CLAUDIA STEVENS PERFORMS “DREADFULLY SORRY, GUYS” AT FERRUM

March 2 , 2004

        Ferrum College presents the one-person Holocaust drama, “Dreadfully Sorry, Guys” written and performed by Claudia Stevens on Monday, March 15 at 7:30p.m. in the Sigmon Recital Hall in Grousebeck Auditorium.   The event is open to the public.   A reception will follow the performance.

         “Dreadful Sorry, Guys” is a one-person drama acted by Claudia Stevens.   A reaction to the 1999 California murder of her friend Gary Matson and his partner, “Dreadful Sorry, Guys” offers a moment of reflection on lost culture and diversity.

         Claudia Stevens is a musical and dramatic performer, whose works for the stage and solo appearances on TV and radio have earned her a significant place in the emerging field of performance art. A classical concert pianist, specializing in contemporary music, she has held academic, conducting and performing arts positions at Williams College, the University of Richmond and the College of William and Mary.   As a pianist and composer she has been presented in concert at Carnegie Recital Hall and the National Gallery, as the featured artist on several “Performance Today on NPR”   broadcasts, and she has recorded for and published compositions in Perspectives of New Music.   She is a recognized scholar of Robert Schumann, as well as twentieth-century American music.   Manuscripts and documents relating to her career as pianist and new music advocate are now in the collections of the Aaron Copland House, New York, and Special Collections at Swem Library, College of William and Mary.   She has received multiple grants from the International Theatre Institute as well as the Virginia Commission for the Arts and a special NEA “New Forms” grant, among others.   Several of her original works for the stage have been published in the journal Exquisite Corpse, most recently in Fall-Winter 2003-2004.

         In the last three years, she has performed at more than 35 colleges in the U.S., as well as multiple theaters, synagogues, and museums, including the Houston Holocaust Museum and the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond.   Stevens last performed at Ferrum College in March 2003 in her one-person drama “A Table Before Me.”

      Ferrum College is a four-year, private, co-educational, liberal arts college affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Ferrum offers a choice of nationally recognized bachelor’s degree programs at a cost well below the national average for private colleges. For more information on Ferrum, visit www.ferrum.edu.