The Newman University 18th annual Literary Festival is set to kick off on Thursday, April 20, 2017, with an opening keynote address by Dr. Tiffany Stern. Stern is the Chair of Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature at Royal Holloway University of London, a title that runs in conjunction with this year’s Shakespeare theme.
Events are scheduled to run throughout the day and into the evenings on Friday, April 21 and Saturday, April 22. These events will be held on campus in both the Jabara Flexible Theatre in the De Mattias Fine Arts Center and the Dugan-Gorges Conference Center, and include sonnet readings, play performances, round table discussions, panels and workshops with Stern.
Participants in these events range from Newman students and faculty members to members of the Wichita community, including English faculty from Wichita State University and local high schools.
There are also events scheduled as a part of the literary festival that are not related to the Shakespeare theme. Coelacanth, the literary journal constructed and produced by Newman students, will be released and students will read pieces of their work featured in the journal. The Newman University Sloppy Joes Improv Troupe will also be performing.
The entire English Department has worked together to organize the literary festival and bring to campus a unifying event that allows individuals to share their appreciation for literature.
Associate Professor of English Susan Crane, Ph.D., said that “Lit Fest gives people an opportunity to kind of pause in some ways from the daily running arounds of things, and sort of meditate a little bit on the meaning of literature in our lives.”
To find out more about Literary Festival, contact Crane at 316-942-4291, ext. 2226 or e-mail [email protected].
Schedule of Events
Thursday, April 20
Jabara Flexible Theatre in the De Mattias Fine Arts Center
7 p.m. — Dr. Tiffany Stern, Keynote Address
Friday, April 21
Dugan-Gorges Conference Center
11 a.m. — Faculty Monologues
1 p.m. — Tiffany Stern Master Class
2 p.m. — Panel: Shakespeare & Performance (Tiffany Stern, Mark Mannette, Dan Schuster, Marguerite Regan)
Jabara Flexible Theatre
3 p.m. — Shakespeare & Editing (Tiffany Stern, Fran Connor, Ed Belsan)
4 p.m. — Poetry Reading (Bryan Dietrich)
7 p.m. — “Smoking Room,” a play by Jerry Holt
8 p.m. — Sloppy Joes Improv Performance
Saturday, April 2
Jabara Flexible Theatre
3 p.m. — Shakespeare Scenes
4 p.m. — Coelacanth Literary Journal Annual Debut (Readings from the Newman student literary journal, 2017 issue)
7 p.m. — A Shakespeare Evening (Bill and Sanda Coleman)
