SRU students, faculty stage plays in Edinburgh, Scotland
The Slippery Rock University theatre department is taking 15 students, four faculty members and two plays to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland.
The group’s two-week trip will include staging two plays, one called “The Barwell Prophecy” by SRU theater professor David Skeele.
“Barwell” is about a small Homeland Security office set up in the basement of a condemned church. When some sort of supernatural entity invades the phones and computers, the anger and paranoia already festering erupts into something deadly.
Skeele said supernatural horror has been the group’s niche from the beginning, since more than 2,000 shows compete for audience members over the course of the 24-day festival.
Categorized in the horror and political genres, “Barwell” is described in Fringe fest literature with the final line: “Are you the watcher or the watched...?”
Students and professors from SRU have been invited to participate in the festival for the last several years, but this time, they were invited to take a second production as well.
“So we instituted a playwriting competition through Kaleidoscope Arts Festival (held in the spring at SRU), and we ended up selecting ‘Acts of Contrition’ by Pat Montleigh,” Skeele said.
“Contrition” is a series of contemporary short plays bound together by the theme of apology, Skeele said.
“Contrition” is directed by Laura Smiley, also an SRU professor.
Other faculty members going on the trip are Rebecca Morrice and Deb Cohen.
Student participants include county residents Alex Barnhart of Butler and Nick Benninger, Chelsey Grossman and Luke Chamberlain, all of Slippery Rock.
Other students participating are Ashley Orsino, Amanda Tarr, Kevin Moore, Dejah Abraham, Nick Edwards, Ethan Rochow, Liam Nute, Zach Durler, Charlene Jacka, Danielle DePalma and Aniela Schaefer.
