Salt Lake Acting Company - New Play Sounding Series
MERCURY by Steve Yockey
New Play Sounding Series Free Reading
Monday, April 25 @ 7pm
Director: Dave Mortensen
Featuring: Brighton Hertford, Dee-Dee Darby-Duffin, Elise Groves, Jenessa Bowen, Stephen Drabicki, Tito Livas, Aaron Adams
Reader: Joy Haynes
This pitch black comedy has an illicit affair, a couple hanging on by a thread, bears at the window, and an adorable missing dog named Mr Bundles. No one's happy, people stop being nice, and blood spills in a story that mashes up violent myth and ideas about "good neighbors" to explore what happens when the mercury rises.
SLAC thanks the Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation for their generous support of this vital program.
WINTER by Julie Jensen
STAG'S LEAP by Sharon Olds
BLEEDING HEARTS by Steve Yockey
A TINY TASTE OF KUSHNER
NPSS: The Vermillion Hand
BY CORT BRINKERHOFF
In rehearsal, L to R: Jaten McGriff, Cort Brinkerhoff, Colleen Baum, Melanie Nelson, Anne Stewart Mark
Monday, October 6, 2014 @ 7pm
Chapel Theatre
About the Play
Orrin Porter Steed, a seventeen-year-old drifter from Colorado City, is arrested for setting fire to a Mormon church. His caseworker, Faith, delves into his past to figure out why and attempts to reunite the boy with his estranged mother. Meanwhile, as Faith's marriage crumbles, she begins to seek solace from Orrin and finds herself questioning everything she believes in.
THE VERMILLION HAND began as a ten-minute play titled UGLY TO THE BONE. The play was commissioned by Plan-B Theatre Company and premiered at SLAM '06. It was then developed into a full-length script, and workshopped in a script-in-hand production. THE VERMILLION HAND was then re-written as part of Vagrancy's Writers' Group in Los Angeles and received a staged reading at its annual new play festival.
SLAC is proud to welcome Cort Brinkerhoff back to Utah to continue fine-tuning THE VERMILLION HAND in the place where it was first conceived.
About the Playwright
Cort's plays include THE BLUE HOUR, BULLET, THE BOMB PLOT, and THE NIGHTMARE ROOM, a play about the last days of British mathematician, war hero, and convicted homosexual Alan Turing. His works have been produced or had staged readings at The Vagrancy (Los Angeles, CA), Alive Theatre (Long Beach, CA), The Last Frontier Theatre Conference (Valdez, AK), Plan-B Theatre Company (Salt Lake City, UT), Piano Fight Productions (San Francisco, CA), USC, and the University of Utah. His ten-minute play NEUROSIS was published in Canyon Voices Literary Magazine, Issue 8 (Fall 2013). He wrote the screenplay for the independent feature BEYOND THE RYE, which will premiere in Norway in 2015. A native Utahn, Cort began his writing career in the 2003 Playwrights Group at Salt Lake Acting Company led by Julie Jensen and JT Rogers. He holds an MFA in dramatic writing from USC, where he currently serves as an Assistant Instructor. He lives in Los Angeles.
DIRECTOR - Anne Stewart Mark
CAST
Orrin - Jaten Lee McGriff
Faith - Melanie Nelson
Emma - Colleen Baum
Reader - Shannon Musgrave
2014-2015 Season Press Release
NPSS: Streetlight Woodpecker
SLAC's New Play Sounding Series presents a free reading of STREETLIGHT WOODPECKER by Shawn Fisher on Monday, April 28th at 7:00 PM.
ABOUT THE PLAY
STREETLIGHT WOODPECKER follows the story of Benji, an undersized Marine who has returned to his Irish-Catholic neighborhood in Philadelphia after being critically injured during battle. He bears not only the medals he earned but also the scars, and now that he has come home he must face the emotional wounds he avoided by going to war.
When his father’s suicide renders him homeless just days after his return, Benji moves in with his childhood friend Sam. Soon questions that threatened Benji throughout his youth resurface, questions about his manhood and his relationship with Sam, and he distracts himself with booze, pills, and reckless fighting. Meanwhile, as Sam tries to protect him from self-destruction, Benji plots to kill a woodpecker that loudly bangs the metal streetlights in the neighborhood.
Shawn Fisher (Playwright) original scripts include SCOPE, THE CROW SONG, CHUMMING, STREETLIGHT WOODPECKER, and DO NOT HIT GOLF BALLS INTO MEXICO which was a National Finalist for the MetLife Nuestras Voces Playwriting Award and the David M. Cohen National Playwriting Award. HOW TO MAKE A ROPE SWING, which had a rolling premiere at both Salt Lake Acting Company and Cape May Stage, won an Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award, was a national finalist for New York's Urban Stages Emerging Playwright Award, and was a nominee for both the Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association and the Barrie & Bernice Stavis national playwriting awards. His work has been produced or had staged-readings at Cape May Stage, the Spanish Repertory Theatre (Off-Broadway), the Los Angeles Theatre Center, Urban Stages (Off-Broadway), and Salt Lake Acting Company, among others. Shawn is also the Co-founder and Director of the National Playwrights Symposium at Cape May Stage. He earned his MFA in Theatre from Brandeis University and currently serves as a Professor and Head of Graduate Studies in Theatre at Utah State University. He is a native of New Jersey and is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild of America.
Richie Call (Director) is thrilled to be directing a reading for the first time at SLAC. He was previously part of the cast of SLAC's presentation of Do Not Hit Golf Balls Into Mexico, also by Shawn Fisher. Richie's acting credits include work for American Globe Theatre and Gorilla Rep in New York, Mile Square Theatre in New Jersey, and Pioneer Theatre Company, Salt Lake Shakespeare, and the Old Lyric Repertory Company in Utah. Richie is currently an Assistant Professor of Acting at Utah State University, and he is serving as a Co-Artistic Director of the Old Lyric Repertory Company. He received an MFA in Acting from Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts and a BFA in Performance from Utah State University.
Stefan Espinosa (Benji) is thrilled to be joining SLAC on this project – there is truly nothing more exciting or artistically satisfying than helping to bring a talented playwrights' new work to life. A native of Tucson, Arizona,Stefan has been fortunate to perform with wonderful theatres across the country. Favorite past regional theatre credits include: The Importance of Being Earnest, Urinetown (PCPA); The Pirates of Penzance, Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, Pride and Prejudice (Arizona Theatre Company); Richard III, Henry V, Wild Oats (Wortham Theatre); Big River, Amadeus, Little Shop of Horrors, Lend Me A Tenor (Old Lyric Repertory); Camelot, The Mikado, Guys and Dolls, Fiddler on the Roof (Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theatre) and Stefan will be playing Thenardier in UFOMTs upcoming summer production of Les Miserables. Stefan has a BFA in Musical Theatre from the University of Arizona, and an MFA in Acting from the University of Houston. Stefan also runs the Utah Festival Conservatory for the Performing Arts and is an adjunct member of the Theatre faculty at Idaho State University.
Jason Spelbring (Sam) is thrilled to be a part of SLAC's New Play Sounding Series. Jason is an actor, director and educator. He is currently an assistant professor of acting at Utah State University's Caine College of the Arts. Theatre credits include six seasons at the Tony Award winning Utah Shakespeare Festival, Great River Shakespeare Festival, Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, Ensemble Theatre Company, Santa Barbara and PCPA Theaterfest. This fall Jason will be directing Pierre Marivaux's The Game of Love and Change for the Caine College of the Arts. www.jasonmichaelspelbring.com
Angela Roundy (Elizabeth) attended Utah State University where she earned her BFA in Acting. While at USU she appeared in such productions as KING LEAR, JAMES and the GIANT PEACH, TARTUFFE, and ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD. Her acting training began at the College of Eastern Utah where credits included THE CRUCIBLE, PICASSO at the LAPIN AGILE, and THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN. Angela also appeared in The Neil Simon Festival's production of COME BLOW YOUR HORN.
Richard Johnson (Matt) is thrilled to make his SLAC debut with a talented and seasoned cast of peers. Richard has been seen locally this past summer in THE ODD COUPLE with Old Lyric Repertory Company. California credits include AS YOU LIKE IT with New Village Arts/Moonlight Cultural Foundation, LOST APOLLONIA and PICTURING MY SISTER with New Village Arts/Playwrights Project, JACOB MARLEY'S CHRISTMAS CAROL with Oceanside Theatre Company, and HENRY IV pt1 and THE TEMPEST with North Coast Repertory Theatre/MiraCosta College.
Lance Rasmussen (Reader) has performed for three seasons at the Old Lyric Theatre Company where he played in THE ODD COUPLE, JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, and AMADEUS among others. He is about to graduate from Utah State University with a BFA in Theatre Performance. At USU he has acted in plays including CANDIDA, LEARNED LADIES, TALKING PICTURES, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, OUR COUNTRY'S GOOD, and TWENTIETH CENTURY. He intends to pursue an MFA in acting.
NPSS: Road to Eden
Salt Lake Acting Company’s New Play Sounding Series Presents a Free Reading of
ROAD TO EDEN by Sean Christopher Lewis
Salt Lake Acting Company is pleased to offer a free reading of ROAD TO EDEN by Sean Christopher Lewis and directed by Robin Wilkes-Dunn on Monday, February 24, 2014 at 7 p.m. as part of the New Play Sounding Series (NPSS). An outreach program at SLAC, NPSS provides an essential testing ground where playwrights can see their work in progress and receive insightful feedback from the audience in a post-play discussion. We thank the Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation for their support of this vital program.
In 1848 a group of Mormon pioneers flee to the Mexican Territories of Utah to escape their oppressors. In 2013 a Mormon family's life is forever changed when a woman, who came to this country much like their ancestors did, mysteriously risks her life to save their rebellious son. ROAD TO EDEN tells two riveting stories which take place at the same place in Iowa but at two very different times. While the group of pioneers are forced to flee from Missouri and Executive Order 44 which authorizes the murder of any Mormon, a mother, father and son in 2013 are faced with the threat of gang violence. Both groups will be offered help in the form of a bold, strong Mexican woman and both will get way in over their heads.
ROAD TO EDEN explores themes that are complicated in a most thought provoking way. How does one distinguish the word of God from the whim of man? When is it okay to doubt? When is it good to trust? What choices would we make in the face of life-threatening danger? How far can fear push us?
This free reading offers a unique opportunity to hear a new play by an excellent cast and take part in a post-play discussion in which the playwright welcomes comments, questions and feedback from the audience.
THE PLAYWRIGHT
SEAN CHRISTOPHER LEWIS can be heard as a commentator on NPR'S This American Life. His plays have won the Kennedy Center's Rosa Parks Award, the 2010 National New Play Network's Smith Prize, the NEA Voices in Community Award, a Puffin Foundation Artists Award, a Barrymore Award from the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, a Central Ohio Critic's Circle Citation for Best Touring Production, a Central Ohio Critic's Circle Citation for Best New Work, a National Performance Network Creation Fund Grant, the William Inge Fellowship and more. He served as National New Play Network Emerging Playwright in Residence at Interact Theatre in Philly and as Playwright in Residence at the William Inge Arts Center in Independence, Kansas. His work includes MAYBERRY (Hancher Auditorium, Bucksbaum Performing Arts Center, Iowa Arts Center); KILLADELPHIA (Baltimore Centerstage, Woolly Mammoth, Interact Theatre, Cape May Stage, Adirondack Theatre Festival, Touchstone Theatre, Hartbeat Ensemble, Drilling Company, Riverside Theatre, CSPS/Legion Arts, John Jay University/Gerald W. Lynch Theatre, Available Light Theatre, Revolutions International Theatre Festival); JUST KIDS (Available Light Theatre, Sandglass Theatre, Working Group Theatre, Pontine Theatre); I WILL MAKE YOU ORPHANS (Uno Festival of Solo Performance, Available Light 01 Festival, Equinox Theatre, Riverside Theatre, Center for Independent Artists, Galapagos Art Space, Hyde Park Theatre, TIXE Arts Center, Bowery Poetry Club);THE GONE CHAIR (Penn State University's Cultural Conversations Festival, Openstage Harrisburg's Flying Solo Festival, Riverside Theatre); MILITANT LANGUAGE (National Premiere at Know Theatre of Cincinnati, Halcyon Theatre of Chicago, Bang and Clatter in Cleveland, and Theater for the New City in NY, published by Original Works Publishing); THE APERTURE (Cleveland Public Theatre); THE HOMESCHOOLING OF JONATHAN ANDERSON (Drilling Company NYC, Luna Theater and Theatre of Note); SURVIVING THE BABY (Riverside Theatre); THE TEACHER SHOW (Revolutions International Theatre Festival) and GOODNESS (Project Y Theatre, Clockwise Theatre). He has been a playwriting fellow at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference and has had his work developed at the PlayPenn New Play Conference, Lark New Play Development Center, Orlando Shakespeare Festival's Harriet Lake Festival of New Work and at the National Center for New Plays at Stanford University. He is currently under commission with Davenport Theatricals, Interact Theatre, Hancher Auditorium, Available Light Theatre and Adirondack Theatre Festival. Internationally he has collaborated on MAJNOON SAITARA with the Ashtar Theatre of Palestine and with the International Theatre and Literacy Project he worked on JOURNEY TO THE DREAM a new play by high school students in Tanzania, East Africa. In 2011 he collaborated and directed WE STOOD UP for the Centre X Centre International Theatre Festival in Rwanda that incorporated the performances and stories of 23 orphaned survivors of the genocide. Lewis is also a noted actor, working Off Broadway at the Pearl Theatre, in NYC at La Mama ETC, regionally with companies like the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, in television and feature films from COMEDY CENTRAL'S Upright Citizen's Brigade to GOD'S COUNTRY and his work has been nominated for the Fox Foundation Fellowship and the Princess Grace Theatre Fellowship.
THE DIRECTOR
ROBIN WILKS-DUNN is back at SLAC after directing GOOD PEOPLE and DOTTIE: THE SISTER LIVES ON. She recently directed LAST LISTS OF MY MAD MOTHER and THE GOOD BODY for Pygmalion Theatre Company. Robin is script supervisor, co-writer and director for a children's touring show for the Intermountain LIVE campaign. Robin has directed several staged readings at SLAC, most recently David Kranes' THE LAST WORD. Other productions she has directed at SLAC include BOOM, PEARL, ONE LAST DANCE and NAPOLEON'S CHINA. She reads scripts for the Sundance Theatre Lab and works as Outreach and Education Coordinator for Kingsbury Hall.
NPSS: Two Stories
Salt Lake Acting Company’s New Play Sounding Series Presents a Free Reading of
TWO STORIES
by Elaine Jarvik
Salt Lake Acting Company (SLAC) is pleased to offer a free reading of TWO STORIES written by Elaine Jarvik and directed by Keven Myhre on Monday, Nov. 18, 2013 at 7 PM as part of the New Play Sounding Series (NPSS). This is a special opportunity to experience an exciting new play by local playwright, Elaine Jarvik. An outreach program at SLAC, NPSS provides an essential testing ground where playwrights can see their work in progress and receive insightful feedback from the audience in a post-play discussion. We thank the Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation for their support of this vital program.
TWO STORIES is a look at two neighbors, two families, two cultures and the conflicts and misunderstandings that can occur on two different sides of a fence. Jodi Wolcott is a newspaper journalist trying to find her footing in a 24-hour news cycle, while her husband Kevin, after losing his job, is quickly using up their savings on his failing donut shop. When a Pakistani family—Amir and Hasna Masori, their three children, and Amir’s mother Bashira—moves in next door, Kevin and Jodi welcome them with open arms and a pot of chicken masala. Jodi is only too excited to befriend the matriarch of the family, Bashira, a widow who has recently arrived in the United States. Bashira opens up to Jodi, revealing her feelings about her image-conscious daughter-in-law and her eye-rolling grandchildren, and she reveals the reason she left Pakistan so suddenly. With Jodi’s newspaper job on the line, Bashira’s life becomes the fodder Jodi needs to write her next big story.
As Jodi is faced with a choice between friendship and self-preservation, tensions in the neighborhood build as well. Amir and his wife have plans to remodel their house into a large, two-story French chateau that will change the look of the neighborhood and will cut off the Wolcott’s light and view. “Why is my desire for space any less important than your desire for a view?” asks Amir. “Because we were here first,” answers Kevin. Jodi is then caught in the middle, afraid to alienate the Masoris but wanting to keep them from building their addition. Religious and ethnic tensions escalate. Rocks are thrown, a gun is fired, hate crime charges are filed and a fence of prejudice and misunderstanding is built.
The story that Jodi eventually writes about Bashira angers Amir, who is mortified that his family’s privacy has been breached. He accuses Jodi of using his mother’s story and friendship for her own gain. When Jodi’s newspaper colleague, a younger Hispanic reporter, comes to the Wolcotts’ house to write a story about the incident, Jodi is suddenly face-to-face with her prejudices and her own vulnerability at the hands of the media.
TWO STORIES began as a personal war of aesthetics for playwright Elaine Jarvik in 1990 when her neighbor built a faux-stone wall that Elaine felt destroyed the bucolic nature of their wooded lane. What stayed with her, years later, was how helpless she felt to challenge her neighbor’s aesthetics, and how immature she acted in response, retaliating by putting rocks in his mailbox. This unlikely genesis for her play created an outlet for her to explore her professional life as a journalist, her feelings about property and aesthetics, and the ways in which good people can behave badly as they try to protect what they think is theirs. During her career as a newspaper reporter, Elaine covered ordinary people and celebrities, immigrants and the descendants of Mormon pioneers. In writing their stories she often asked herself, “Am I telling the story right? Am I hurting anyone?” Sometimes she woke in the middle of the night worried that she had misspelled someone’s name, or, worse, had not represented these very real people—her “sources”—accurately. It is from these concerns about story and property that TWO STORIES was born.
TWO STORIES is a powerful work that tells an American story with universal appeal. Elaine has created a neighborhood that can exist in any city in the country, with unique characters that promote dialogue and reflection. SLAC has a reputation for producing and championing the work of new plays. At the heart of the theatre’s mission is a dedication to valuably contributing to the American theatre field, as it has for the past 43 years. SLAC works with living playwrights to support the development and continued life of new plays beyond SLAC’s stage. SLAC is equally committed to the important voice of Elaine Jarvik’s TWO STORIES and will work to ensure its continued life.
This free reading offers a unique opportunity to hear a new play by an excellent cast and take part in a post-play discussion in which the playwright welcomes comments, questions and feedback from the audience.
THE PLAYWRIGHT
ELAINE JARVIK
Elaine’s 10-minute play DEAD RIGHT was produced at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in 2008 and has recently been anthologized in the high school textbook, Bedford Introduction to Literature. Her full-length play (a man enters), co-written with her daughter, was produced by Salt Lake Acting Company in 2011, and her play THE COMING ICE AGE was produced by Pygmalion Theatre in 2010. Jarvik has spent most of her writing career trying to report the facts, first for the Deseret News and more recently as a freelance journalist, earning national awards for reporting.
THE DIRECTOR
KEVEN MYHRE
Keven received the Mayor's Artists Award in the Performing Arts in 2009. He was awarded the 2008 City Weekly Award for directing THE CLEAN HOUSE and MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS at Salt Lake Acting Company. His other directing credits at SLAC include BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON, RED, ANGELS IN AMERICA: PARTS I & II, THE OVERWHELMING, RABBIT HOLE, I AM MY OWN WIFE, BAD DATES, KIMBERLY AKIMBO, GOING TO ST. IVES, WATER LILIES, THE MEMORY OF WATER, TWO-HEADED, THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE, GROSS INDECENCY: THE THREE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE, C'EST MOI in MERE MORTALS and THREE DAYS OF RAIN. Keven has designed all of SLAC's sets and many of the costumes for the last 18 years. He has also designed 16 sets for The Grand Theatre. He designed sets for ACCORDING TO COYOTE, WEST SIDE STORY, CROW AND WEASSEL, and SOUTH PACIFIC at Sundance Theatre. His designs have also been seen at Pioneer Memorial Theatre, Utah Musical Theatre, Egyptian Theatre, Kingsbury Hall and the Babcock Theatre. His work for the Utah Arts Festival includes site design for the 20th anniversary. He received a BFA from the University of Utah and a MFA in Theatre from the University of Michigan.
CAST
Joel Applegate, Kathryn Atwood, Brenda Sue Cowley, Shane Mozaffari and Nicki Nixon with Marin Kohler as the reader.
