Theatre Alums and Faculty Bring Eudora Welty to the Stage With New Play
Open gallery
As a student, Beck Farris ’23 didn’t need long to figure out Professor Emerita of Theatre Arts Haila Strauss’s teaching style—it was clear even over Zoom, where Farris danced their way through Strauss’s “Movement for Actors” class during the pandemic.
“She was so detail-oriented and kind—the word that immediately comes to mind is ‘considerate,’” said Farris, who earned a BA in Writing for the Stage and a BFA in Acting. “I’ve been in classes with her where if a kid came in walking a bit strangely, she would say, ‘Did you fall? Do you need to sit out of class today?’ She was very conscious of everyone’s needs.”
Strauss, a choreographer who has taught at MMC since 1979, has long been a pillar of the College’s performing arts curriculum, helping to launch and lead the Dance and Musical Theatre programs. In recent years, she has worked with faculty colleagues to develop Theatre’s Intimacy Education and Direction program, where she continues to teach part-time. Farris respected Strauss and her approach to craft so much that for two years, they served as her TA.
Since those days at 71st Street, however, Farris has been learning to interact with their former instructor in an entirely new way: not as a student or assistant, but as Strauss’s professional collaborator on a theatre project. Indeed, they are part of a long tradition at MMC in which professors not only maintain connections with alums but also publish, produce, and create with them.
Farris and Strauss, along with the Bulgarian dancer Albena Kervanbashieva and Donna M. Cribari, a composer who taught at MMC for 35 years, have been staging a physical theater adaptation of “Why I Live at the P.O,” one of Eudora Welty’s most famous short stories. First published in 1941, the story is a satirical monologue narrated by a young Southern woman who recounts the family tensions that drive her to leave home and move into the small-town post office where she works.
Their adaptation encompasses movement, dance, mime, music, and spoken word, with Farris and Kervanbashieva portraying the story’s five principal characters and original music composed and orchestrated by Cribari. Strauss serves as both director and lead choreographer.
They debuted the play in 2024 at PhysFestNYC, a 10-day festival of physical theatre, as well as in a special performance on campus. This spring, they took the project to the Eudora Welty International Conference in Mississippi as part of the writer’s 116th birthday celebration, showcasing it for those who know Welty’s work best.
“The story resonates with so many people from so many different walks of life,” Farris said. “It’s really just been a dream project.”
Cribari, Farris, and Strauss aren’t the only members of the MMC community to have worked on the play; within the last several years, dozens of alums, faculty members, and current students have helped to mold it, from acting in early performances to contributing to sound design and video recordings. That includes Theatre Adjunct Professor Prather Rehm, who served as a cultural consultant for Southern humor and lifestyle, and Professor Emerita of Theatre Arts Barbara Adrian, who provided voice and speech coaching to help the performers perfect their Southern accents.
Support from Mary Fleischer, a Theatre professor and chair of Visual and Performing Arts, and Theatre Arts Department Chair Jill Stevenson was also crucial in making the piece performance-ready. “When I went through the list of people who helped bring the project to life, I thought, oh my gosh, this wouldn’t have happened unless I had all this support at Marymount,” Strauss said.
Strauss began work on the project in 2021, the same year she retired from teaching full-time at MMC, after a friend, the award-winning composer Raphael Crystal, suggested she take a closer look at Welty’s story. Strauss had worked on Welty material before—she choreographed the regional premiere of The Robber Bridegroom, a musical based on a Welty novella, at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta—and was a fan.
“I love choreographing comedy, and there’s a sense of whimsy and a dry humor that underpins all of Welty’s work,” Strauss said. “Within that humor, too, is so much pathos and true human behavior in how her characters interact and move in the world.”
She brought the project to Kervanbashieva and Cribari, both longtime collaborators. They tackled the script together, working through the pandemic over Zoom. “We were in three different locations—Albena would dance in her living room, and somehow I was able to choreograph,” Strauss said. “Then I would say to Donna, ‘Let’s try this type of music or this type of tempo.’ I think we worked for about a year and a half before we were all in the same spot.”
Around that time, Strauss, who had served as the play’s narrator, asked Farris to join the cast as her understudy. By then, Farris had largely put acting on the back burner and rarely auditioned for roles, shifting their focus to playwriting. Their full-length play, Employee of the Month, was a semifinalist for the 2025 SheNYC Theatre Festival, and they’ll perform a reading of new work in November as part of a cohort of artists at Ghost Light Theater Company. “What I discovered in college is that while I love acting, it’s not the performance itself that draws me in,” they said. “I like the community and working together with others to tell a story that I think is important.”
“Why I Live at the P.O.” was the rare sort of play Farris could commit to as a performer: “It’s a project that I love with people I love working with. And it’s a story that I think is worth telling.” Indeed, the piece—and the circumstances that lead its main character, Sister, to move away from home—deeply resonated with Farris as a native of Bastrop, Texas, a small conservative town. “I love my parents, but I don’t feel comfortable in that part of the country anymore,” they said.
With Farris on board, the play took off in exciting ways. Strauss moved squarely into the director’s role, and instead of having one main narrator, Farris and Kervanbashieva both took on dancing and acting responsibilities.
As Strauss’s collaborator, Farris got to experience even more of what they appreciated about their former teacher in the classroom. “She is so specific with movement in a way that is exciting to work with as an actor,” they said. “I saw it when she was my professor, but it’s come out even more through this process. We’ll work on a one-and-a-half-minute-long movement sequence for three rehearsals, where we’ll go, ‘Oh, wait, what if we breathed at this moment,’ or ‘What if we moved our hand here?’ Just these tiny little tweaks that can make a piece of theater so much richer and funnier.”
The changes have gone over well with audiences, particularly at the Welty conference, which was held in Welty’s hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. Strauss had pitched the adaptation to event organizers, who jumped at the idea; the play was the only rehearsed theatrical piece performed at the event. “Up until then, we’d been performing it in New York City with these audiences who understand it and laugh at it but don’t have as much of a connection to the material,” Farris said. “I was nervous when we went to Mississippi, especially because we were performing it in front of these Eudora Welty scholars, but they were the best audience that we’ve ever had.”
The talk-back after the play was a testament to how locked in the audience was. At other performances, Q&As have typically lasted 10 minutes; at the conference, it went on for well beyond 30 minutes. “They had so much to say—not just questions, but comments and suggestions for other Welty stories we should read,” Farris said.
The cast also got to know the author’s legacy more intimately, meeting Welty’s official biographer and celebrating Welty’s birthday in the author’s former home. Now, the team is looking to take the play to new venues and further refine the work. “There are always more places to go with this piece—it’s so alive in the way that we work on it, and we’re always challenging each other to make it better,” Farris said. “A month before our Mississippi performance, we were emailing Donna to add 30 seconds to a piece of music because we wanted to add in another physical comedy bit.”
Moreover, as conference scholars suggested, the team may consider performing other stories from Welty’s oeuvre. “I do think there’s a possibility that we will adapt other short stories in the way that we’ve adapted this one, just because it has been such an enriching experience for everyone involved,” Farris said.
If they do, the new project would likely involve alums and faculty, just as their current play has. “That’s one thing about Marymount,” Farris said. “I love the way we all support each other. There’s a really beautiful care for each other that I think we have as a community, and it makes me so happy.”
Published: June 25, 2025
Alums shine at 2026 Tony Awards
What do we love best about the Tonys? Spotting members of the MMC community on and off stage! The College was well represented at the 79th Annual Tony Awards ceremony on June 7—congratulations to all those who performed, presented, won awards, earned nominations, and worked behind the scenes on Broadway’s biggest night. Here are some of the familiar faces we saw.
