Carolina Performing Arts hosts Oscar-nominated screenwriter

CORRECTION: Due to a reporting error, the original version of this story's headline misrepresented the host of Oscar-nominated screenwriter, Lucy Alibar. Carolina Performing Arts hosted Alibar. The headline has been updated to reflect these changes.

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Watch out, William Faulkner; there's a new Southern storyteller.

Thursday night in Historic PlayMaker’s Theatre, Lucy Alibar, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, read aloud some short stories from her new book, "Throw Me on The Burnpile and Light Me Up." 

Alibar hails from the Florida Panhandle, the daughter of a pro bono lawyer who had a variety of heart problems and a distrust of religion. 

“We follow a school year during which my dad was working on this one capital case,” she said. 

During her reading, Alibar used her hands and expressions to emote passages of her book.

"I say grace under top security because Daddy says Jesus gives him a goddamn heart attack,” she read. “We come downstairs, and we avoid all the goddamn cats. The cats give us hookworm and diseases … Mama’s always worried the cats make us seem like white trash.” 

A variety of students, faculty and community members were present at the performance for a slew of different reasons. 

“We were required to go for a geology class, 'Environmental Coastal Change,'" said sophomore Paul Smith, a dramatic art and geology double major. "We’re looking at connections between performance and climate change, or, more broadly, art and science. Apparently this has something to do with that, so we’ll see.” 

Even community members made the trek onto campus to hear Alibar speak.

“Lucy Alibar seems steeped in that tradition, and her stories are so powerful and humane,” said Christianna Williams, who lives in the Chapel Hill area and is a fan of Southern storytelling.

Henrik Dohlman, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics, also attended the reading. 

“I think she’s a great storyteller in the tradition of many great Southern writers," he said. "Harper Lee immediately comes to mind. I look forward to seeing her book when it is finished.” 

Heidi Kim, Carolina Performing Arts curatorial fellow, introduced Alibar. 

“She conveys regional identity in large brushstrokes," she said in her introduction. "Anyone who’s familiar with Lucy Alibar’s work is familiar with how she really took on the past and how to narrate the un-narratable — for example with the experience of Hurricane Katrina.”

Lucy Alibar will be returning tonight at 7:30 p.m. in Historic PlayMaker’s Theatre to read aloud again. 

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