JUSTICE AND INTEGRITY THAT LED TO REAL-LIFE INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE.
MENAFEE
Written and Directed by Quiara Alegría Hudes
based on the life story of Corey Menafee
During an impromptu conversation on reunion weekend, a dining hall employee learns about the contested artifact he’s been unknowingly working beneath. Suddenly, the students he loves and the college he’s dedicated his work life to take a backseat to questions about justice and integrity. Based on a true story, MENAFEE examines the shocking act that changed an institution’s history.
Saturday, July 25
Symphonic Hall at Marist University
7:00pm
This performance will be fully bilingual in American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken English.
Quiara Alegría Hudes | Playwright and Director
Hailed for her work’s exuberance and intellectual rigor, Quiara Alegría Hudes has had her writing produced and read around the world. Her debut novel, THE WHITE HOT, was named a best book of 2025 by Kirkus, NPR, and Ms. Magazine, and is longlisted for the PEN/Faulker Award for Fiction. Her 2021 memoir, MY BROKEN LANGUAGE, was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal and was One Book, One Philadelphia’s citywide read. Among Hudes’s influential stage plays are the Pulitzer-winning WATER BY THE SPOONFUL, Tony Award-winning IN THE HEIGHTS, and Pulitzer-finalist ELLIOT, A SOLDIER’S FUGUE. She has also written two films: the animated VIVO and the adaptation of IN THE HEIGHTS. Hudes has contributed essays for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Cut, The Nation, and American Theater Magazine. With her cousin Sean, she co-founded a prison writing program: EMANCIPATED STORIES. A daughter of the Puerto Rican diaspora, Quiara was born and raised in West Philly and now lives in New York.