The Ohio University feature film Trailerpark – whose ensemble cast includes Brick Monkey company members Merri Biechler, Janice Paxson Evans, David Haugen, and Shelley Delaney — has been accepted to the Cleveland International Film Festival in March:
http://www.clevelandfilm.org/festival/films/2010/trailerpark
Septemerber 3-6, 2009:
Rounding Third by Richard Dresser
Opening Thursday, September 3 through Sunday, September 6, 2009 at Stuart’s Opera House on the Square in Nelsonville, OH. See below for ticket information.
Rounding Third is a hilarious look at two well-intentioned fathers and their very different approaches to coaching a little league baseball team.
The ball field becomes a battlefield in Richard Dresser’s hilarious comedy as two mismatched little league coaches lead their team of aspiring big leaguers from their first tentative meeting of the spring to the climactic championship game. Don is the tough, blue-collar, win-at-all-costs veteran coach whose son is the star pitcher. Michael, the newcomer both to the town and to baseball, is a white-collar executive who agrees to be Don’s assistant because he wants to share a special activity with his athletically inept son. Michael believes that the job of the coaches is to shield the kids from the intense pressure of competition while making sure everyone has a good time, while Don is coaching for only one
reason: to win. Out of these conflicting philosophies, the real issues of the play emerge: how should we raise our children? Since we live in such a ferociously competitive society, do we protect our children as long as possible? Or do we prepare them to be tough enough to win? And what does it mean to be an American man?
This two-person play enjoyed a successful off-Broadway run at the John Houseman Theatre after regional productions in Chicago, Laguna Beach, and the Old Globe in San Diego. It will be Brick Monkey’s inaugural production.
The play contains some language that may not be suitable for children.
Tickets are available now at Stuart’s Opera House:
http://www.stuartsoperahouse.org/index.php?item=354
Brick Monkey Theater Ensemble, Southeastern Ohio’s Professional Theater Company, will present a workshop reading of SMITH UNEARTHED, a new play written by ensemble member Erik Ramsey at Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville, Ohio on December 5, 2008 at 8:00 p.m. The workshop performance is free and open to the public. (See the Stuart’s Opera House web page information at the following link: http://www.stuartsoperahouse.org/index.php?item=314.)
Erik Ramsey’s SMITH UNEARTHED poses this question: How did Joseph Smith, Jr., a failed oracle and convicted conman, rise to become the prophet and founder of the Mormon Church – arguably the fastest growing religion in the world today? The play chronicles the days leading up to Christmas, 1825 when Joseph Smith, Jr. and his father, on the run from the law, return in disgrace to the family farm in upstate New York to save their house from being repossessed. In the process of escaping the clutches of both their creditors and the investors they’d recently fleeced, they lay the foundations of Mormonism.
Based on historical accounts of Mormonism’s early years, SMITH UNEARTHED dramatizes the moment in time when Junior first begins to believe he has been spiritually imbued with the true story of the American continent: that Native Americans are actually a lost tribe of Israel and that he, Joseph, is the one man who knows the history of Jesus Christ’s appearance to them here. Disillusioned by his failures dowsing for precious minerals as a “seer for hire”, and disappointed in himself for turning his gift for divination into a cynical grift, Junior hopes to marry and find a simpler life free of prophecy, real or invented. But instead of climbing from the legal and ethical hole he’s dug himself into, he digs deeper and strikes a different kind of gold. No scholars deny Smith practiced magic, but no one knows for certain if that magic was simply a combination of charisma and sleight of hand or truly anointed and supernatural. SMITH UNEARTHED asks an audience to divine the truth of the matter for themselves.
BMTE presents a reading of Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver by Merri Biechler. Admission is Free, 8pm, Friday, June 27, 2008 at Stuart’s Opera House, Nelsonville, OH.
The Story: When Mae Benjamin moves back home to care for her terminally ill father, she imagines moments of reconciliation and grace. But as her father’s health declines, his obsession with the Sci-Fi Network and creating a machine to deliver him to another dimension intensifies. Using the machine, Mae summons her mother for guidance, and with humor and compassion strives to reach her final goal…to give her father a good death.
Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver has been awarded over $30,000 for the development of the play and related research from sources such as the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine and the American Cancer Society. For more about the play and research, see the Ohio Outlook article at: http://www.ohio.edu/outlook/06-07/August/800n-067.cfm andhttp://www.stuartsoperahouse.org/index.php?item=273.
BMTE presents a staged reading of Almost, Maine by John Cariani as a special Valentines Day performance. Admission is Free, 8pm, Saturday, February 16, 2008 at Stuart’s Opera House, Nelsonville, OH.
Almost, Maine is a romantic comedy that began performances in New York in December 2005 at the Daryl Roth Theatre. The show received a wide variety of rave notices for its funny, touching look at life in the small, far northern town of Almost, Maine. Audiences flocked to see this show, with its hilarious and heartbreaking stories of love in the time of frostbite.
