Alfred University’s Performing Arts division to produce "Department Story" in Hornell, inside former Peebles store space

Alfred University’s Performing Arts Division has teamed with Big Telly Theater Company, of Portstewart, Northern Ireland, in the production of Department Story, which will be performed in the former Peebles store space, on Hornell’s Broadway Mall, April 7, 8 and 9. Show times are 7 pm.

According to Director Eliza Beckwith, Visiting Professor of Theater at Alfred University, productions of Department Story call for site-specific theatrical spaces, as opposed to formal theaters. In Hornell, members of the audience will be free to move around the interior of the former clothing store, interacting with members of the Department Story cast. In addition, Big Telly Associate Artist Chris Robinson will join nightly performances in virtual form, appearing on a video screen while he works simultaneously in Northern Ireland.

Beckwith says the interior space of the Broadway Mall building is ideal for a site-specific production such as Department Story, and she credits the generosity of building owner A. G. Helton, of Yazoo City, Miss., with making the space available for the production. Beckwith contacted Helton, owner of Action Properties, to inquire about the availability of the space, and Helton responded to her enquiry by donating the space, with utilities, for the purpose of the production.

Department Story premiered in 2021 at the Belfast International Arts Festival as a new hybrid production by Zoe Seaton, Big Telly’s Artistic Director, and Jack Hardiker, the company’s Interdisciplinary artist. It has been described as a production that “smashes together flash theatre and physical fiction in a killer spree through a department of stories, where everything returned has a tale to tell – a talking toaster, a dress with a past, accessories after the fact.” 

Beckwith says she and Maureen Weiss, Professor of Performance Design and Technology in the Performing Arts Division, became familiar with the Big Telly Theater Company during the Covid lockdown of the 2020 Spring semester at Alfred University. They were impressed by a Big Telly production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and began a collaborative relationship with Big Telly that has led to the Department Story production in Hornell.

Next week’s production of Department Story is made possible in part by a donation to Alfred University’s Performing Arts program by University Trustee Bill Pullman and his wife Tamara, and their company Big Town Productions.