Furman Theatre Department Presents "Marvin's Room"
"Marvin's Room," a serio-comedy by the late Scott McPherson, will be presented by the Department of Theatre Arts in February. The play is about a family coping with cancer while overcoming their fears with love. In this heart-warming story Bessie, a woman with leukemia, must ask her estranged sister if she will donate bone marrow to save her life. Jay Oney directs the Furman production.

Rhett Bryson manages the scenery and Kathleen Gossman serves as the costume designer. Praised by The New York Times as "…one of the funniest plays of the year as well as one of the wisest and most moving," "Marvin's Room" won an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Off-Broadway Play and a Drama Desk Award for Best New Play. Later, it was developed into a feature film starring Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio, Hume Cronyn and Robert De Niro.

Tickets are $12 for general admission and $8 for senior citizens and students. To purchase tickets, contact the Theatre Box Office at 294-2125.

 

Watson publishes book about unconventional 'Egerton Genesis'
Carolyn Watson and her mother, Mary Coker Joslin, have published a book on the Egerton Genesis, an unconventional pictorial account of the Book of Genesis that was produced in the 14th century but not discovered until the 20th.

The Egerton Genesis, published by the British Library and University of Toronto Press, is part of the British Library's series entitled "Studies in Medieval Culture." Watson, who holds A.B., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been a member of the Furman art faculty since 1989. Joslin, an independent scholar, taught French at Saint Augustine's College in Raleigh, before retiring.

The Egerton Genesis contains 149 illustrations of the Book of Genesis. The imagery is highly unusual in displaying the foibles and weakness, as well as the virtues, of patriarchs and prophets. About half of the pictures are accompanied by explanatory texts written in Old French.

 

Kilstofte selected as finalist for composer's award
Mark Kilstofte has been selected as one of four finalists for The Dale Warland Singers' 2002 Choral Ventures, a program that encourages the creation of new choral works by talented, emerging composers.

The finalists were chosen from more than 250 applicants from 43 states. The Dale Warland Singers, a 40-voice professional choir based in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., is one of the world's foremost a capella choral ensembles. The group has sponsored the Choral Ventures program since 1987.

Each finalist will be awarded a $1,500 commission to write a work to be premiered at the Choral Ventures Reading Session May 14 in St. Paul. Following the reading session, one composer will be chosen to receive a $7,000 commission for a new work to be premiered on a Dale Warland Singers 2003-04 subscription concert.

As a composer, Kilstofte has received grants and fellowships from the Copland Heritage Association and the MacDowell Colony. Most recently, he received the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.