Calvin Presents Kenya Theater Fundraiser

February 14, 2008 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Summary: Calvin students will present Shakespeare as a fundraiser for Kenya
on February 29 and March 1.

Full story see
http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2007-08/shakespeare-for-kenya.htm

Two student organizations at Calvin College are teaming up with The Bard to
raise funds for Kenya relief.

Student Playwright Productions (SPP) and the Social Justice Coalition (SJC)
will present "Shakespeare for Kenya" at 8 p.m. on Friday, February 29 and
Saturday, March 1 in Calvin's Lab Theatre.

Tickets are free, and all donated proceeds will target relief efforts in Kenya
in the wake of the ethnic and political upheaval there.

The production will feature 10 of Shakespeare’s most famous scenes—the
witches scene from Macbeth, Hamlet's soliloquy and the balcony scene from Romeo
and Juliet among them—performed by student actors. The scenes were chosen not
only because of their familiarity, but because of their contemporary relevance,
said Rita Feikema, a Student Playwright Productions co-chair.

The student playwrights are relying on the Social Justice Coalition to lend
their more comprehensive knowledge of the Kenya crisis to the performance,
Feikema said. The two organizations will collaborate on a lobby display about
the situation in Kenya, and an SJC member who has lived in Kenya will give a
pre-performance talk.

The students were inspired to marry their art with political conviction by the
example of another playwright who did just that: Vaclav Havel, the last
president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic.

-end-
Received on Thu Feb 14 10:48:39 2008