Red River Scrapbook
Actor Claudia Stevens to perform 'Dreadful Sorry, Guys' in Oct. 19 production at Austin College
By Vickie S. Kirby, Senior Director of Editorial Communication - Austin College
Oct 19, 2007

SHERMAN, TEXAS — Actor and vocalist Claudia Stevens will perform her monodrama “Dreadful Sorry, Guys” at Austin College Friday, Oct. 19, at 7:30 p.m. in Beardsley Arena Theatre of Ida Green Communication Center. The performance is free and open to the public. 

The one-act play was inspired by the murder of Stevens’ friend, environmentalist Gary Matson, and his life partner, Winfied Mowder, in a hate crime carried out by members of the World Church of the Creator in northern California in 1999. The story has been documented on PBS’s “Frontline.”  

Stevens uses music, staging, lighting, and audience participation to tell the factual story of her friends’ experience and to explore the human impulse to destroy those who are different and the ensuing emotions and actions.

Sponsored by Austin College’s Lilly Grant for the Theological Exploration of Vocation, Department of Religious Studies, and Department of Communication Studies, the performance is a return visit to Austin College for Stevens. She performed “The Music of Auschwitz: An Evening with Madame F” on campus in March 2006.  

Associate professor of music at the College of William and Mary, Stevens holds degrees in music from Vassar College and the University of California at Berkeley and a doctorate from Boston University. Following an early career as a concert pianist and recording artist, Stevens has combined her musical talents with her skills as a playwright to create a work in one-person musical theater.  

Austin College is a leading national independent liberal arts college located 60 miles north of Dallas in Sherman, Texas. Founded in 1849, making it the oldest institution of higher education in Texas operating under original charter and name, the college is related by covenant to the Presbyterian Church (USA). Recognized nationally for academic excellence in the areas of international education, pre-professional training, and leadership studies, Austin College is one of 40 schools profiled in Loren Pope’s influential book “Colleges that Change Lives.”