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In celebration of Women’s History Month and the 40th anniversary of co-education at Lafayette, College Theater will present a multimedia staged reading of Hear Me Roar: First Among Men at 8 p.m. March 3-5 in the Williams Center for the Arts.
Directed by Kelly Hess ’08, an equity stage manager in New York City, the play was adapted and written by English major Kelcie Mohr ’11 (Coopersburg, Pa.) and Michael O’Neill, associate professor of English and director of theater. It is based upon We Were Pioneers, a 2003 production scripted by Amanda Roth ’04 and Kamaka Martin ’04.
We Were Pioneers originated from The Lafayette College Archives Oral History Project. Over the course of two years, 50 African American and female alumni from the late 1960s and early 1970s were interviewed about their experiences during a remarkable period of social change on campus. The play was written and produced by the student interviewers and featured excerpts from the oral histories.
Hear Me Roar includes much of the original material, but also features new interviews with faculty and staff members who were on campus in 1970, as well as with current students. Unlike the original play, which featured only words taken verbatim from interviews, the adaptation includes created scenes and characters that dramatize the oral histories. Additional historical material is also engagingly peppered throughout the new production using narrators, projected memorable images from College Hill and the world, and musical hits from the era.
Tickets are $2 for students, $3 for Lafayette faculty and staff and for students at LVAIC schools, $5 for alumni, and $6 for the public. They can be obtained by calling the Williams Center box office at (610) 330-5009.
A pre-show presentation and reception will be held from 6-7:45 p.m., Saturday, March 5, in Wilson Room, Pfenning Alumni Center. Hess, O’Neill, and others involved in the production will discuss the play.