Alfred University News

"Department Story" opens in Hornell with support from Alfred University Trustee Bill Pullman, Big Town Productions

Department Story, a collaboration between Alfred University’s Performing Arts Division and Big Telly Theater Company, of Portstewart, Northern Ireland, opened Thursday in the former Peebles store space, on Hornell’s Broadway Mall. Performances continue tonight and Saturday, April 9 at 7pm.


Department Story, a collaboration between Alfred University’s Performing Arts Division and Big Telly Theater Company, of Portstewart, Northern Ireland, opened Thursday in the former Peebles store space, on Hornell’s Broadway Mall. Performances continue tonight and Saturday, April 9 at 7pm.

Tickets are free and available here.

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.”

Director Eliza Beckwith, Visiting Professor of Theater at Alfred University 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.

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.