Yearly Archives: 2017

FUTUREFEST 2017
Dayton Playhouse
July 21-23
Dayton

• Fri, July 21 at 8pm
  ON THE PINE KNOLL STREET [Staged]
• Sat, July 22 at 10am
  FIRST, DO NO HARM [Reading]
• Sat, July 22 at 3pm
  WAKE [Reading]
• Sat, July 22 at 8pm
  MAGNIFICENT HUBBA HUBBA [Staged]
• Sun, July 23 at 10am
  THE SPANISH PRAYER BOOK [Reading]
• Sun, July 23 at 3pm
  THE PUPPETEER [Staged]

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ON THE PINE KNOLL STREET by Mark Cornell
Directed by Richard Lee Waldeck
Assistant Director: Jamie Pavlofsky
Friday, July 21, 2017 at 8 PM

[Staged] Thelma is a colorful and quick-witted 87-year old woman struggling with her memory.  Her devoted daughter Marilyn, with whom she now lives, is trying to make the best of the situation.  When Marilyn asks her neighbor Curtis, a struggling writer and stay-at-home father, to care for her mother and her beloved cats while she is at the beach, it sets in motion a friendship that tethers two families.  Funny and heartbreaking, ON THE PINE KNOLL STREET is an intimate look at the joy and fragility of life, the meaning of home, and the things we do for love.

Cast: Renee Franck Reed as Thelma, Cheryl A. Mellen as Marilyn, John-Michael Lander as Curtis, Kari Carter as Kristie & Raef Norgaard as Mitchell

FIRST, DO NO HARM by J. Thalia Cunningham
Directed by Jackie Darnell
Saturday, July 22, 2017 at 10 AM

[Reading] Our recent election galvanized a tsunami of concerns about race and healthcare. The CDC reported black Americans suffer higher rates of disability and preventable diseases than non-minorities. While blatant discrimination is no longer rampant, stereotyping persists. Hospitals emphasize the need for cultural diversity but, perhaps, have fallen short. Inspired by a real case, FIRST, DO NO HARM is the story of two African American mothers journeying along parallel paths of grief and guilt. It doesn’t attempt to answer the questions raised. There are no easy answers, and no single clinical guideline is useful in unraveling the spectrum of human physical, mental, and emotional response to illness.

Cast: A.Slate as Dr. Elissa Kerry, Shanna Camacho as Dr. Alison Taylor, Joyce Barnes as Mattie Clester, Kip Moore as Dwayne Hatcher, Jennifer Lockwood as Female Actor, Keshawn Mellon as Male Actor & Charlotte Harris as the Narrator

WAKE by Vince Gatton
Directed by Tim Rezash
Saturday, July 22, 2017 at 3 PM

[Reading] Dan and Eric have a new marriage license, a new baby, and a new house in the country. As they settle into this new life, Dan is having what seem to be sleepwalking episodes. A ghost story told by a young visitor leads Eric to suspect that Dan’s sleepwalking is actually something far more sinister — but is it what he thinks it is? Or are there other forces at work? WAKE is a ghost story for the post-AIDS generation, a play about marriage, expectations, and the power of narrative to both heal and harm.

Cast: Brian Sharp as Dan, Mark Sharp as Eric, Michael Groomes as Terrell, Shyra Thomas as Esme & Jason Penix as Charlie

MAGNIFICENT HUBBA HUBBA by Olga Humphrey
Directed by Annie Pesch
Saturday, July 22, 2017 at 8 PM

[Staged] A teenage boy tracks down his downtrodden, fiery, and foulmouthed idol –“The Magnificent Hubba Hubba” – an old-time woman wrestler now over 70 and working as a greeter at a hotel casino. He aims to set up the rematch of the century between her and her arch rival of years gone by. But what he really wants is to win the love of her estranged granddaughter, a high school wrestling star who hates his guts. A comedy about how true passion never grows old, and sometimes the best partnerships are the most unlikely ones.

Cast: Becky Howard as Lucille, Thomas Troutman as Roy, Fran Pesch as Alice, Hannah Stickel as Lulu, David Hallowren as Zane/Announcer, Melissa Ertsgaard as Wanda/Nadya/Young Lucille/Referee & Shanna Camacho as Teddy/Nurse/Young Alice/Hostess

THE SPANISH PRAYER BOOK by Angela J. Davis
Directed by KJ Melson
Sunday, July 23, 2017 at 10 AM

[Reading] In 2007, a committed atheist inherits a collection of rare and extremely valuable illustrated Hebrew manuscripts, including a prayer book from fourteenth-century Spain.  Financial struggles and a child’s recent hospitalization favor an initial plan to auction the books.  A moral dilemma, historical mystery, and matters of the heart converge, however, following the discovery that the books, which bear witness to overlapping Jewish and Islamic traditions, were stolen, some six-hundred years after their creation, from a library in Berlin. Inspired by true events and a late twentieth-century court case, and using images from the books themselves, the play explores the allure of sacred manuscripts, the ethical issues generated by cultural treasures displaced during wartime, and the power of art to forge human connections.

Cast: Jim Lockwood as Jacob Adler, Cynthia Karns as Joan Adler, Kerry Simpson as Michaela Adler, Matthew Lindsay as Julien Nazir, Jonathan Horwitz as Alexander Adler/Christopher Howell, Karin Henhapel as Channa Wild/Assistant/Law Clerk, Michael Juergens as Understudy/Stage Reader & Niccole Sue Ann Wallace as Understudy/Stage Reader

THE PUPPETEER by Desireé York
Directed by Kip Moore
Sunday, July 23, 2017 at 3 PM

[STAGED] When Constance, a 1920’s jazz singer, chooses to stand on her own, not only is her name carried on through multiple generations, but so is her determination to find an identity in an ever changing world. Spanning five generations, starting in the Harlem Renaissance and ending in present day, the women from one African-American family struggle to overcome the roles assigned to them by society in order to find their way home.

Cast: Carolyn Seymore as Constance/Connie, Jacob Smith as Robert/Christopher, Michael Schumacher as Ernie/Mr. Hotchkiss, Chelsey Hall as Miss Dunston, Corrine Duperree as Mrs. Covington, Tamar Fishbein as Ms. Jenkins & Barb Hartlely as Ms. Evans