The Student News Works Festival is an event in which F&M’s dance and theatre departments partner up with the Writers House to display student’s creative work. celebrating and showcasing student writers, performers, and alumni. from February 29th to March 2nd, this was the second annual Student New Works Festival in Green Room Theatre. The festival was truly amazing and I enjoyed it very much. SNWF had an overwhelming amount of people who applied to be part of the festival. Sarah Nicell ’24, Olivia Schmid ’24, EJ Gormley, MJ Mancini ‘27, Sophia Mazzella, and Isabel Hoin are on the committee for this year’s festival. F&M students thrive on campus and are talented in many different forms.
On February 29th, students presented their creative writing. Opening night was hosted by three F&M alums: Matt Barbot ’09, Kylie Logan ’18, and Jonny Teklit ’20..
Sophomore Teagan Durkin ’26, who read her work at the event, said, “The SNWF opened with a genre encompassing reading by current F&M students and alumni. Over the course of this reading, poems about love for shifting identities, the persistent grief of losing a parent or the concrete grounding of oneself, and how the Amazon CEO will be rotting in hell were read to raucous applause.” The piece that Teagan presented was “ I Want a Good Haircut”. The poem “explored the nuances of want in terms of a haircut, as well as a platonic or romantic relationship.”
As Teagan told us, many people presented their poems of many topics. A few of the other people who read at the festival were Annabelle Smith ‘27, Natalie Richards ‘27, Mark Barbot ‘09, Nora/Francis Williams ‘26, Berkeley Frost ‘25, Kylie Logan ‘18, Fiorella Comparini Donoso ‘24, Natalie Gackoka ‘27, Jonny Tekit ‘20, Lousia Esposito ‘24 and Aislinn/Amadeus Wallin ‘24.
On March 1 and 2nd, audience members watched a student-written play called The Craigslist: Missed Connections, which got many laughs from the audience. Students who wrote the play were Ella Borghi, Olivia Clay, Cal Curran, Vienna Greenlee-Brown, Emily Hanson, Christopher Mayo, Jake Miller, Andrew Rosica, Noah Salmanson, Maggie Shaw, and Ryan Squires. Cast members include Samantha Correa ‘24, Sarah Forkin ‘25, Eesha Gupta ‘26, Jake Miller ‘24, Hope Clarke ‘27, Faris Grbic ‘27, Max Pisetzner ‘27, Sora Reynolds ‘27, Keith Wattenbarger ‘26, and Nora/Francis Williams ‘26.
Jake Miller, one of the playwrights for the play, said that one of his favorite scenes was Frankie Wyoming. This love scene included both Jake Miller and Sam Correa. Frankie Wyoming kept yelling at Samantha and wanted to take her to Wyoming.
Professor Brian Silverman teaches the playwriting class. The play was enthralling and ridiculously funny and took about six weeks to put together. Jake starts writing his scenes in chronological order. I asked Jake about his favorite play that he was part of and he said “Heathers” which he directed. F&M’s theatre department is staff-led but student-written but F&M players are student-led and student-written.
Freshman Anika Singhal is a Staff Writer. Her email is asingha1@fandm.edu