By Wendy K. Mages

The show’s long over, the theatre finally empty. A lone oboe sounds. The single-bulb “ghost light” standing center stage flickers. Music, from an unseen orchestra, swells. Softly, pointe-shoe clad footsteps tread the boards, tutus swirl. The stage is set, as phantom swans of yesteryear begin their nightly dance till dawn….

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Wendy K. Mages, a Mercy University Professor, is a Pushcart Prize nominee and an award-winning poet and author. She earned her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and her master’s in Theatre at Northwestern University. As a complement to her research on the effect of the arts on learning and development, she performs at storytelling events and festivals in the US and abroad. To learn more about her and her work, and to find links to her published stories and poetry, please visit her Mercy University Faculty page https://www.mercy.edu/directory/wendy-mages and her website, Wendy Mages: Storyteller https://sites.google.com/view/wendy-mages-storyteller