Contact: John Burrow

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State’s Theatre MSU is presenting a student produced and directed production of “Pipeline,” a Dominique Morisseau play addressing the school-to-prison pipeline. It also spotlights a mother’s fight to give her son a future without turning her back on the community that made him who he is.

Performances are Friday [Feb. 26] and Saturday [Feb. 27] at 7:30 p.m., as well as Sunday [Feb. 28] at 2 p.m. in the mainstage theater at McComas Hall. The Saturday night performance features a live ASL interpretation by Jordan Oswald of MSU’s Disability Support Services.

Co-produced by Theatre MSU and the Blackfriars Drama Society, “Pipeline” is student produced and directed by senior communication and kinesiology major Donovan Andrade, a Florida resident and native of Manama, Bahrain. Theatre MSU is the producing organization of the Department of Communication’s theatre concentration, and Blackfriars Drama Society is a student theatre organization.

A strict limit of 100 people will be allowed at each presentation for COVID-19 protocols to be followed. Tickets are available at www.events.msstate.edu. Payment options range from free, $5 or $10, in a “pay what you can” format. Ticket registration is required.

Andrade said the number of suspensions and expulsions of students from schools “has nearly doubled since the ‘70s because of the adoption of zero-tolerance policies,” and “the play itself resonates with the struggles certain school systems are facing to this day.”

Support for the production is possible through a monetary donation from John and Myna Dickerson Sowell of Spring Hill, Tennessee. Myna is a former Theatre MSU participant and MSU graduate.  

MSU’s Department of Communication is online at www.comm.msstate.edu.  Follow Theatre MSU on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @TheatreMSU.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.