Elizabethtown College News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
4/17/08
Contact: Mary Dolheimer, director of marketing and media relations, 717-361-1587, dolheimerm@etown.edu
Elizabethtown College Theatre presents ‘Plays from the Limbo Project’
ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. – Elizabethtown College Theatre and the student theatre group Sock & Buskin will co-sponsor the production of “Plays from the Limbo Project” at 7 p.m., April 23 and 24, in Tempest Theatre. The event is open to the public, and admission is $3.
“Plays from the Limbo Project” is an evening of staged readings of five short plays, all of which focus on some aspect of Limbo, the Roman Catholic Church’s afterlife condition for those who die in original sin — such as unbaptized babies — without being assigned to Hell. All but one of the plays are directed by students.
Plays to be presented are “Theories in Limbo,” directed by senior history major Steve Haberman of Watertown, Conn.; “Raft of Medusa - Post Modern,” directed by junior psychology and business administration major Amanda Marfisi of Bethlehem; “The Conversation,” directed by senior elementary education major Regina Duke of Mount Laurel, N.J.; “Passing Judgment Day,” directed by Associate Professor of Theatre Michael Swanson; and “Crab Cakes,” directed by junior theatre and English major Natasha Threatts of Camden Wyoming, Del.
These plays were chosen from 60 written for a national project to showcase short plays about Limbo, inspired by recent changes in the Church’s approach to Limbo. The project was spearheaded first by the International Centre for Women Playwrights and currently by the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, both at The Ohio State University.
The Limbo plays are coordinated nationally by Alan Woods, a professor in Ohio State’s theatre department and director of the Theatre Research Institute. In sending out a call for these original plays, Woods wrote: “[Limbo] can be interpreted as broadly as needed, from the place the Roman Catholic Church used to say unbaptized babies spent eternity, to the Caribbean dance, to whatever writers can come up with.” For more information on the national project, visit http://limboplays.blogspot.com/.
Located in southeastern Pennsylvania, Elizabethtown offers its 1900 students more than 50 academic programs in the liberal arts, sciences and professional studies. Driven by its motto to “Educate for Service,” Elizabethtown centers learning in strong relationships, links classroom instruction with experiential learning, emphasizes international and cross-cultural perspectives and nurtures the capacity for lives of purpose.
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