If it’s February, it must be time for the winter version of Performance Network Theatre’s Fireside Festival of New Works. This semi-annual provides a voice for new and emerging playwrights and features staged readings of new works by four playwrights.
The event runs February 12 -15, 2012 with a 7:00 p.m. curtain; each reading will be followed by a post-show discussion with the playwright and director. Audience members are encouraged to ask questions and share their thoughts on the pieces as part of the creative process of refinement.
The four works to be presented include:
Sunday, February 12 – Bronzeville Gold, by Anetria Cole
Set in 1933 Chicago, this family saga is about the elusive American Dream and the shortcuts people use to try to get there. Willie Jenkins, a 22-year-old sharecropper, knows that living in Tupelo, Mississippi will not afford him many opportunities. When a numbers runner from south side Chicago promises him the good life, Willie jumps at the chance to escape the south and find those promised ‘streets of gold.’
Monday, February 13 – Lines, by Jeffrey Allen Steiger
Sara, a new university grievance investigator, is assigned a case that proves to be far more complicated than it appears. When a professor with a unique expertise is accused of sexual harassment, tables turn as the investigation becomes less about ‘he said/she said,’ and more about Sara. Lines explores the division between thoughts, feelings, and action, and whether those borders are definitive or frighteningly blurry. (This play was featured in the 2010 Fireside Festival and is being brought back after significant script changes were instituted, thanks to festival input.) Directed by Jeffrey Allen Steiger, featuring Chelsea Sadler (Marie Antoinette: The Color of Flesh), Loren Bass (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern...) and Kevin Young (Next Fall).
Tuesday, February 14 – Look Away, by Robert Ford
After being accused of raping two white women, black teenagers Matty and Alonzo flee to a plantation home to escape a growing lynch mob. Convinced that the home’s sympathetic owners will help them avert danger, these cautious but hopeful boys revisit their past and plan their future as they await the morning sun that will bring with it their fate.
Wednesday, February 15 – Brill, by David Wells with music by Frank Allison
Set in Manhattan’s Brill Building during the summer of 1959, an aging Tin Pan Alley songwriter is forced to confront the inevitability of rock ‘n’ roll when a young woman with a guitar and aspirations of her own shares his office. Directed by Carla Milarch (The Drowsy Chaperone), featuring Phil Powers (God of Carnage), Sarah Leahy (Circle Mirror Transformation) and R. MacKenzie Lewis on piano (Ain’t Misbehavin’).
Tickets are pay-what-you-can (suggested donation $10) and can be ordered at the Performance Network Box Office by calling 734-663-0681, visiting online, or by coming to the Performance Network Theatre (120 East Huron St., Ann Arbor, 48104) Monday-Saturday 11:00 to 6:00 or one hour before a performance.
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