Performance of William Luce's The Belle of Amherst by Kathleen Mulligan

Kathleen Mulligan, who teaches at the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, Ithaca College, New York, performed her one-woman production of The Belle of Amherst by William Luce at Loreto College, Kolkata on April 11, 2023. This performance was held under the aegis of the Literature and the Other Arts programme, an initiative by the Department of English, Loreto College that showcases literature in conversation with allied art forms such as music, cinema, dance, painting, and theatre. Centered around the life of the well-known nineteenth-century American poet Emily Dickinson, the play portrayed Dickinson’s ardent desire to write and her pangs of grief and separation upon experiencing loss. With vivid expressions, Kathleen Mulligan brought to life the passion Dickinson felt so strongly towards poetry. The students of the Departments of English and Bengali as well as the Department of B.Ed. watched the play. The performance was followed by an interactive session with Kathleen Mulligan where she responded to questions and comments about her research on Emily Dickinson prior to playing the character, her reading of Dickinson’s poems, and her ongoing endeavours as a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar in India.