Schoolhouse Theater Selects Winner of Limerick Contest!

As The Schoolhouse Theater's production of Irish playwright Conor McPherson's Tony-nominated play The Seafarer closed last weekend, winners in the theater's limerick contest were announced. Thirty-four entries had been received and the top three were chosen by the Schoolhouse staff using a blind ballot system. "Part of the mission of The Schoolhouse Theater is to bring smiles to audiences," said Executive Director James Shearwood, "and it is hard to hear a limerick without smiling."

The contest winner was Nada Sterling of Carmel, who enjoyed seeing The Seafarer and won two tickets to any upcoming production at the theater. Her winning limerick reads:

There was a young lady named Rose,
Who danced very well on her toes.
But one day, they say,
She fell the wrong way,
And now she performs on her nose.

The second place winner was David Kornreich of Cortlandt Manor, who enjoys writing verse but had not tried the limerick form before. His subject might have had something to do with the fact that he is an ardent baseball fan who is about to move to Somers:

A pitcher whose hometown was Somers,
Tried out for a team called "The Roamers",
But his hopes of travel,
Began to unravel,
When he gave up seventeen homers.

The third place winner was Jake Daehler of Manhattan. He had never written a limerick before, and said of his third-place win in the contest, "not too bad if you consider that the global population is over 7.2 billion people who might have entered." They didn't, but Jake did, and here it is:

There once was a man from New York,
Whose head was screwed on like a cork.
Though he tried to unscrew it,
He just couldn't do it.
Simply put: there was not enough torque.

The origin of the name "limerick" for a five-line poem is debated, although there is a town and county in Ireland named Limerick. While The Seafarer is a contemporary Irish play set in a coastal town north of Dublin, the characters are not noted for writing limericks.

Over the years, The Schoolhouse Theater has earned a reputation as the go-to theater in Westchester, where audiences can see Broadway quality productions at a fraction of the cost. The Schoolhouse is a regional Equity theater, dedicated to presenting professional productions by award-winning playwrights and supporting and promoting all the arts.