The Muhlenberg Theater Association’s (MTA) annual 12-hour charitable arts festival returned to campus on Saturday, Oct. 5 with a range of performances and segments dedicated to raising money for Turning Point of Lehigh Valley, which provides services to survivors of domestic violence. The festival featured appearances by student performance groups as well as performances from individual student performers and members of the MTA Board. Throughout the night, the MTA facilitated multiple auctions related to the performances.This festival was particularly significant in that the MTA was able to raise the most funds they have ever been able to accumulate with Arts Marathon, which was $2,601. Coordinated this year by Caden Dowgin ‘27 and assistant coordinated by Nikolas Segura ‘28, the event proved to be a success both in creating a fun event for students on campus and contributing to an important cause.
“Hosting a festival that runs 12 hours is obviously pretty exhausting (they do call it Arts Marathon for a reason), but I’m proud to say I did it all on only one energy drink,” jokes Dowgin, who was responsible for facilitating all the behind-the-scenes aspects of the fundraiser while maintaining the excitement and high energy from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. as its host.
Although Arts Marathon is an integral part of the MTA’s programming, each coordinator is tasked with bringing something new that will not only make the event more enjoyable for the Muhlenberg community, but will also motivate attendees to donate their money to a charitable cause. For Dowgin, the perfect way to do this was to enact stretch goals in which reaching a certain amount of money would lead to members of the MTA performing wacky activities, such as attempting break-dancing or eating a spicy pepper spread from the farmers’ market, and it proved to be a huge success. Dowgin noted that they originally planned for stretch goals up to $1,000, but had to quickly think of new ones when they reached what they thought was going to be their maximum amount of money at only midnight.
Dowgin shares their thoughts and experiences of hosting and coordinating Arts Marathon, “The process was very stressful but ultimately incredibly rewarding. It was my first time coordinating a festival of this size and scale, but I couldn’t be happier with how it ended up. My vision for this festival was to generate as much money as possible for Turning Point, and I am very happy with how it turned out.”
MTA President Faith Miller ‘26 explained how this festival holds a special place in her heart both because it was her gateway into joining the MTA Board when she started out as the Arts Marathon assistant coordinator, and because it has always been so fun for her. She also praises the dedication and enthusiasm that Dowgin brought to the position, “Luckily, [Dowgin] came in with a very clear idea of what they wanted to do. They came in with a lot of really awesome ideas and basically were like the best coordinator that I could have hoped for.”
“There are more opportunities to go support Turning Point past Arts Marathon.” – Faith Miller ’26, president of the MTA
Earlier in the night, attendee Nola Thompson ‘27 expressed excitement for the a cappella portion of Arts Marathon in its ability to bring the a cappella community together: “I really love the a cappella community on campus, and being a part of the Dynamics myself has been such a formative aspect of being at Muhlenberg, so I’m just excited to perform with them and our newbies for their first performance. I also love watching all the other groups. Everybody has such a different vibe and personality and [the space is] very inclusive… I just think it’s so fun that we all come together as an a cappella community to support each other, so that’s what I’m looking forward to.”
Arts Marathon raises a major portion of its charitable funds from auctions conducted by performance organizations, including a cappella groups, comedy groups and more. The item with the highest bid and that contributed the most money was a flannel signed by all of the members of the a cappella group, The AcaFellas, for $100. Other performance group auctions allowed audience members to have a stake in the performances themselves, such as the Muhlenberg Improv Association (MIA) that allowed people to pay money to pour buckets of water on performers as they were in the middle of a scene and Noteworthy offering the opportunity to change the word “guns” in their cover of “21 guns” to anything an audience member wanted (it became “21 dogs”).
This festival also offered individual students the opportunity to perform, which Dowgin highlighted as one of their favorite aspects of the night: “I think my favorite overall moments were the spots where I was able to sit down and actually watch the performances. In particular, while listening to Sophia Morris [‘28] and Dami Shote’s [‘28] fantastic rendition of ‘My Green Light’, I took a minute to just look out at the great turnout we had, and I just felt extremely satisfied with what we had accomplished.”
When audience members placed the winning bid in an auction, they would then head over to the MTA table, where members of the MTA board would make sure the transaction was completed. Assistant Production Manager Maddi Doherty ‘27 was sitting at this table when she joked, “This is my first time doing [arts marathon] since I just joined the MTA, so I’m excited to see how long I last because I have to be here for 12 hours…I think I’m most excited for Dominick [Borges ‘27] and Almarah [‘Urman ‘26] who are singing from ‘Heathers’… I’m also excited for ‘Seussical Jr.’ at four a.m.” Arts Marathon is known for its wacky yet entertaining segments such as MTA FanFiction, ‘Hot Ones’ and a full production of ‘Seussical Jr.’ When asked about their motivation behind adding Seussical Jr. to this festival’s programming, MTA Fundraising Manager Borges replied, “We had time to fill, and there was a desire for doing it.”
Arts Marathon offers student artists and the Muhlenberg community overall the opportunity to make a positive influence in the Lehigh Valley area. Miller encourages students to support Turning Point of Lehigh Valley beyond Arts Marathon: “There are more opportunities to go support Turning Point past Arts Marathon. They do a lot of really important work, so even if you can’t make it to Arts Marathon or weren’t able to tonight, reach out to them, see about the community programming that they do.”
Samantha Tempkin ‘25 is a theatre and media & communication double major and is thrilled to be joining the Weekly’s staff as an Assistant News Editor! She is also the co-president of KPC, Muhlenberg’s K-Pop club. When she is not writing for the paper, Sam loves singing, dancing, listening to music, seeing Broadway shows, watching Marvel movies, and hanging out with friends!
