Fordham Notes: Student Play Honored in Theater Festival

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

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

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In the picture above:

Top Row, from left to right: Matt Van Orton GSB '12, Dennis Flynn FCRH '12, Michael Prate FCRH '13, Steven Federowicz (Musician) FCRH '13, Stephen Tyson FCRH '14

Second Row, from left to right: Michael Dahlgren FCRH '14, Michelle Flowers FCRG '13, Megan Beaty FCRH '12, Terence Petersen FCRH '13.

Bottom row, from left to right: Johnny Kelley FCRH '13, Ryan Hage GSB '12, Steve Scarola (Musician) GSB '13, Justin Clark FCRG '14