The more people I meet at this school, the more awed I am by the dedication and passion that overflows in each and every one. All that zeal is embodied in Liv Licursi ’25, director, producer and performer extraordinaire. It’s difficult to decide where to begin discussing her achievements — Licursi really can and does do everything. She’s a whirlwind of a person, bubbling over with conviction that shines through in all of her projects. On April 14, I was lucky enough to snag an hour of her busy life to talk about her work.
Funnily enough, despite her deep and apparent commitment to the arts, Licursi isn’t majoring or minoring in PMA. Instead, she’ll be graduating this year from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. “I’ve taken more classes than are required [for the PMA minor], but I don’t have the minor because I don’t have the two classes you’re supposed to take,” Licursi shared, laughing. “But the knowledge that I’ve gained from my classes in ILR is very important for the things I’m doing now … just people skills that you learn the basis for in ILR. I don’t regret that that’s my major.” In fact, she started out even further from the arts than ILR, spending the first year of her college journey studying biochemistry at Wilkes Honors College in Florida. “I knew exactly who I was when I was ten years old, but I popped out of high school a completely different person than I was supposed to be.” Despite having done theater in elementary school, it never seemed like a feasible life path, so Licursi swerved hard into the sterile and acceptable. “I love storytelling and that’s always been my thing. I was trying to find ways into it and nothing really stuck, but I was working within the confines of what my family would allow.”
Living in Florida, what Licursi termed “a desert for arts and culture,” highlighted how much she needed a creative outlet in her life. At Cornell, everything fell into place. A major outside the arts certainly hasn’t stopped Licursi from becoming the artist incarnate. She runs Cornell Students Create, a club that is “focused on fostering community for student artists on campus.” Upon arriving at Cornell, Licursi found the university’s creatives “literally and physically and metaphorically isolated on campus” and resolved to remedy the issue by her graduation. This mission included reviving the Melodramatics Theatre Company, Cornell’s student-run theater organization, alongside a few other students. “Melos has been around since 2004, but the recession and COVID-19 were big hits for it. It wasn’t at its full potential when I got here. It was a mess. I just saw that there was a gaping hole.” But with Licursi’s iron will, no task was insurmountable. “I spend a lot of my time and effort getting people together. If there’s one thing I can do, it’s bring the right people together for a project.”
All that passion stems from a desire to do good in the world. I could try to paraphrase the reasoning behind that drive, but I think Licursi herself said it best: “Theater and storytelling are medicine for the soul. It’s a vessel through which people can connect with pent up stuff. This is why I do it. It’s that outlet in our busy lives that we need. Theater has the power of — after years of people suppressing stuff about being unhappy in their lives — forcing people to be present and mindful. That kind of presence can force you to reckon with parts of your life that you might want to change or that you’ve been suppressing. You’re sitting shoulder to shoulder with people who you might think differently from and are having this cathartic experience with. The human in theater is what’s important. There’s no way you can replace that. There are some things that you need live people doing something spectacular for.”
Licursi is a genuine creative and so, so deserving of every success she achieves. Moving forward, she’ll be directing, producing and acting in The Family Copoli, an original musical written by a Cornell PhD student and departmental project from 2023. Like everything Licursi does, it’s scathingly relevant, and they’re taking it to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe at the end of the summer. “I want to do everything in my lifetime: produce, perform, direct. It’s hard to do all the things at once. Which is funny, because I’m doing all three in Copoli. … I see it all as a big mosaic of life. Play one objective at a time. What opportunities are in front of me? I’m just gonna trust the process.”
Of course, I found it hard to conceptualize how anyone could put themself out there and do so much at once, so well. Licursi’s advice? “You just have to tear down your insecurity. People get excited when you’re excited.” Truly, her message seems to resonate with people. She’s brought together artists on campus and isn’t planning on stopping as she heads shining into the future. Licursi’s mission is to change lives, and I, for one, fully believe that she will. As a final note before she departed, Licursi smiled and said, “If my statistics professor is reading this, hopefully he understands where I’ve been.”
You can find Licursi at @livili_3 on Instagram and check out The Family Copoli at thefamilycopoli.com.
‘Student Artist Spotlight’ is a column that runs intermittently, featuring student artists of all kinds on campus. For interest in a feature, please contact Melissa Moon.
Melissa Moon is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at mmoon@cornellsun.com.
