June 3-27th, 2010
Festival Staff:
Producer: Dominic Cuskern/The Gallery Players
Associate Producers: Barrie Gelles, Nina Lutwick, & Hannah Mason
Festival Stage Manager: Andrea Herbert
Scenic/Props Designer: Starlet Jacobs
Costume Coordinator: Dara Fargotstein
Lighting Designer: Scott Andrew Cally
Sound Designer: Jack Kennedy
Where can a playwright find an outlet? Where can an audience see new works? The Gallery Players provides both of these in this Festival. Over the years of producing the Festival, we have developed works by countless playwrights, many of whom continue to work with The Gallery Players each year to incubate their new ideas. More than 300 plays have appeared in the Black Box New Play Festival since its inception and this year will bring even more writing and acting talent to the stage. Who knows what you’ll discover in the Box?
In this video, producer Dominic Cuskern, playwright TJ Edwards, and director Neal J. Freeman discuss The 13th Annual Black Box New Play Festival. See below for an additional video specifically about Box 1, Candide.
Box 1
Candide by TJ Edwards
June 3-6, 12-13, 19-20
Director – Neal J. Freeman
Stage Manager – Kelli Keith
Associate Producer – Hannah Mason
Assistant Director – Brian Letchworth
Props Designer – Starlet Jacobs
Costume Designer – Dara Fargotstein
Pictured (l to r): Len Rella and Montgomery Sutton in Candide. Photo by Neal J. Freeman.
The Cast:
Candide – Montgomery Sutton*
Cunegonde – Alice Winslow
Pangloss – Len Rella*
Old Woman – Judy Alvarez
Cacambo – Emilie Soffe
Male 3 – Patrick Toon*
Male 4 – Kyle Minshew*
Male 5 – Andrew Davies
Male 6 – Kyle Metzger*
Female 4 – Amanda McCallum*
Female 5 – Minna Taylor
*appearing courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association
In this video, playwright TJ Edwards, director Neal J. Freeman, and lead actor Montgomery Sutton discuss Candide.
“Candide is ever the fun romp it intends to be. If you’re up for a laugh and feel like a farce, you would do well to check this production out. Totally fun!”
-Janelle Lannon, Theatre Is Easy
Candide has been taught by his mentor, Dr. Pangloss, that everything in the world is for the best. The boy embraces this doctrine on a sprawling, world-wide journey. However, his lessons in the world are quite contrary to what he has been taught in the classroom. Voltaire’s masterpiece, adapted for the stage in rhymed couplets by playwright TJ Edwards (The Pearl Theatre Company), is an assault on society, religion, human nature, education, government and above all, optimism. Candide’s journey is here enacted by 11 actors playing over 75 roles in a madcap journey to discover just what it is that makes life worth living.
Pictured (standing l to r): Montgomery Sutton and Alice Winslow in Candide. Photo by Neal J. Freeman.
Performances:
Thursday, June 3rd at 8pm – opening night
Friday, June 4th at 8pm
Saturday, June 5th at 8pm
Sunday, June 6th at 3pm – matinee
Saturday, June 12th at 2pm – matinee
Sunday, June 13th at 7pm
Saturday, June 19th at 2pm – matinee
Sunday, June 20th at 7pm
Pictured (l to r): Montgomery Sutton and Emilie Soffe in Candide. Photo by Neal J. Freeman.
Box 2
A weekend of short plays.
June 10-13
Will You Sing Me a Lullaby by Michael Kevin Baldwin. Directed by Rachel C. Dart.
Michael is a 26 year old in the midst of a quarter life crisis. Intellectually adult, he yearns for the safe and carefree life of his childhood. Anna, his sister, has been bruised by life. Two of them find common ground by singing each other a lullaby.
Al Bashir by Erik Christian Hanson. Directed by Paul Brewster.
An assassination is in the works for President al-Bashir of Sudan. Hank has wanted this for years but his team seems to have last-minute reservations.
Under the Rug by Jamie Gerardi. Directed by Brian Maschka.
Two well-regarded upper crust citizens of New Hope, Pennsylvania have committed ghastly crimes. In this absurdist comedy, the quirky, older couple feels their offenses are fully justifiable. Needless to say the police react differently. The police are perplexed by the couple’s frustratingly circular logic, but also from the fact there is a dead body lying on the antique oriental rug.
A Meeting by Joseph Talarico. Directed by Barbara Danielle Harrison.
A priest and a young man enter a cramped room. The priest wants company. The young man may want something more.
Addiction Anonymous by David M. Korn. Directed by Allison Bressi.
An amusing look at the nature of twelve-step programs and their cultural proliferation.
The Remake by David L. Williams. Directed by Michael LaPolla.
Studio executive Leland is having a problem with Martin, a screenwriter he has under contract. Martin has written a screenplay he won’t show anyone. Leland demands to see the script and learns that Martin has written a remake of a movie that should never have been remade. The one problem? It’s a great script. What to do?
I Love New York by Corey Pajka. Directed by Chad Yarborough.
John Done is an underground poet, or so he likes to think. In reality, he’s an everyday working stiff riding the subway. He finds solace in his mp3 player. The interior of the train takes on John’s inner visions, as his imagination takes control. John spends much of the play trying to work up the courage to really talk to anyone. Can he resolve his fantasy with reality?
Performances:
Thursday, June 10th at 8pm
Friday, June 11th at 8pm
Saturday, June 12th at 8pm
Sunday, June 13th at 3pm
Box 3
A weekend of short plays.
June 17-20
Seven Minutes by Lindsay Joy Murphy. Directed by Angela Dirksen.
Two high school kids stuck in a closet. One a boy with a darker past and the other a good girl born and bed in Brooklyn. They find common ground a spark of something more.
Winter Flowers by Lily Rusek. Directed by Heather Arnson.
Two older sisters are facing a crisis and life and death decisions have to be made.
15 Miles to the Horizon by Jeannine Jones. Directed by William Addiss.
Suzanne has been waiting for her blind date to meet her. He was supposed to be wearing a red tie. A handsome stranger strikes up a conversation. Will Suzanne take the chance? Will the stranger reveal that he was her blind date all along?
Memento Mimi by Denis Meadows. Directed by Kristine Ayers.
Middle-aged Wade decides to take a ferry ride, for old times sake, and runs into Mimi, an old flame. Except it’s not the same Mimi he last saw twenty years ago. Memory and reality clash in the short ride they share across the water.
Dignity by Joe Lauinger. Directed by Barrie Gelles.
The Holly Haven Health Care Center has very strict rules about patient behavior, and the old uncle of John Garfield, who is an elderly patient there, has apparently committed a gave offense against those rules. John has been summoned by Holly Haven’s Director to discuss the matter. The Director is a fierce defender of what she calls the dignity of her staff and moral integrity. Will John agree to the therapy she insists upon?
Karp’s Last Text by Corey Pajka. Directed by Ari Rosenbaum.
Andrew Karp was dumped last night with a voicemail. That’s bad. It’s the morning after and his ex-girlfriend won’t answer the phone. That’s bad. The only way she will talk to him is online or via text. Thats frustrating. Can two people truly communicate through a wall of technology? That’s the play.
Love Thy Neighbor by Camilla Maxwell. Directed by Mike Hayhurst.
A couple in suburban London, prepare for a lovely Sunday afternoon barbecue with friends. When the husband secretly invites the neighbors to join the party, nothing but trouble can ensue. Drinks will be had, preconceptions will be broken and dirty laundry will be aired. You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your neighbors.
Me by Maia Akiva. Directed by Sarah Bennett.
Suppose you were to come face to face with your destiny. The writer wants to find out what ever she can about her destiny but her destiny refuses to give her any information. Is her destiny right? Is it a bad thing to know one’s destiny? Or is it a good thing that will make our life easier?
Performances:
Thursday, June 17th at 8pm
Friday, June 18th at 8pm
Saturday, June 19th at 8pm
Sunday, June 20th at 3pm
Box 4
A weekend of short plays.
June 24-27
Piece of Cake by Nora Vetter. Directed by Brian Michael Flanagan.
A young woman stops in at a bakery to order a birthday cake for her new boyfriend. It becomes a very complicated and fraught transaction but finally she gains clarity.
Hot Fudge Sundae by Corey Pajka. Directed by Tim O’Donnell.
A young man offers his favorite dessert in an otherwordly ice cream parlor. Before he can enjoy it, he’s visited by a strange little girl he is oddly familiar with. Only as the play progresses, and the girl’s life along with it, does he deduce their true link. Their time together is melting away almost as quickly as the sundae.
This Isn’t What It Looks Like by Philip Gerson. Directed by Kelly Johnston.
A soft-hearted liberal repeatedly stabs a sexy right-wing pundit-therapist with a carving knife. Why? To answer this we’re taken on the wild ride of a man forced to question his entire existence when his government job is outsourced to Nepal, his wife turns against him, his teenaged son refuses to leave his room and a curvy conservative talk-show host targets his family. Hilarious and harrowing, the story takes place in today’s nightmarish universe of hate politics, big media consolidation and isolating technology. It follows an average family as it surfs the brave new zeitgeist past the bedside of Terry Schiavo, rental sisters hired to treat video game addiction, and out-migration to California-stan.
Performances:
Thursday, June 24th at 8pm
Friday, June 25th at 8pm
Saturday, June 26th at 8pm
Sunday, June 27th at 3pm
Reading Series
Graphic Nature by Daniel Damiano
Saturday, June 5th at 3pm
A once-anonymous executioner in 1913 France shyly pursues a young patisserie clerk in Versailles, while struggling against his sudden notoriety.
Directed by Heather Siobhan Curran
Featuring: John Blaylock, Gil Brady, Dominic Cuskern, Rebecca Dealy, Justin Herfel, Frederic Heringes, Sue Glausen, Tom Lawson Jr. and Rhyn McLemore.
Admission: free
Brooklyn Crossing by Laura Livingston
Saturday, June 26th at 3pm
Directed by Laura Livingston
Love, Walt Whitman and the American Revolution overlap within view of the Lower Manhattan skyline.
Admission: free