Manhattanville College in Purchase will host its new and unique play reading series, “Fresh Ink” on April 5, at 7:30 p.m., in the Founder”™s Ex Theatre at Manhattanville College, 2900 Purchase St., Purchase. The program will give undergraduate and graduate students, regardless of degree, the opportunity to present new plays, screenplays, musicals and other dramatic texts. It is open to the public.
Presenters can gather feedback from the audience as they continue to develop their scripts. At the same time, performing arts students can audition and gain valuable experience in the early stages of a show”™s development, which is uncommon within the bounds of a traditional performing arts program.
Theater professor Vinny Mraz produces the event each year and says the most significant part of producing Fresh Ink is getting to see and hear new student work. “Readings can be a really big first step for playwrights, so seeing that opportunity happen and getting vital feedback from the audience is so fulfilling,” he said.
This year”™s event will present “The Unhappy Family in the Empty Tomb,” written by two Manhattanville students – Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing candidate Peter Prizel and directed by undergraduate Musical Theatre sophomore Izzy Camacho. This collaboration is particularly exciting since Mraz has been working to develop this kind of interdisciplinary approach.
Manhattanville College is a small, private liberal arts institution dedicated to academic excellence, purposeful education and social justice. U.S. News and World Report ranks Manhattanville the number one private, nonprofit institution in New York among Top Performers of Social Mobility in Regional Universities North 2022 and 2023. The College, founded in 1841, serves more than 1,500 undergraduate students and nearly 1,000 graduate students from more than 44 countries and 33 states.
