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THE STAGELIGHT NEWSLETTER
July 2017
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A community theatre bringing diversity programming, social justice and public health to the forefront through the performing arts.
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Me & Jezebel
by Elizabeth Fuller
Directed by:
Deborah B. Dickey
Show Dates:
July 7 - 23, 2017
Starring:
Jan Cohen & Kristen Mercer
It all starts when a mutual friend brings Bette Davis to Elizabeth Fuller's house for dinner. Davis calls the next day to thank Elizabeth for the lovely dinner (although the chicken was a bit raw), and to ask if she could possibly impose and stay with her for a couple of days (no more than three) while a hotel strike runs its course in New York. Fuller, a life-long fan, can hardly refuse. But trouble soon begins as Davis arrives with a station wagon full of belongings and, moves right in.
Davis quickly dominates the lives of Elizabeth, her husband, John, and their young son, Christopher, who begins imitating Davis' tones and, worse, her language; as does Elizabeth, who desperately wants to form a real friendship with her idol. Elizabeth tells Davis stories of how she and her grandmother used to go to Davis' double features and write her fan letters.
Oblivious to the Fuller family, Davis decides what they will have for dinner, when they will go to the beach and speaks her mind on everything from child-rearing and spiritualism to Paul Newman and, of course, Joan Crawford. As the days progress it becomes clear that Davis thrives on conflict and high tension, and that she is only truly happy when she is stirring things up.
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| Jan Cohen (Bette Davis) & Kristin Mercer (Elizabeth Fuller) |
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Join Michael Martinez-Hamilton and friends for our Acting Workshop Showcase.
Date: Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Time: 8:00pm
Tickets: $5
For the past nine weeks, this enthusiastic group has been working on some of the essentials of being a performer on the stage:
- Confidence
- Stage Presence
- Character Development
- Motivation
- Monologues
- Scene Study
- Improvisation
During their celebratory showcase, you'll have an opportunity to witness the fruits of their labor. You'll also be able to get information about our
next class scheduled to begin
August 15th.
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Mondial du Théâtre
International Amateur Theatre Festival
Monaco 2017
Mandisa Haarhoff and Steven H. Butler
Join us for our final benefit performances before heading off to Monaco.
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Crush-Hopper
by Mandisa Haarhoff
Date: Thursday, July 27, 2017
Time: 8:00pm
Tickets: $20
ONE PERFORMANCE ONLY
Mandisa Haarhoff presents an auto-biographical performance based on her journey of identity in post-Apartheid South Africa. What it means to be Black, Colored and White.
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by Lara Foot
Dates & Times:
Friday, July 28, 2017 - 8:00pm
Saturday, July 29, 2017 - 8:00pm
Sunday, July 30, 2017 - 3:00pm
Tickets: $20
Starring:
Steven H. Butler & Mandisa Haarhoff
Meet Simon, the storyteller and Ruth, the love of his life. Simon shares humorous and tragic stories of his village in a post-Apartheid South Africa. Meanwhile, through her self-imposed silence, Ruth conveys her approval and disapproval of his stories. One of the tragic stories is that of Ruth and her child which has caused her not to speak. Simon is compelled to tell Ruth's story and reveal what happened to a people who are oppressed denied life necessities.
Tshepang is based on a true story and inspired by 20,000 others.
Actors' Warehouse's production of
Tshepang is winner of:
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2017-2018 Season
by Octavio Solis
Directed by Kathy Byrne
A man and woman wake up in a California apartment with no memory of who they are or how they got there. All doors are locked and all that is there is a crib with a fried chicken leg in it. Slowly their memories start to reform and the characters gain back their identities. Man had rescued Woman from an abusive relationship after she accidentally calls him instead of a rape-and-abuse counseling service. She becomes pregnant with a baby that may or may not be Man's and is pursued by her former abusive boyfriend, Abel, throughout the years. They revisit the memories that haunt them and eventually rediscover who they are as parents.
Steal Away
by Romona King
Directed by
L'Tanya Van Hamersveld
A Folktale, set in Chicago during the Depression, this farce is the story of 5 upstanding church ladies who raise funds to send young Black women to college by holding bake sales and the like. Their latest beneficiary, Tracyada, has more ambitious ideas. She wants them all to rob a bank! Of course, the ladies are reluctant to do anything that drastic; but when they are turned down at the bank for a loan to send another young woman to college because the White bank manager doesn't think "colored girls" need an education, the ladies decide to join in Tracyada's scheme
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Intimate Apparel
by Lynn Nottage
Directed by Deborah Dickey
The time is 1905, the place New York City, where Esther, a black seamstress, lives in a boarding house for women and sews intimate apparel for clients who range from wealthy white patrons to prostitutes. Her plan is to find the right man and use the money she's saved to open a beauty parlor where black women will be treated as royally as the white women she sews for. By way of a mutual acquaintance, she begins to receive beautiful letters from a lonesome Caribbean man named George who is working on the Panama Canal. George persuades her that they should marry, sight unseen. Meanwhile, Esther's heart seems to lie with the Hasidic shopkeeper from whom she buys cloth, and his heart with her, but the impossibility of the match is obvious to them both, and Esther consents to marry George. When George arrives in New York; however, he turns out not to be the man his letters painted him to be, and he absconds with Esther's savings, frittering it away on whores and liquor.
by Maria Irene Fornes
Directed by Carlos Asse
Hopeful, hard-working Mae lives in bleak rural poverty, but she is going to school, and plans to better her life. Lloyd, who lives with Mae, scorns to learn from a book, and treats Mae with angry disrespect. When Lloyd becomes ill, Mae goes searching for a diagnosis, and brings their simple, yet eloquent, neighbor Henry home with her, in order to help her read the difficult medical language. The ensuing love/hate triangle that brews between the three creates a toxic environment, and Mae, whose love and respect for Henry turn to impatience and resentment after an accident renders him helpless, determines that to escape the ill-luck of her life, she must escape the men who depend upon her.
by Lucy Prebble
Directed by Bradley Hicks
The Effect
is a clinical romance. Two young volunteers, Tristan and Connie, agree to take part in a clinical drug trial. Succumbing to the gravitational pull of attraction and love, however, Tristan and Connie manage to throw the trial off-course, much to the frustration of the clinicians involved. This funny, moving and perhaps surprisingly human play explores questions of sanity, neurology and the limits of medicine, alongside ideas of fate, loyalty and the inevitability of physical attraction.
Jesus Hopped the "A" Train
by Stephen Adly Guirgis
Directed by Kevin O. Mack
Angel Cruz is a thirty-year-old bike messenger from NYC who has lost his best friend to a religious cult. At the opening of the play, he is in his second night of incarceration, awaiting trial for shooting the leader of that cult in the "ass." He is on his knees, alone and terrified, trying to say a prayer he no longer remembers to a God he has all but forgotten. He is transferred to a special twenty-three-hour lock-down wing of protective custody. For one hour a day, Angel experiences daylight from a cage on the Riker's Island Prison roof. His only source of human contact is the lone inmate who is also in protective custody. Lucius Jenkins, a.k.a. "the Black Plague," works out furiously in the cage next to Angel. A sociopathic serial killer awaiting extradition to Florida, Lucius pauses from his workouts only to chain smoke and to "save" Angel. Lucius Jenkins has found God, and Angel's life and the course of his trial will be changed forever.
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Time or Treasure
Your time and treasures given to Actors' Warehouse are valued gifts.
We have volunteer opportunities for:
- Box Office
- Publicity & Marketing
- Stage Management
- Beautification Team
- Special Events
Your tax-deductible gifts allow us not only to meet our operation expenses, but also allows us to continue producing quality shows in alignment with our mission statement:
"Actors' Warehouse entertains, inspires, and fosters critical thinking through the performing arts
while bringing diversity programming,
social justice and public health to the forefront.
"
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Our Community Partners
Great thanks to our community sponsors for their continued support.
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MISSION
Actors' Warehouse entertains, inspires and fosters critical thinking
through the performing arts while bringing diversity programming,
social justice
and public health to the forefront.
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See what's happening on our social sites:
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Actors' Warehouse, Inc. | Artistic Director: Steven H. Butler
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