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American Stage hosts free play readings
| Article published on Monday, Nov. 30, 2009 |
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ST. PETERSBURG – American Stage Theatre Company will present a free reading series for new plays by local playwrights called Hot off the Presses. The readings will be presented at the Raymond James Theatre, 163 Third St. N.
Tickets are free to the public for all readings. All readings will be followed by a talkback with the playwright and an evaluation form to help guide the play’s development.
The first plays announced as part of this series are:
• “The Hurricane Brothers,” with book, music and lyrics by Rob Hartmann and Todd Olson, Monday, Dec. 7, 7 p.m.
It was 1900 - the dawn of a new century - and Americans were unshakable with pride. Two brothers, Isaac and Joseph Cline, worked diligently in the Galveston Weather Bureau office in the late summer of 1900. But on Sept. 8, Texas was hit with what is still the deadliest natural disaster in America’s history. And while the last known survivor of Galveston only died two years ago, this cataclysmic event is largely forgotten. The Galveston Hurricane killed 16 times more people than the Chicago Fire two years before, six times as many as the Titanic disaster 12 years later, four times as many as in The World Trade Center attack 101 years later and seven times as many as Hurricane Katrina 105 years later. Now, through letters, wires and witness accounts, the ghosts of Galveston, as well as the Cline Brothers, come back to tell their story of what really happened that fateful night.
Hartmann is adjunct faculty in the graduate musical theater writing program at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, and composer of “Macabaret,” “Hereafter” and “The Vanashing Point.” Olson is producing artistic director at American Stage and creator of “My Way,” “I Left My Heart” and “Casa Blue.”
• “Four Middle-aged Jewish Men Discuss Love, Death and the Inescapable Presence of God,” by Mark E. Leib, Monday, Dec. 14, 7 p.m.
Thirty years after they roomed together at the University of Michigan, four best friends come together and speak their hearts about love and sex, death and aging, religion (and the lack of it). A serio-comic look at middle-age and the secrets only friends share.
Leib is the theater critic for “Creative Loafing,” and author of plays such as “Art People,” “Terry by Terry,” “The Return to Zion,” “How They Wrestled Until Morning,” “American Duet” and “A River in the Desert.”
• “Roadhouse That Could,” by T. Scott Wooten, Monday, Jan. 4, 7 p.m.
Slashed budgets and mass layoffs – there's trouble at the city's Performing Arts Center. Artistic leadership is deposed and the CEOs takes over, planning a massive remodeling project. The resident art-house theater company faces eviction. But, if the artists leave, will the art survive? An unexpected homecoming of a wayward, prodigal son could change everything – but first, he has to find some motivation.
Wooten is an artistic associate at American Stage and has written “Refer Madness: The Play!!!,” “Mr. Wooten's Big Night,” “An Almost Unfortunate Occurence,” “Adventures of Ernie Tripe Private Detective Litter Division” and a new adaptation of Aristophanes' “Lysistrata.”
Call 823-7529 or visit www.americanstage.org.
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Article published on Monday, Nov. 30, 2009
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