Fordham Alumni Company to Present THE SUMMONERS, An Army Play & More

Back for its sixth summer, the Fordham Alumni Company will present six theatre and dance-pieces, each with a connection to Fordham Alumni. From a pool of over thirty applicants, these works were granted rehearsal space and time, as well as a culminating workshop performance at Fordham's Lincoln Center campus. All performances will be presented at the Veronica Lally Kehoe Theater at Fordham College at Lincoln Center (113 W. 60th St., NYC). Admission is free. For reservations, e-mail FordhamAlumniCompany@gmail.com.

Friday, August 2, 8:00 p.m.

AND YOU INVENTED ME, AND I INVENTED YOU

a new dance piece by Fordham Alvin Ailey Alum, Alexis Convento

Company: Alexis Convento & Artists

Artistic Director, Choreographer + Performance Artist: Alexis Convento

Assistant to Artistic Director: Elise Ritzel

AND YOU INVENTED ME, AND I INVENTED YOU is an exploration into the psyche of a woman in doubt, witnessing but only for a brief moment in time, the feelings of submissiveness, emptiness and mystery, with both herself and with her spectators. Honest character development intertwined with contemporary dance movement within improvisational score, allows the artist the opportunity to investigate and discover a deeper emotional understanding of who this woman is and can be.

Saturday, August 3, 1:00 p.m.

OCCUPY TEXAS

A reading of a new screenplay by Fordham Alum, Gene Gallerano

Directed by Fordham Alum, Jeff Barry

Featuring performances by Fordham alum, Luke Robertson (DECEPTION, THE GOOD WIFE) along with Mark Boyett (ROYAL PAINS, LAW & ORDER: SVU), Susan Ferrara, Karlee Fomalant, Alexander Kikis, Kaitlyn Jane Kurowski, Christiana Nelson, and Marisa Parry

After 12 years away from home and news of his parents' death, a disillusioned Occupier is forced from his tent in Zuccotti Park to upper-middle class Texas, where he must repair his two teenage sisters, his past, and himself.

Saturday, August 3, 8:00 p.m.

HALF RIGHT, AN ARMY PLAY by Fordham Alum, Jason Pizzarello Directed by Michelle Bossy, Associate Artistic Director of Primary Stages

Featuring performances by Fordham Alum and students Ben Diserens, RJ Foster, RJ Valliencourt, and Daniel Velasco along with Waymon Arnette, Omar Maskati, and Keith Randolph Smith

HALF RIGHT is a post-9/11 coming-of-age story about a group of young men in Army Basic Training who suspect a fellow soldier of being a terrorist. Ultimately a study of the psychology of terrorism, the play examines the tension between groupthink and individuality, between rational and emotional reactions under duress, and between morality and immorality.

Sunday, August 4, 1:00 p.m

PEACE WARRIORS a play by Fordham Professor, Doron Ben-Atar

Directed by Fordham Alum, Rebecca Etzine

Featuring Jessica Rodwick along with AnDrew Hutcheson

PEACE WARRIORS brings together four sharp-tongued academics and a precocious adolescent for a night of sparring over politics, adultery and unfulfilled dreams. It focuses on the debate over the boundaries of criticism of Israel and the involvement of Jewish intellectuals in koshering the new anti-semitism.

PEACE WARRIORS had hugely triumphant runs at the Capital Fringe Festival and New York International Fringe Festival. Time Out New York gave the play its highest rating - 5 stars, calling it "an engrossing and incisive piece of theater." The New Republic described it as "a savagely witty satire of elite American academics, and their attitudes towards the Middle East." The DCist wrote, "the disquieting mix of seductions, drama, wit, and character study offers more than enough to keep any theatergoer on The Edge of their seat." NYtheatre.com said it contains "moments of electric confrontation" and recommended readers go for an "entertaining and challenging evening in the theatre."

Sunday, August 4, 7:00 p.m.

THE SUMMONERS, a new devised work in progress by Hook and Eye Theater, with Fordham Alum, Emily Kunkel

Black clouds have blotted out the sun over Our America. A temporary break in the clouds over a small town one day gives people hope...and compels a desperate government to sequester the town's residents in a warehouse facility. At once an impressionistic flip-book of modern small-town America, and a stern reminder of the possibility of a less-than cooperative natural world, THE SUMMONERS clicks and whirrs through the world of its characters hoping to find salvation in the tiniest detail.

Featuring Hook & Eye Theater core members Carrie Heitman, Chad Lindsey, Ginny Venk, Cynthia Babak, and Emily Kunkel, and guest artists Gavin Brody and Sherri Kronfeld.