Aram Saroyan’s visit to Columbia College was remarkable not only for the mild weather in the last week of January, but for the plethora of events and opportunities for collaboration that took place across campus.

Saroyan (recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts poetry awards, and current faculty member of the Masters of Professional Writing Program at USC) came to Chicago to celebrate the design and publication of a unique edition artists’ book based on his short theatrical piece Four Monologues. The small chapbook was produced by MFA students in Columbia’s Interdisciplinary Book and Paper Arts program’s Advanced Printing course, under the Epicenter imprint, and bound in an edition of 300. Poetry Magazine Senior Editor Don Share had contacted the Center to explore ways of printing and distributing the work, and the collaboration between the Poetry Foundation and the Center for Book and Paper Arts was a natural fit.

Steve Woodall, the Center’s Director, connected Share with Professor Clif Meador, where design and printing of the actual chapbooks was integrated into of the Book and Paper MFA curriculum. But Woodall didn’t stop there. Working with Amy Mooney, CCC’s Critical Encounters Faculty Fellow, Woodall found support for a Saroyan public lecture, as well as a connection to Columbia’s Theater department.

Professor Brian Shaw took on the project of staging the Four Monologues at the Poetry Foundation Auditorium with Columbia theater students acting in the performance. Shaw worked with the four cast members to bring about the staged reading on January 25. Shaw also brought the cast and Saroyan to his History of Theater class at the Getz Theater building for an open rehearsal before the final performance.

Open rehearsal in Prof. Brian Shaw’s History of Theater class

On his brief visit, Saroyan was able to meet and interact with students from multiple Columbia departments (Theater, Book and Paper, Art + Design, and Critical Encounters), as well as begin part of the continuing collaborative connection between Columbia and the Poetry Foundation, who together co-present Chicago’s Printer’s Ball each August.

Find out more about Saroyan and his work here.