Date: Aug 13, 2009

Student and Alumni Members of Hofstra's Writers Club Perform Their Poetry at the Gene Frankel Theatre in Manhattan

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY … Members of the Hofstra Writers Club recently participated in a sold-out staged poetry performance on Wednesday, July 22, 2009, at the Gene Frankel Theatre in downtown Manhattan.

Words, was produced by the Carousel Theatre Company and directed and arranged by its artistic director, Kelly Feustal, Hofstra Class of 2008. She describes the performance as a “structural choral poem with a linear story.” The six students and alumni who performed in the show worked independently on their poetry with little direction. Feustal later wove a story to connect their works – a plot about a Poet plagued by writer’s block, who is visited by five muses: Time, The Aggressor, The Romantic, The Mentor and The Nymph.

The cast included:

Jacqueline Brunner (“The Nymph”) who recently graduated cum laude from Hofstra with a degree in education and creative writing. She was the co-winner of the Academy of American Poets Award and the first-place winner of the Eugene Schneider Award for Prose in 2009.

Mike D'Alto (“The Poet”) received his B.A. in English and Creative Writing from Hofstra. While he was a Hofstra student he participated in five poetry readings, receiving an Academy of American Poets Honorable Mention in 2006.

Eric Gordon (“The Mentor”) is a senior political science major at Hofstra. Specializing in spoken word poetry, he has done many readings at open mic nights, student/faculty readings, readings at exhibitions and radio stations.

Olivia Mammone (“The Romantic”) is a junior at Hofstra studying creative writing. Her work has been published in the online literary magazine WordGathering and her poem “Gray Girl” has recently been translated into German. She placed first in the poetry category of the Jeffrey Weinper Scholarship in 2008.

Nolan Meditz (“Time”) is an undergraduate creative writing and German major at Hofstra. His poetry was featured in the 2008 Fall Semester Hofstra University Student-Faculty Reading.

Matthew Adams (“The Aggressor”) has performed on stage for nearly nine years in his native Rhode Island and in New York, but Words is the first notable publication of his poetry.

Hofstra University is home to a vibrant English Department, offering graduate students a wealth of opportunities for the study of literature and creative writing. The program in English and Creative Writing offers students a wide range of workshops and independent studies in poetry, long and short fiction, playwriting and creative nonfiction. Program faculty are artists who represent each of the major literary genres.

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