“Orlando’s Gift,” a new play inspired by Virginia Woolf’s novel “Orlando” will premiere Nov. 1 on campus.

The play, collaboratively created by Cornell students, faculty and guest artists, and written and directed by Professor David Feldshuh, tells the love story of Woolf and her hero/heroine, Orlando.

Orlando – who has too many selves to count – lives forever in a giddy world of fantasy, wit, surprise and theatrical adventure. The author and the character discover the power of words to celebrate life and the ecstasy of the imagination at work.

Credit: Jason Koski/Cornell University

Opening night will feature a post-show discussion between Feldshuh, professor in the Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA) in the College of Arts and Sciences; and Oskar Eustis, A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell and artistic director of The Public Theater in New York City. The discussion will be followed by a reception for the cast, crew, friends and any audience members who choose to stay.

Eustis will also take part in an event earlier that day, “In Conversation with Oskar Eustis,” moderated by Feldshuh. That event is Nov. 1, from 4:30-5:30 p.m., in the Film Forum, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. It is free and open to the public; tickets are not required.

“Orlando’s Gift” will be performed in the Class of ’56 Flexible Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. Free tickets can be reserved here. Performances are scheduled for:

• Nov. 1, 7:30 p.m. 
• Nov. 2, 7:30 p.m. 
• Nov. 8, 7:30 p.m. 
• Nov. 9, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

In 2023, a group of Cornell advanced acting students approached Feldshuh looking to participate in a new theater project.

“When these students came to me, ‘Orlando’ popped back into my head and the impulse to revisit the book as an inspiration for a new play that puts Woolf into the story became an unrelenting tug on my imagination,” said Feldshuh, whose 1992 play, “Miss Evers Boys,” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. “I was introduced to Virginia Woolf’s novel ‘Orlando’ more than four decades ago when I spent a long, hot summer on the second floor of an un-air-conditioned former warehouse in Minneapolis working through the book to transform and direct the story into a play for the Illusion Theater in Minneapolis.”

The play would “have to be something physical and fantastical,” said Aoise Stratford, advising dean in A&S, lecturer in PMA and dramaturg for “Orlando’s Gift.” “The project would have to be wildly theatrical and require students to go on an artistic journey to somewhere totally unpredictable. It would have to be something new.”

Many of the actors play three or more roles – a reflection of the way Woolf gives each character room to choose from multiple identities throughout their lives, Feldshuh said.

For example, Liv Licursi ’25, who is studying industrial and labor relations with a minor in PMA, plays Sasha, a Russian princess; Bartholomew; and Word.

“Sasha is fiery, impulsive and has a passion for living life in the moment, and she helps Orlando come to experience life in this way in their fleeting time together,” Licursi said. “I have studied with David Feldshuh for over a year now, and to be able to work with him alongside my incredible peers in this capacity on a piece he has written is a gift like no other.”

The crew is composed largely of Cornell students. “Because ‘Orlando’s Gift’ is a new play that has never been produced before, rehearsal is more accurately described as creation,” said Sarah Bewley ’27, assistant stage manager and a student in the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering in Cornell Engineering. “The director, cast and designers discover the ways that Virginia Woolf’s and Orlando’s stories want to be told.”

Beatrice Fenyes-Gartenberg is communications coordinator for the Department of Performing and Media Arts.