loving parody of the standard tropes of the Westerns and musicals, had to be whittled from and hour and 45 minutes down to 15 minutes, and had to be performed without Alcala, who is in Africa. 

“It was a little weird to do it with a slightly different cast, but we’re all such good friends that it just came together,” he said. “It was fun though. I think it was received so well because we decided to go as big and fast as possible.”

—Patrick Verel

Fordham Theater Students Tapped as Broadway Show Ambassadors

When members of the Broadway League gathered at the Millennium Broadway Hotel Times Square on Tuesday, May 15 for their annual Spring Road Conference, Fordham junior Ellen Goldberg was there to greet them.

Goldberg, a theater major at Fordham College Lincoln Center specializing in set design, spoke to roughly 100 attendees on a panel about attracting new theatergoers. As part of her appearance, she read excerpts from two blog entries she wrote in late March for Broadwayworld.com. 

The posts detailed what it was like to be one of 15 students who were invited to take a peek backstage for two at the technical rehearsal of the production of Clybourne Park, which is currently playing at the Walter Kerr Theater. She was joined by the play’s producer and director.

“I thought being part of the creative process was fantastic, and Clybourne Park is one of the shows that I do theater because of, and I encourage everyone I see and meet to see it,” she said. 

The production, which Goldberg described as a sort of reverse of A Raisin in the Sun, and tackles sticky issues of reverse racism. The two days she was able to spend at the tech rehearsal altered her perception of the people who work on Broadway, which she called her ultimate goal.

“I thought they’d be more like super heroes, and these crazy insane untouchable people, but they’re just normal people,” she said. 

“It’s very similar to the tech rehearsals we have at Fordham, they just have a bigger budget and they have more people working on it.”

Along with Goldberg, Fordham contributors to the blog included: Anna Abowd, Jake Ahlquist, Zoe Allen, Emilie Amar Zifkin, Emily Auciello, Victoria Bausch, John Bezark, Quinn Coughlin, Jordana De La Cruz, Sarah Ford, Sierra Fox, Dan Geggatt, Megan Lang, Jenni Meador, Nora McNally, Sofia Montgomery, Lindsey Norman, Jacob Sexton, Emily Tabachuk and Andrew Watkin. 

To see their blog posts, visit Broadwayworld.com.

—Patrick Verel