‘Primary Trust’ Brings Theater to Colgate’s Community Reads Tradition

Colgate's Community Reads program provides first-year students with the opportunity to engage with a shared piece of literature. For the 2025-26 academic year, Primary Trust, by Eboni Booth, was chosen from among a dozen titles considered by the selection committee - the first time the committee has picked a play as the community read.

Primary Trust was chosen for its relatable plot, characters, and universal themes: love, strength, isolation, and fresh starts. Set in the fictional town of Cranberry, N.Y., the play details the life of Kenneth, a single 38-year-old who is navigating grief, vulnerability, and acceptance after the death of his mother when he was a child and the recent loss of his job. As he begins a new job and sheds his introverted skin, Kenneth evolves from a homebody stuck in the past to a more extroverted character with a reformed outlook on life.

In addition to reading the script, members of the Colgate community have been able to enjoy a staged performance of Primary Trust.

"A play is complete as a script, but it's not complete as an expression," says Kyle Bass, associate professor of theater, who served on the selection committee and was instrumental in staging the event. "It needs to be theatricalized in some way so that you begin to have an understanding of the intention of the play, the intention of the playwright, and how actors vivify a text."

Throughout the weekend of Sept. 18-21, the play was performed four times in Brehmer Theater by professional actors Joe Cassidy, Katya Collazo, Daniel Morgan Shelley, and Justin Weaks, under the direction of award-winning actor and director Timothy Douglas.

"There's so much that a talented cast can extract from the printed text, and audiences saw that magic up close," says Professor Alexander Karn, who chaired the selection committee. "In the same way that the Living Writers series boosts the literary arts on the Colgate campus, this year's community read reminds us of the power of theater to pull at our heartstrings and expand our understanding of the human experience."

Weaks, the actor playing Kenneth, enjoyed the opportunity "to share a story of connection, trust, and friendship with a group of students embarking on a new chapter of their lives at Colgate," he says. "Getting to know the students and the community of Hamilton has been a wonderful experience."