Shakespeare inspires students to write

• By ROBIN MILLER
• Arts writer
• Published: Apr 27, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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No, please. Hasn’t everyone heard enough about Hurricane Katrina?

Nick Erickson didn’t think so, but his students were living in a different mindset. Some were survivors of the storm, and sure, they had stories.

But they were ready to move on.

This part of the story didn’t surprise Erickson. The assignment was to write a play, and the play was to reflect youthful enthusiasm. The idea was to be theirs.

And the idea somehow led them right back to Katrina. This was the part that surprised Erickson, for Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night was chosen as the inspiring text.

“When you read Shakespeare’s play, it has a direct correlation to Katrina,” Erickson said.

“His play is about loss of identity, reunion with family and finding love again after a catastrophe. It was the same for the victims of the hurricane, who were dislocated, separated from family and trying to make and re-make themselves in a new place.”

Now Erickson finds himself in the role of director of Unrequited, a piece he calls a story within a story.

Undergraduates in the LSU Department of Theater are its stars, many of them co-playwrights of the play.

Unrequited’s world premier will be Tuesday, April 29, in Hatcher Hall Theatre on the LSU campus. The play will continue to Sunday, May 4.

And it’s correct to say that this is a world premier. Erickson and his cast will take the play to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. That’s Edinburgh, as in Scotland. The festival is the largest and most renowned event for the performance of innovative theatre productions.

Erickson’s cast will earn credit through LSU’s Study Abroad program.

“They asked us if the play would be a world premier or a European premier,” Erickson said. “We had to tell them European.”