Hillsdale College Tower Players Perform ‘Everyman’ and ‘I’m Not a Mourning Person’
The plays — one Medieval and one modern — invite the audience to contemplate the brevity and wonder of our lives.
HILLSDALE, Mich. — The Hillsdale College Tower Players hosted their opening performance on Wednesday of “Everyman” and “I’m Not a Mourning Person.” The two plays, one by an anonymous Medieval poet, the other by a recent Hillsdale graduate, invite the audience to contemplate the brevity and wonder of our lives.
“This performance pairs a centuries-old classic with a contemporary work by one of our own students,” said Professor of Theatre James Brandon, who directed the performance. “While the plays are different in many ways, both deal with the questions of life and mortality that humans face in every time. Together they invite the audience to reflect on these questions as they consider their own lives.”
“While the plays are different in many ways, both deal with the questions of life and mortality that humans face in every time.”
“Everyman,” an anonymous medieval play, offers a Christian allegory that prompts us to consider our own mortality.
“I’m Not a Mourning Person,” by Emily Griffith ’25, was the winning play in Hillsdale’s first biennial playwriting competition last academic year. The play follows Penny Knox as she navigates grief over several decades. As Penny matures, she learns to accept grief rather than fight it, ultimately finding solace in shared memories and the connections she builds with those still in her life.
Hillsdale students wrote one-act plays based on a quote from Frederick Douglass in his address to Hillsdale College in 1863: “There is no such thing as new truth; error might be old or new, but truth is as old as the universe.” The College hosted staged readings of plays by the three finalists, and Griffith’s winning play earned a $1,000 prize as well as this opportunity to be performed by the Tower Players.
The show is the first Tower Players production this season. Additional performances are Thursday, Oct. 2, through Saturday, Oct. 4, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 5, at 2 p.m. in Markel Auditorium. Admission is free, and no tickets are required. For more information, contact the Hillsdale College Box Office at [email protected] or (517) 607-2848.
The Tower Players are the branch of Hillsdale’s Theatre Department that produces plays, generally performing three main-stage productions each year, as well as numerous one-act and workshop productions. The group is open to all students interested in drama, regardless of major. Shows range from Shakespeare to Broadway and have included several world premieres as well as traveling shows in Toronto and Scotland.
The Theatre Department also hosts visiting artists, goes on an annual trip to the Stratford Festival in Ontario, and has taken productions to the world-famous Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Outstanding theatre students are invited to join Alpha Psi Omega, the national theatre honorary.