This innovative play offered theatergoers a chance to take part in a story that reveals how an excess of information can alter relationships and mental well-being.
With Valentine’s Day 2025 approaching, the Adelphi University Department of Theatre’s main fall stage production, Love and Information, is worthy of a closer look. Written by renowned playwright Caryl Churchill, the play featured 10 theatre students portraying over a hundred characters in 50 scenes.
Directed by Maggie Lally, associate professor of theatre, Love and Information is a fast-moving theatrical kaleidoscope exploring the characters as they try to make sense of what they know and what they find out, tackling what it means to be human in a modern world between the concepts of love and information. The play takes an unfamiliar approach: The fragmented narrative and lack of a central plot encourages the audience to actively piece together what they’re seeing on stage.
Since the numerous characters have only limited time in the story, this can be challenging for the audience and the actors—but it makes the play all the more exciting for both.
Theatre Students Take On Technology and Its Role in the Search for Love
“The casting is very flexible and it gave all acting students equal opportunity to participate, and it offered wonderful opportunities for students in terms of design. I believe the themes of the play are particularly relevant to us today,” Lally noted. “Love and Information is about technology, but also about people without technology and our search for love and meaning in our lives in this current moment. Caryl Churchill wrote the play in 2012 but the students found many connections to the material in their lives today.”
The production was presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. A review of the show was featured in a November issue of The Delphian, Adelphi’s student newspaper.
“The challenge of the show is what made it,” the review reads. “The work of the actors to portray what they wanted with the words they were given, as well as the crew to uphold this through sets, props, set pieces and keeping backstage as calm and clean as possible. With the excellent guidance and direction of director Lally, the show was as perfect as a show of this caliber could be.”
Kennedy Center Honors for Acting, Projection Design and Sound Design
At the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Conference in the last week of January, both Alyssa Infranco and Katie Goz made it to the semifinal round of the acting scholarship competition (two of just 36 actors selected from 170). Both were nominated for Love and Information.
On the behind-the-scenes front, Jamie Knafel brought home the First Place Projections Design Award in the Design, Technology, and Management category for his work on the show. He’ll be attending the annual United States Institute for Theatre Technology conference this spring.
Riley Oberting also earned a Regional Honorable Mention in Sound Design for his design of Love and Information. Cat Farrell presented their costume design for the show and shared the Don Childs DTM Cross-Discipline Collaboration Award with Oberting and Knafel for their work on the fall production.
The stellar cast also included Sarah Baleigh, Jordan Boyatt, Nikki Colaitis, Allison Covone, NayaJoy Dean-Colbert, Justin Koczko, Sierra McDaniel and Serina Wold.