Gustavus Adolphus College

The director and cast of “Maggie’s Magical Cat & Other Catastrophes” (photo by Jake Seamans ‘10)

A group of Gustavus Adolphus College and St. Peter area students have been spending the summer inside rehearsing for a premiere performance of the play “Maggie’s Magical Cat & Other Catastrophes.” Written by Gustavus theatre professor Amy Seham and Gustavus senior Maggie Sotos, the play will be performed five times between July 31 and Aug. 10 as part of the 11-day 2008 Minnesota Fringe Festival in Minneapolis.

The 60-minute play focuses on elementary school politics and the painful, often comical life of a grade-schooler. Seham said she hopes to build on the success of last year’s Fringe production “Miranda’s Amazing Adventure,” which after the festival was invited to be performed at several venues in the area.

This year’s Gustavus-Seham production is a children’s theatre piece that was again done in collaboration with St. Peter Area Children’s Theatre (SPACT). To create the script, Seham and budding student playwright Sotos received a summer Gustavus Presidential Faculty/Student Collaboration Grant.

The performance will be presented at the Minnesota Fringe Festival Thursday, July 31 at 7 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 2 at 5:30 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 3 at 2:30 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 9 at 1 p.m., and Sunday, Aug. 10 at 4 p.m. at the University of Minnesota’s Rarig Center Xperimental.

For show specifics or to purchase tickets, visit http://fringefestival.org/2008/show/?id=797. The not-for-profit Minnesota Fringe Festival, now in its 15th year, is the Midwest’s largest performing arts festival and the largest non-juried, uncensored Fringe in the United States. The vast majority of Fringe shows are original works presented by a wide-range of local, national, and international artists.

This is Gustavus and Seham’s fifth involvement in the Fringe Festival. The cast for this summer play is as follows: Gustavus students Ella Bonner, Kimberly Braun, Christine Dornbusch, Maggie Sotos, and Amy Veerkamp, and St. Peter student Magdalena “Maggie” Morrow.