Adelphi Alumni Launch Two New Virtual Theatre Festivals

As the lights prepare to come back up on Broadway, the curtains will go up this spring at Adelphi University for two new fully virtual festivals created and led by Adelphi alumni.

The Spring Fever series, which will run over three weekends beginning Friday, April 16, through Sunday, May 2, will feature 12 new works featuring Adelphi alumni and faculty. The festival, created by the Adelphi Alumni Playwrights Group (AAPG), started as a workshop in June 2020 to reignite creativity among playwrights during the pandemic lockdown.

"This project is our most ambitious to date," said Megan Lohne, Adelphi alumna, founder of the AAPG and producer of the Spring Fever reading series. "The material is unique, introspective and a testament to the power of creativity during difficult times."

On Saturday and Sunday, May 1-2, the Adelphi Fellowship Playwrights Festival, produced by the newly formed Adelphi Playwriting Fellowship, will feature four new works written, directed and produced by fellows. The works, developed over the course of the pandemic, will be presented virtually at 7:30 p.m both evenings.

The four works include Fantasma de Noche or Night Ghost, written by Adelphi students Emma Scholl and directed by Fernando Mercado, about two sisters and their journey as they face secrets that threaten to tear them apart. Here I Am by Mercado and directed by Morgan Misk takes the audience on a journey through the mind of a lone astronaut as he runs through his past while drifting across the cosmos. Finally, they will present The Pact, a story about five students at a boarding school who make a pact not to kill each other until their egos reach a boiling point -- written by Samuel Kang and directed by Fernando Mercado and Nicole Sponaugle's Reverse, directed by Morgan Misk, is a story about three girls who in an attempt to achieve their dreams through witchcraft, get caught up in a mess of their own creation.

Created in July 2020 by Megan Lohne and Brittany Mills, the group's resident director, the Adelphi Playwriting Fellowship aims to create a safe space for student writers to be part of a community where playwrights can see their works on-stage and to find their own voices. It also serves as a bridge for students to seamlessly cross over from the fellowship Fellowship into the group Alumni Playwrights Group and to offer professional opportunities for writers, actors and directors.

For a complete schedule of the Spring Fever reading series and Adelphi Fellowship Playwrights Festival, visit bit.ly/4-23-21 and bit.ly/5-1-21.