“Writers at the Black Box,” hosted by the Boston University Creative Writing Program on March 29 at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, featured short fiction, poetry and a play written and read by Master of Fine Arts students and alumni in the program. The event showcased five writers and a myriad of current works spanning topics from art galleries to boogers.
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Colleen Hughes reads her play "The Mouse," about Disney employees and their views as expressed through Mickey and Donald | Photo by Nee-Sa Lossing The night pinnacled with the reading of The Mouse, a play by alumnus Colleen Hughes about an interaction between two Disney employees who clash in their standards of the “magic” that their employer stands for. The dialogue of the piece made it unique, a combination of lines from the characters themselves interspersed with those of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck dolls that the characters spoke through.
The Mouse is a national semifinalist for this year’s Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival’s “Ten-Minute Play” award and will also be in this year’s Boston Theater Marathon.
Graduate students Sophie Grimes, Daniel Kraines and Nicholas Leonard read poetry, while Jeff Howe read a piece of short fiction. Howe’s piece, “The Collector,” tells the story of a novice gallery curator facing moral obstacles in his first professional job.
Grimes recounted her time in China in her poem “At the Noodle Shop” and Kraines reflected on his visits to Germany in his readings. Leonard read two poems from his series about inventors who died as a result of their own inventions, and employed the use of a Venn diagram to explain the rationales and motivations of poets versus critics.
The BU Creative Writing Program hosts many events throughout the year. To find a full event calendar, visit http://www.bu.edu/writing/calendar. The Boston Theater Marathon is a festival showcasing 10-minute plays by New England playwrights. To find out more about the Boston Theater Marathon and the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, visit www.bu.edu/bpt/btm.html.
