Westminster professor’s play to be in showcase

By Denise Dick

Staff report

new wilmington, pa.

“Language Barrier,” a play written by Dr. Andrew Ade, Westminster College associate professor of English, has been accepted for production in the seventh annual Theatre Festival in Black and White, the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company’s fall showcase.

The showcase is for new one-act plays by Pittsburgh-area writers.

“Language Barrier” is the story of two collaborating women graduate students whose blossoming friendship is destroyed after an undergraduate student reveals a personal secret during a campus office visit.

“I wanted to dramatize how a galvanizing sociopolitical issue can divide people in otherwise strong human relationships due to their refusal to compromise their opposing ideological positions,” Ade said.

The first reading of “Language Barrier” was at Westminster in February 2009.

The roles of the graduate students were read by Helen Boylan, Westminster associate professor of chemistry, and Pamela Richardson, Westminster assistant professor of mathematics. Kirstyn Gecina, a 2010 Westminster graduate, read the part of the undergraduate student, and Chelsea Gallo, a junior theater and communication studies major, read the stage directions.

Ade completed the final rewrite of the play during a residency fellowship at Hambridge Center in Georgia over the summer. It will be performed in repertory for eight performances over three weekends beginning Oct. 15. Visit www.pghplaywrights.com for performance times and other information.

“It’s exciting to think that, half a dozen rewrites later, this play that began at Westminster will now be produced in Pittsburgh’s Cultural District,” Ade said.

This is the second of Ade’s plays to be accepted at the Theatre Festival in Black and White. “A Question of Taste” won Best Play honors in 2007.

Ade, who has been with Westminster since 2003, earned an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and master’s and doctorate from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.