Junior Ashleigh Nankivell wins Cornell playwriting competition

Cornell's Department of Theatre, Film and Dance has announced that undergraduate student Ashleigh Nankivell has been named the winner of the 2002 Heermans-McCalmon One-Act Playwriting Contest for her manuscript, 2%. This short play turns upside down a loving family's mealtime chatter to reveal the deeper meaning of their words, yielding comical observations and an unblinking look at what passes for the truth.

2% will be presented Sunday, March 3, at 4 p.m. in the Black Box Theatre at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. The play reading is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow. For more information, call 254-ARTS.

Nankivell wrote 2% to explore "... how what we say on the surface relates to what actually goes on underneath. We only show a percentage of our true reality; we water down real life. I also wanted to play with the dichotomy of the love in the family and how closely that love mixes with their very bitter true emotional state."

This year's play will be directed by Robert Kalfin, founder of the award-winning Chelsea Theater Center, which has received five Tony Awards and 21 Obie Awards, among numerous other accolades. Last season Kalfin directed The Price starring Jack Klugman and Dan Lauria at the Coconut Grove Playhouse.

Nankivell is a Cornell Presidential Research Scholar and a junior majoring in theater with a concentration in visual arts. She has been a familiar face to Schwartz Center audiences with her roles in recent productions of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Rez Sisters, as well as her past work on numerous Black Box Series productions and as a member of the Student Lab Theatre Company. Her work as a visual artist led to a sculptural installation titled "iGirl," which combined painted computer components, wire mesh sculpture and dressed women mannequins to demonstrate how the new breed of women -- "iGirl" -- are formed by technology and must master this technology to assure their future.

The Forbes Heermans and George McCalmon Playwriting Awards were established by a bequest of Forbes Heermans (Class of 1878) and in memory of the late George McCalmon, professor of speech and drama. According to the terms of the bequest, the play should deal with some aspect of life in America.