TCR play festival features numerous Cornellians

Once again this year Cornell College alumni, faculty, staff, and a student will be represented during Theatre Cedar Rapids’ sixth annual Underground New Play Festival, which runs Jan. 22 through Feb. 7. Cornell theatre professor Janeve West will direct “Look for America,” written by Cornell alumnus Per Wiger ’15. M.C. Cole ’15 is a leading actor in the play, described as “Samuel Beckett meets Simon and Garfunkel.” It is about “identity, movement, stasis, and self-determination set on a bus and in the minds of characters that ride it.” Performances are Jan. 28 and Feb. 6. 

Cornell senior Luke Brooks will direct “Toilet Note,” about a man who “finds a note of apology under his toilet seat when he arrives home after a long trip.” Performances are Jan. 23, 24, and 31.

Another festival play, “For the Care and the Control of the Insane,” was written by Jen Rouse, Cornell’s consulting librarian for the arts and humanities, and features the acting of M.C. Cole ’15. The play centers on a grieving artist going through electroconvulsive therapy. In the midst of treatment, she finds herself surrounded by the spirits of iconic women, engaged in calling upon a saint to come to her aid. Performances are Jan. 30 and Feb. 6 and 7.

Roxanna Running ’06, serials assistant at Cole Library, is an actor in “World of Lovelies,” about three lost people looking for a reason to exist in a world of depression, self-consciousness, and anxiety. Performances are Jan. 22, 24, and 30.

A Cornell alumna, Leslie Charipar ’89, is artistic director of Theater Cedar Rapids.

More information is available on the Theatre Cedar Rapids website.