TFAC is Excited to Co-Host this Staged Reading with Shakespeare & Friends
“7-Up,” An Evening of Eclectic One-Act Plays
Directed by Catherine Gillet
One night only! Enjoy a staged reading of seven plays by award winning and published playwrights. The actors may have scripts in hand, but these readings will have theatrical elements of music and lighting.
From quirky to poignant to outright hilarious, and absurd, each of these carefully curated plays will resonate with audience members on many levels.
“I am very excited about directing these amazing actors for this evening of theater. It seemed like a good time for Shakespeare & Friends to offer a bit of respite from the mind-numbing madness of the daily news,” Gillet says.
Actors include, Chase Wolfe, who also starred in the musical The Last 5 Years produced by Shakespeare & Friends in TFAC’s Pavilion last June. The other actors who need no introduction to local theater lovers are Darlene Cah, Marianne Carruth, Lori Corda, Hillary Fleming, Luke Laughter, Michelle Newman, and Mark Sawyer.
Here’s your lineup for an entertaining and engaging evening of Shakespeare & Friends’ Sound Stage Theater!
Short Life of Trouble (or True Dylan) by Sam Shepard: Features 2 characters – Sam and Bob. It is a dramatized short ‘interview’ between Sam Shepard and Bob Dylan, which focuses on Dylan’s early days in New York, his friendship with Woody Guthrie and what constitutes “truth”. Shepard and Dylan were friends, having met on the Rolling Thunder Tour, so this play has been touted as an actual, verbatim conversation.
Candlelight by Cate Allen: a Gen X personal assistant comically tries to explain the difference between living in reality vs living inside her iPhone, to her employer’s Gen Alpha daughter.
Szinhaz by Itamar Moses – The famous Eastern European Theater Director, Istvan Zoltan Andras is doing a public interview. He doesn’t speak any English but, luckily, he has his trusty translator, Marie. Istvan eagerly tackles questions about his career and creative outlook, and Marie communicates them to the audience in her own broken English. But when the interview takes a strangely personal turn, the questions break down into hilarious misunderstandings.
Deliverance by Catherine Gillet – When an eccentric young woman surreptitiously arrives uninvited to an exclusive Hamptons beach house party, one of the guests’ curiosity unleashes a sparkling chemistry.
Intermission by Will Eno – Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, Eno, has created a tongue-in-cheek master work in this short play where 2 couples chat with each other during, by all accounts, a dreadful play’s intermission. Deeply touching and funny, Eno dares the audience to reflect on why theater has meaning.
My Mother and Marilyn Monroe by Catherine Gillet – Set in Miami, an untethered woman who fancies herself a photographer, sends random, anonymous letters to strangers in a misguided belief that these missives will help change people’s lives. Enter a Marilyn Monroe impersonator who could use more than a little change, a full moon, and a writer who bears witness to it all, in this play about intention, purpose and the luck of the genetic draw.
The Freelancers by Lucy Kirkwood – Reality is not what it seems in this quirky, magical play. Set in London, a young woman returns home to an apartment which has been completely cleared out by her ex-boyfriend. He has even taken the roof, which leaves her with an envious view of the sky. Following a visit from 3 unusual people with questionable motives, she is left alone with one. A strange peace ensues.
