Sarah Congress, Executive Assistant to the Deans and Manager of Academic Administration at the School of the Arts, has had her play, A Thanksgiving to Remember, published in Borderless Thalia: A Multilingual, Pandemic Comic Collection. Edited by Catalina Florina Florescu, Borderless Thalia is an anthology of comedic plays written exclusively by female playwrights. The Drama Book Shop is hosting a conversation with Florescu, Congress, and several other contributors on May 16, 2023.
Borderless Thalia was inspired by the need to use comedy as a mechanism for coping with the many unknowns during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the collection, the full English text of each play is accompanied by shorter segments of the text translated into various languages. The anthology intends for readers to engage theatrically with diverse languages and momentarily forget about borders and the politics of separation—through writing in multiple languages, Florescu hopes that readers can be together, laugh, show solidarity, and move forward from the devastation of COVID-19.
The collection is named after Thalia, the Greek goddess of comedy. Florescu explained that she wanted the anthology to put Thalia in the spotlight, while also empowering contemporary female voices.
Sarah Congress currently works as Executive Assistant to the Deans and Manager of Academic Administration at the School of the Arts, and she holds a BFA in Dramatic Writing from SUNY Purchase. In June of 2023, her ten-minute play, Overdose, will be produced as part of the Downtown Urban Arts Festival at Playwrights Horizons. Congress’s play KARMA will be produced this winter in the Queen’s Secret Theatre One-Act Play Festival. Other recent projects include two productions of DRACULA...in DENVER! (2022 Secret Theatre One Act Play Festival and 2022 Your Worst Nightmare Theatre Festival). In 2021, Congress’s play FRESH KILLS also participated in the Downtown Urban Arts Festival. Her full-length play The Angel Manual was read in the 2021 HB Studio Playwright's Reading Series. Congress is also a conversation writer for Catalia Health.
Tickets for the Borderless Thalia conversation at The Drama Book Shop can be found here.
