This weekend will be a celebration and also an exploration for Martikah Williams.
For the first time, a play written and produced by the Syracuse native and Nottingham High School graduate will show at the Community Folk Art Center. The play, titled FINALS, explores her own experience as a student at SUNY Albany, where she studied theater and eventually left before graduating.
Williams, 28, said the play will discuss themes of mental health and academic pressures.
“My biggest hope is that people who come and see the show, they’ll be emboldened to have discussion right here in this theater, outside the theater, when they go home and continuously,” Williams said. “ They’ll learn that you don’t have to stay stuck.”
FINALS is inspired by Williams’ own college experience as a Black woman. She explores her experience by telling the story of five friends adjusting to life as college students. They collectively experience life as college students while having important conversations, building support systems and finding joy.
Writing the play helped Williams revisit her own college experience and have what she considered a long overdue conversation with her best friend and college roommate about her own decision to leave college.
FINALS will run on Friday and Saturday with showings at 6:30 p.m. on both days. CFAC is located at 805 East Genesee St. To purchase tickets to see the show click here.
“I really wanted to title the play something that revolved around the weightiest part of higher education to me,” Williams said. “ And it’s what comes with finals: studying, not having good eating habits, not sleeping, having anxiety. It’s all those things.”
In 2018, while Williams was studying for her bachelor’s degree at SUNY Albany, she struggled in classes and with her mental health. She dropped out and discovered restoration through theater and writing plays.
Williams said she struggled to reconcile dropping out of school because she had always succeeded academically. FINALS is meant to address some of the realities Williams faced while in college.
She pursued the same goals that drove her to study theater and acting, just without the degree.
Williams first penned FINALS when she was 23 years old. She returned to the play in 2022 and revised the script in the summer of 2023. She did casting calls, auditions and production planning from October through November of 2023.
Williams uses a collection of personal and shared experiences from her peers to build on the narrative of the five cast ensemble. FINALS was originally focused on one character, Williams said. After a number of reviews and feedback from her community, she decided on expanding the cast to include more of her experiences to be displayed through each character.
Some of the essential key themes of depression, anxiety, and fear, are displayed in FINALS through the characters: Tiffany, Kamila, Teriana, Alexis and John.
“There’s a lot of courage in them still deciding to press forward, and being there for each other and figuring a way out, and there’s still lightheartedness and funniness,” Williams said.
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