For Blake Ciresa ’27, organizing a theater festival on campus featuring the work of alumni offers an important bridge between the past and present — and perhaps a mirror into her own future.
“I want to become a playwright, like a lot of these alumni, so it’s really exciting to me that Kenyon has and fosters this artistic community,” she said.
As executive director of StageFemmes, Ciresa helped run the group’s biannual Alumni One-Act Festival, which took place last week in the Harlene Marley Theater. It featured the work of six playwrights in five plays put on by more than 20 current students.
The theater company seeks to showcase the talents of women in all aspects of theater while producing work that is relevant, challenging and innovative. And in this case, it also seeks to connect current students to alumni, some of whom have made careers in the field.
“We have some freshmen acting in the festival, and they get to be in touch with people who I worked with my freshman year, who have since graduated,” Ciresa said. “It’s been meaningful for me to see that and bridge the two worlds.”
The experience has been meaningful for young alumni as well.
“It’s such a wonderful, full-circle moment,” said Meredith Rupp ’19, whose play “I Stop Somewhere Waiting for You” was among the productions.
Rupp is now artistic office manager of the world-renowned Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, and she credited the broad exposure to theater that she experienced at Kenyon — including as executive director of StageFemmes — as key to launching her career.
“It’s very rare to get through a Kenyon theater education without at least trying multiple things. I was primarily an actor, but I directed, I stage managed, I costume designed,” she said. “Serving on the StageFemmes board was really the first time that I got introduced to all the arts administration involved with making good work happen. Had I not had that experience, I would not have the job that I have today or the career aspirations I do.”
There’s a distinguished line of alumni who left Gambier and made a name for themselves in the theater world. Will Arbery ’11 was a 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Drama finalist for “Heroes of the Fourth Turning, and Wendy MacLeod ’81 P’15,’17 — who now serves as the James Michael Playwright-in-Residence and Professor of Drama at Kenyon — wrote “The House of Yes,” later made into a film starring Parker Posey. Both had plays produced by StageFemmes as part of its debut alumni one-act festival in 2013.
Other Kenyon notables include Bryan Doerries ’98 H’17, who cofounded the acclaimed Theater of War Productions, which uses theater to address pressing social and public health issues, and Jacob Yandura ’09, who wrote the score for the 2023 hit musical, “How To Dance In Ohio.”
There are many others — and plenty of recent alumni who aim to add their names to the list.
Liza Borghesani ’24, a drama major who is currently pursuing an MFA in playwriting at the Lir Academy — Ireland's National Academy of Dramatic Art at Trinity College in Dublin — said opportunities for engagement between current students and alumni are essential. Her play “Nice” was part of the recent festival, and she directed a play for StageFemmes’ alumni festival when she was a student in Gambier.
“That was such a cool way to connect with alumni, and so I wanted to turn around and pay it back,” she said.
A former artistic director for the Kenyon College Players, she later interned for Emma Miller ’15 and Julia Greer ’15 — who revived StageFemmes in 2013 — at their New York City theater company, The Hearth.
“I benefited so much from meeting the older generations,” she said. “This is so important for getting those conversations going.”