College of Arts & Sciences Dean Lisa Carstens Honored by New Mexico Theatre Company

A short play by Pacific University College of Arts & Sciences dean Lisa Carstens has been selected by New Mexico professional theatre company FUSION for the 11th edition of The Seven, its annual new short works festival.

One of the pre-eminent short works festivals in the nation, The Seven is a playwriting competition that stages seven fully produced world premieres annually. Each year theme suggestions are solicited from and voted upon by theatre patrons and playwrights worldwide. This year’s theme is Strange Bedfellows, which garnered submissions from 40 states and eight countries.

Carstens’ script, Future Perfect, will be staged June 9-11 at The Cell Theatre, and June 12 at The KiMo in Downtown Albuquerque. The performance features a couple whose morning banter about house hunting evolves into sparring and ends with an unexpected revelation about their marriage. The entire four-day run of The Seven is sold out.

Now entering her fifth year at Pacific, Carstens is a long-time closet writer of plays as well as short fiction. Carstens is an English professor and literary critic who has taught literature, critical theory, writing and gender studies for more than 20 years at Pacific, Virginia Wesleyan College and the University of California, Irvine. Future Perfect was previously a finalist in the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville’s 2015 National Ten Minute Play Contest.                                                                                                                

The Seven is the final production of FUSION’s 2015-2016 season, and is funded in part by the City of Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, the Albuquerque Community Foundation, the McCune Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Actors’ Equity Association, the Scott Family Foundation, the Urban Enhancement Trust Fund, Wells Fargo and New Mexico Arts/arts.gov.

For additional information, please visit  FUSIONnm.org.