Click poster to view full size.

The Monkeys invite you to celebrate Christmas in April.  No, it’s not an April Fool’s Day joke!  Just the next step in the development of our original work An Appalachian Christmas Carol.  As many of you know from attending past Brick Monkey readings of new plays, a large part of the writing process entails hearing the material out loud in front of an audience to determine what works, what’s confusing, and what should be expanded.  So we need your help!

A reading of the full script of An Appalachian Christmas Carol will take place on

Sunday, April 1, 2012, at 2pm at Stuart’s Opera House.  

The event will be a seated, script-in-hand reading of the play with live music.  For those of you who heard Act One back in December, this will be an opportunity to hear the rest of the story.  If this is your first time to see it, your feedback is important as well, as we continue to develop the production over the coming months.

The reading is FREE, but donations are always welcome.  Coffee and cookies will be served.

Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble’s production of An Appalachian Christmas Carol will have its premiere this December at Stuart’s Opera House.  Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity to tell our region’s story.  It promises to be the beginning of family holiday tradition!

Happy Valentine’s Day from the Monkeys! Join us tonight at 7:30pm for a free play reading at the Dairy Barn Arts Center.

We will be presenting a different play tonight than originally advertised: Steven Dietz’s comedy Shooting Star. Snowed in overnight at a middle-America airport, college lovers Elena Carson and Reed McAllister have an unexpected and life-altering reunion.

“Steven Dietz sends a tender valentine to middle-age in SHOOTING STAR, a smart and sweet comedy from one of the American theater’s most-produced playwrights. Dietz’s gift as a writer is an acute attention to our modern language. He elevates ordinary conversation to a kind of music. Dietz makes reality poetic.” —Austin-American Statesman.

The reading is directed by Rebecca VerNooy and features Janice Paxson Evans and Brian Evans. Come join us for a great play, cookies and coffee (or something from the bar), as we celebrate Valentine’s Day Brick Monkey style!

WHAT: A reading of Steven Dietz’s comedy Shooting Star
WHEN: 7:30pm on Tuesday, February 14, 2012
WHERE: The Dairy Barn Arts Center, 8000 Dairy Barn Lane, Athens, OH.

Cash bar available.

ADMISSION IS FREE!

You can now donate directly to BMTE through the web! Not only that, you can donate just like you do for NPR – small, automatic monthly donations – and you can get all the reporting forms for your taxes emailed to you directly.

Won’t you join us in donating $12 a month in 2012? The “$12 in ’12″ program proceeds go to supporting our popular monthly new play reading series (no admission fees) and toward our full production of Appalachian Christmas Carol in December 2012, the first act of whichwas very well received this past December at Stuart’s Opera House. (Of course you may choose to support us at $15 or $50 or $150 a month if you like — we won’t be upset if you break the $12/month barrier, we swear!) Also, stay tuned: there will be special benefits to becoming a “$12 in ’12″ member, such as “first look” previews of the 2012 full rendition of Appalachian Christmas Carol and other “Inside the Process” sneak peeks.

To donate (either a one time donation or on a monthly basis) simply click the button above and follow the instructions, or go to the support page. Network For Good, the donation processor, is also a not-for-profit entity; they make sure that 100% of your donation goes to BMTE.

Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble invites you to a family holiday fundraising event for the development of a new play celebrating Southeast Ohio’s rich coal mining and labor union heritage.  You know the classic Charles Dickens story A Christmas Carol …. but what if old Eb Scrooge owned the mine?  Brick Monkey presents a staged reading of Act One of An Appalachian Christmas Carol featuring live music by Rattletrap Stringband.  This is the kickoff of a year of development to fully-produce the play in 2012 and beyond. Come join us for an evening filled with theater, music, and dessert. We promise this is the beginning of a Christmas holiday tradition at Stuart’s!

At Stuart’s Opera House on the Public Square in Nelsonville, Ohio.

Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 8pm
$20 adults / $10 students / Free for kids 16 and under
Dessert reception to follow.
Tickets:  online and at the door

Visit Stuart’s Opera House for more.

Click to enlarge.

Many of you were in the audience at Stuart’s Opera House on September 11, 2006, for the first Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble reading of The Guys by Anne Nelson. The play documents the story of New York Fire Chief Nick Flannigan in the aftermath of 9/11. Our audience talk-back session that night was filled with personal accounts of the attacks, as audience members recounted where they were when the towers fell. Emotions still felt raw on that night five years ago.

And here we are. Ten years since the events of 9/11. While some things remain the same, many have been forever changed, and those raw emotions have morphed into…what exactly? Media exhaustion? Rage? Frustration? Fear? Hope? All of the above at different times? We want to hear from you, our audience. Where are we as a nation, as a community, ten years later?

We are excited to bring you the next installment of our Free Play Reading Series, Defiant by George Brant. George is a gifted playwright who has recently moved to Cleveland after many years on the East Coast. The Monkeys are big fans of his writing and we are excited to bring a play reading of his to Athens. Defiant tells the story of Ann Martin, a woman who incurs the wrath of a grieving country when she refuses to memorialize her husband following his death in a national tragedy. The play is a beautifully crafted Greek tragedy that asks difficult questions about what it means to grieve, what it means to be a patriot, and how a decision to not honor the dead can be seen as treasonous.

Presented by Brick Monkey Theatre Ensemble, Southeast Ohio’s professional theater company, the reading will be directed by company member Brian Evans, and features Merri Biechler, Shelley Delaney, Ledger Free, David Haugen, Phillip Johnson, Kate Scholl and lorraine wochna.

Dr. William Condee will facilitate an audience talk-back after the reading.

The reading will take place at 2pm on Sunday, September 11, 2011, at ARTS/West, 132 W. State Street, Athens, OH. Admission is free. Refreshments will be served.

Come join us for an afternoon of thought-provoking theater and discussion!

***
George Brant’s scripts have been produced and developed internationally by Trinity Repertory Company, the Cleveland Play House, Dobama Theatre, the Playwrights Foundation, Premiere Stages, the Playwrights’ Center, WordBRIDGE Playwright’s Lab, Trustus Theatre, the Drama League, Florida Studio Theatre, Terrific New Theatre, the Elemental Theatre Collective and the Disney Channel, among others. His script Elephant’s Graveyard was awarded the David Cohen National Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center and the Keene Prize for Literature. He has received writing fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Blue Mountain Center, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program and the Michener Center for Writers, as well as commissions from Dobama Theatre and Theatre 4. His plays are published by Samuel French, Smith & Kraus, and Broadway Play Publishing.

When Something Wonderful Ends
a one woman, one Barbie play
by Sherry Kramer

Part of the fun of the Reading Series is revisiting a play at different stages of its development.  Sherry Kramer is a longtime friend of the MFA Playwriting Program at Ohio University.  When she served as a playwriting mentor at the 2005 Seabury Quinn Jr., Playwrights’ Festival, she was writing When Something Wonderful Ends.  Typical of Sherry’s generous spirit, she allowed Shelley Delaney to direct a public reading of this one woman show with SEVEN actresses!  The play went on to have its world premiere at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors’ Theatre of Louisville in 2007, and has had numerous productions worldwide since then.

This is an autobiographical play for Ms. Kramer.  After the death of her mother, Sherry’s family home goes up for sale.  Sifting through memories of a seemingly simpler time as she packs up her baby-boom childhood, Sherry begins to connect the dots between her Barbie collection and America’s place in the rest of the world. A touching, funny, deeply personal and daringly global one-woman, one-Barbie play.

The reading will be presented by the Brick Monkey Theatre Ensemble, southeast Ohio’s only professional theater company, directed by Shelley Delaney and featuring Merri Biechler.

When? 7:30pm on Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Where? ARTS/West, 132 W. State Street, Athens, OH.
Admission is free. (Click poster above to enlarge.)

Sherry Kramer’s work has been seen at theaters across the country and abroad, including the Humana Festival at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, Yale Repertory Theatre, Soho Rep, Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York’s Second Stage, Woolly Mammoth, and The Theater of the First Amendment.  She is a recipient of NEA, New York Foundation for the Arts and McKnight Fellowships, the Weissberger Playwriting Award, and a New York Drama League Award (What A Man Weighs), the LA Women in Theater New Play Award (The Wall of Water), and the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award (David’s Redhaired Death), and a commission from A.S.K. (The Mad Master).  She was the first national member of New Dramatists, and teaches playwriting at Bennington College, and in the MFA programs of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and the Michener Center for Writers, University of Texas, Austin.

Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble wants to brighten your post-daylight-savings-time evening with a free play reading! November’s offering will be company member Erik Ramsey’s Lions Lost (in Translation). Originally developed at WordBRIDGE play lab, Cleveland Public Theater, American Stage, and the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago, the play follows Professor Bloy who suffers from a very literary ailment: he has become a metaphor of himself. He hunts a cure from a list of specialists: from the family physician, to a science fiction writer best known for his portrayal of the sexual habits of robots, to the Latina bricklayer next door. In the end, exhausted by his search, he must bring his illness to the supper table where his fading wife awaits.

The reading will be presented by the Brick Monkey Theatre Ensemble, southeast Ohio’s professional theater company. The reading will be directed by ensemble member Shelley Delaney and will feature Beth Brown and ensemble members Dennis Delaney, Brian Evans, David Haugen and lorraine wochna.

The reading will take place at 7:30pm on Tuesday, November 16, 2010, at Glidden Recital Hall on the Ohio University campus. Admission is free.

Erik Ramsey is an Associate Professor of Playwriting who teaches with Charles Smith in the MFA Playwriting Program, and is Head of Undergraduate Playwriting at Ohio University. His plays have been produced around the country, and Samuel French and Dramatic Publishing have published several of his short works. Currently, he is writing a trilogy of historical dramas about the surprising turn of events that boosted Joseph Smith from life as a small time con-artist to Prophet of the Mormon Church; the first in the series, titled SMITH UNEARTHED, has recently been featured and developed at the International Society of Contemporary Literature and Theatre Conference (Estonia: 2007), the Gwen Frostic National Reading Series at Western Michigan University (Nov, 2008), and at Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble (Dec, 2008). His two textbooks, “The Art of Theatre: Then and Now” and “Experiencing the Art of Theatre” are in their second edition from Wadsworth (2010), and are in use at over 100 colleges and universities nationwide. In 2007 Erik was named a Kennedy Center Faculty Fellow for his work in new play development and in 2010 he was appointed as Director of Innovation, Research and Theory for WordBRIDGE Playwrights’ Laboratory. This past September he taught master classes in playwriting and play development technique at Lubimovka Playwrights Laboratory in Moscow, Russia.

Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble is back from summer break and ready to present another free play reading!  September’s offering will be Garret Schneider’s play Swagger Like This.  Part of Brick Monkey’s mission is to develop new plays.  When we saw this play read in the 2009 Ohio University Seabury Quinn, Jr. Playwrights’ Festival, we were moved by the courage and joy of the lead character…Jonah.  Jonah is an 8th grader with a speech impediment, a physical handicap, and a burning need to rap in his school’s talent show.  Yet, his greatest obstacles to rap-stardom don’t come from his newly-formed ‘crew’ or from his disability, but rather from his parents who desperately want him to succeed.

The reading will be presented by the Brick Monkey Theatre Ensemble, southeast Ohio’s only professional theater company.  The reading will be directed by ensemble member David Haugen and will feature ensemble members Ledger Free and Rebecca VerNooy, and Zach Kopciak.

FRANKIE AND JOHNNY IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE by Terrence McNally

8pm Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Glidden Recital Hall on the Ohio University campus
Admission is free

Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune is the final offering in Brick Monkey’s series of free play readings. Terrence McNally’s gem of a story asks the question: Can a middle-aged waitress and short order cook, who’ve experienced more disappointments than delights in life, find true love?

The original 1987 Off-Broadway production starred Kathy Bates and Kenneth Welsh. The play finally got its Broadway debut in 2002 with Edie Falco and Stanley Tucci in the title roles. Since several Monkey company members enjoyed one or the other of the NYC productions, this play easily fits into our “plays we love” category! We hope you will join us for what the New York Post calls a “very sweet, extraordinarily funny, romantic and ribald comedy.” The reading will be presented by the Brick Monkey Theatre Ensemble, southeast Ohio’s only professional theater company.

The reading will be directed by ensemble member Brian Evans and will feature ensemble members Merri Biechler and Ledger Free. (Click on the flyer to see it full sized.)

Join us afterwards for an audience discussion of the play.

Part of Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble’s mission is to develop and produce new plays.  With three playwrights in the company, audiences have the rare opportunity to see professional theatrical works in their very early stages.  Because theater is such a collaborative process, a play doesn’t really become a play until it is up on its feet, with actors, a director, and designers, in front of an audience.  As theater artists, we consider the audience an invaluable part of the process!  And we want to invite you to join us in this process.

***

OCCUPATION takes place in America.

Almost now.

When, after a coordinated terrorist event, fear has persuaded us to trade in our personal freedoms for security.

An underground movement of young women calling themselves Civilians are strapping bombs to their backs and blowing up Government Officials.

Bombs are the new black.

Someone has to bury these dead girls.

Someone has to stand up for the Government Officials.

And someone has to tattoo the girl’s identity to her foot before she makes her delivery.

***

OCCUPATION, written by Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble’s Managing Director Merri Biechler, will be directed by Emily Prince and will feature ensemble members Janice Paxson Evans, Kate Scholl, Rebecca VerNooy, and Lorraine Wochna.

7pm, Tuesday May 11, 2010 
Union Arts 
15 W. Union Street, #101B 
Athens, OH 
Admission is free 

A one-act version of the play was a finalist in the Perishable Theatre’s International Women’s Playwriting Festival, and was workshopped with Ohio University BFA actors in May 2009 under the direction of company member Shelley Delaney.  The Brick Monkey reading of Occupation will be the first public presentation of the full-length version of the play that is still in development.

The Gospel According to James by Charles Smith, is based upon the August 1930 double lynching in Marion, Indiana that has been immortalized by the now iconic Lawrence Beitler photograph.

The play depicts a fictional meeting between the man who survived the double lynching, James Cameron, and the woman who claimed to have been raped but later recanted, Mary Ball. As they recount the events of that night, the play uses the lynching as a fulcrum to explore how shifting memory has created what we now understand to be an immutable history.

The Gospel According to James was commissioned by the Indiana Repertory Theatre through funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Joyce Foundation. The Brick Monkey reading of the play will be the very first public presentation of the play that is still in development. The reading will be directed by Brick Monkey Ensemble member Dennis Delaney and will feature Brick Monkey Ensemble members …

7:30 pm Sunday, April 18, 2010
400 Robert Glidden Recital Hall
Admission is Free

The play will receive its World Premiere production at the Indiana Repertory Theater in March of 2011 and will receive a subsequent production by the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago in May of 2011.

Charles Smith is Head of the Professional Playwriting Program at Ohio University and is a member of the Playwrights Ensemble at Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. His plays have been produced across the United States and in Australia. His award-winning play Freed, about John Newton Templeton who was the first African-American to attend Ohio University, will open Off-Broadway in June. His play Knock Me a Kiss, which was recently produced at the Ohio University School of Theater, will open Off-Broadway in November. http://www.csplays.com/bio.html

Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble is proud to perform a staged reading of Fiction by Steven Dietz.

Fiction is a provocative examination of the life and loves of two successful, married writers.  Linda and Michael thrive on the give-and-take of their unusually honest relationship.  But when they decide to share their journals, the boundaries between past and present, fact and fiction, trust and betrayal begin to break down.  No life, it turns out, is an open book.  To quote the play, “The lies begin when you lift the pen.”

FICTION by Steven Dietz.

Director: David Haugen
Actors: Dennis Delaney, Shelley Delaney, Kate Scholl.
Location:  Glidden Recital Hall on the Ohio University campus.
Time: 7:00 pm, March 9, 2010
Admission is free. 

BRICK MONKEY THEATER ENSEMBLE
ANNOUNCES PLAY READING SERIES

ATHENS, March 1, 2010– Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble (BMTE), Southeast Ohio’s only professional theater company, is happy to announce it’s upcoming series of play readings.   BMTE will present a play reading on the second Tuesday of each month from March through June beginning on March 9th.  The readings will be free of charge and audience members will be invited to discuss the play with the company following each reading.  Two of the plays are newly written works by company members Merri Biechler and Charles Smith, and each of the plays is under consideration for future production.   All readings are free of charge.

The readings will take place at 7:00 PM on the second Tuesday of the month: 3/9, 4/13, 5/11, 6/8, and will include:

3/9: FICTION by Steven Dietz. Director: David Haugen, Actors: Dennis Delaney, Shelley Delaney, Kate Scholl.  Location:  Glidden Recital Hall on the Ohio University campus.

Fiction by Steven Dietz is a provocative examination of the life and loves of two successful, married writers.  Linda and Michael thrive on the give-and-take of their unusually honest relationship.  But when they decide to share their journals, the boundaries between past and present, fact and fiction, trust and betrayal begin to break down.  No life, it turns out, is an open book.  To quote the play, “The lies begin when you lift the pen.”

Locations of the following three readings are to be announced:

4/13: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JAMES by Charles Smith. Company: TBA. Premiere regional reading of a new work in progress.

5/11: OCCUPATION by Merri Biechler.  Actors: Janice Evans, Kate Scholl, Rebecca VerNooy, Lorraine Wochna.  Premiere regional reading of a new work in progress.

6/8: FRANKIE AND JOHNNY IN THE CLAIR DE LUNE by Terrence McNally: Director: TBA, Actors: Merri Biechler, Ledger Free.

About Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble

The vibrant arts scene in Athens and Southeast Ohio features internationally recognized professionals working in a variety of artistic disciplines, ranging from ceramics and photography to dulcimer building and fiddle playing. In 2007, thirteen professional theater artists came together in Athens to found the Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble with the expressed intent of producing professional theater of a caliber to match our internationally acclaimed and thriving arts community.

Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 corporation located in Athens, Ohio.  The playwrights, directors, actors and designers who constitute BMTE are artists whose collective body of professional work encompasses all branches of the entertainment field:  theater, television and film.  Members of the ensemble have worked at theater venues that include Broadway, Off-Broadway, major theatrical markets including Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., as well as a range of significant regional theaters. They hold memberships in key professional entertainment industry unions and guilds, including Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, United Scenic Artists, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, Dramatists Guild, Writers Guild of America, and New Dramatists.

Mission Statement

Our mission is to challenge, engage and inspire the residents of our community with explosive and thought provoking theater. As the only professional theater company in Southeast Ohio, we develop and produce new theater works, as well as contemporary and classic plays. With a commitment to collaboration and a desire to integrate our art into the fabric of our region, we strive to explore, confront and affirm what it means to be alive.

Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble is sponsored in part by the Ohio Arts Council.