English Department Chair and Professor Kermit Frazier is Awarded the Bogliasco Fellowship

Kermit Frazier

Adelphi University is proud to announce that Professor Kermit Frazier, chair of the English Department and noted playwright, is the recent recipient of the International Bogliasco Fellowship.  During the fall of 2012, Professor Frazier will commence a five week residency at the Liguria Study Center for the Arts and Humanities in the West Coast Italian village of Bogliasco where he will work on a draft of his latest play.

The Bogliasco Fellowship is open to a diverse range of artists advanced in their field such as choreographers, fiction authors, visual artists, composers, and philosophers from all over the world. Professor Frazier is one of 50 artists that were awarded this opportunity. Located on the Italian Riviera, the residential facilities provide artists with a peaceful and inspiring atmosphere for developing their projects.

Professor Frazier’s play will explore a dynamic of racial relations that is rarely talked about: the relations between Irish Americans and African Americans. The play’s working title is Modern Minstrelsy. He claims that the idea of this theme has stayed with him for quite some time. “A decade ago an Irish American friend of mine and I discussed writing a nonfiction book together.  But nothing came of it.  Then a couple of years ago a shooting and subsequent trial on Long Island rekindled my interest in the topic.”  Professor Frazier’s current research for this particular play has taken him to a variety of places from Senegal to Ireland to the Caribbean island of Montserrat, where St. Patrick’s Day is regarded as a national holiday. His intention for the play is a specific focus on African American and Irish American relations in America.

An accomplished writer in television and theatre, Professor Kermit Frazier has had more than 18 plays produced around the country. He has written for such shows as The Wonder Pets, All My Children, and The Cosby Mysteries. He served as co-producer and story editor for the children series Gullah Gullah Island, and head writer of Ghostwriter. Professor Frazier’s past artist residencies include MacDowell Colony, Blue Mountain Center, Yaddo, and Millay Colony for the Arts.