Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman will be appearing live on stage right here in Orlando on Saturday, April 10 at 7:30 PM at the John & Rita Lowndes Shakespeare Center. This will constitute the keynote event of the Harriet Lake Festival of New Plays - Play Fest -2010 - being presented at the theater complex in Loch Haven Park.

In an "Inside the Actors Studio" type of interview, Jim Helsinger will talk to actor Philip Seymour Hoffman about his career in film, theatre, and new plays.

Individual tickets to the Hoffman event are priced at $50, $75, & $100 with some student tickets available at $25.  For further information and ticket purchase for what is certain to be a sold out event on April 10^th, please logo onto www.OrlanoShakes.org or call 407.447.1700, or stop by The Lowndes Shakespeare Center box office and arrange your tickets in person through the lovely Doug or Lisa.

Play Fest has generated 10 world-premiere plays, spawned more than 115 new works, and included 10 master classes.

Each year more than 10,000 patrons and 100 artists, including actors, directors, technicians, and playwrights, are involved from around the country.

WANZeGRAM Subscriber Friends All Over Play Fest:

Wanzie will once again be a participating playwright in PLAY IN A DAY 2010, and will also be performing as the title character from the film Citizen Kane in a reading of CITIZEN EVE under the direction of Kenny Howard. In this fascinating play centered around the writing of the film All About Eve, Orlando actress and WANZeGRAM fave Becky Fisher will once again assume the persona of Bette Davis, which she so amazingly embodied in the critically acclaimed Me And Jezebel for which Fisher won The Lillie Stoates Award for Best Performance by an Actress in the 1997 Orlando theatrical season. Other familiar actors appearing in CITIZEN EVE include Becky's own husband and gifted performer in his own right, Joe Swanberg, the fabulous Frank McClain, the talented Alan Finic, luscious newcomer Michael Ealy, brassy and sassy Meagan Maroney, the always delectable Heather Leonardi, and sultry Katherine Skelton in the role of Marilyn Monroe!

Clearly CITIZEN EVE is not to be missed.

Another top of the list event will be the fully staged production of SHOTGUN under the direction of David Lee, for which there is a special WANZeGRAM outing planned for Thursday, April 1, 2010.

This griping post-Katrina play, set in New Orleans, will feature Dennis Neal, Barry White, Brandon Rogers, Chantal Jean-Pierre, and one of Orlando's finest acting talents, Russ Blackwell.

Here's the whole kit and caboodle: 

PLAYFEST 2010!
THE HARRIETT LAKE FESTIVAL OF NEW PLAYS

April 2-11, 2010

 

Orlando Shakespeare Theater in partnership with UCF

812 E. Rollins St., Orlando FL 32803

www.orlandoshakes.org

KEYNOTE EVENT:

PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN

Saturday, April 10 at 7:30 PM

NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK
ROLLING WORLD PREMIERE:

SHOTGUN

By John Biguenet

Directed by David Lee

Four months after Hurricane Katrina, a white man and his teenage son rent half of a shotgun duplex apartment from an African American woman and her father. Seething racial tensions bubble to the surface when love begins to bloom.

SPECIAL WANZeGRAM OUTING

To attend SHOTGUN as a group

 

Thursday evening, April 1, 2010

Enjoy a Specially Arranged, WANZeGRAM Subscriber Discount:

SAVE $18

Off regular ticket price!

Pay only $20 for your $38 ticket

Offer valid at this one performance only, and only if you book as part of the WANZeGRAM group.

To book in at the  WANZeGRAM group discount rate, simply dial

407-447-1700 and ask for the WANZeGRAM discount for the April 1 Performance. Bookings based on availability. Seating will be assigned on a first call, first served basis.

Pre-show cocktails at Savoy 

Mark your calendar and save the date

April 1, 2010

To save $18!

WORKSHOP:

HEAVIER THAN

By Steven Christopher Yockey

Directed by Patrick Flick

This mash-up of Greek myths unfolds inside a sprawling labyrinth where Aster the Minotaur contemplates turning 30 and pines for his long-absent mother while navigating a deceptive chorus, a plotting sister, a masochistic, sexually obsessed boy with wings, and the impending arrival of warriors out for blood.

READINGS:

THE WEIRD SISTERS

By Zack Calhoon

Directed by Patrick Braillard

Muriel, Seonaid, and Rhoswen, three women rebuked and thwarted by Duncan's diseased Scottish government, are brought together by need, by revenge, and by design. Meet the witches of Shakespeare's Macbeth in Zack Calhoon's prequel, THE WEIRD SISTERS, before they took their revenge; before they cast

their first spell.

GLASSHEART

By Reina Hardy

Sponsored by Women Playwrights' Initiative

Directed by Robin Olson

It's Beauty and the Beast.  But Beauty never showed up. After centuries under the curse, the Beast and his last servant move into a shabby Chicago apartment. In the world of paying rent and taking public transportation, is a happy ending even possible?

ONCE A MARINE

By Kelly Younger

Directed by Richard Perez

A shell-shocked marine returns home with no recollection of the life, or the wife, he left behind.  The only woman he does remember ­ the one he came back for ­ is his first love of fifteen years ago.  His bittersweet homecoming rekindles that love, and dredges up his most painful of memories. He must choose a future of blissful ignorance, or a past of buried grief. But he is not the one who will decide.

CITIZEN EVE

By Scott Bibb & Jerry Rice

Directed by Kenny Howard

The witches from Macbeth reveal their show-biz connections in this irresistible brew of uproarious comedy, fearless imagination, Hollywood nostalgia, and all-too-human desires. It's 1950 and Joe Mankiewicz is toiling and troubling over the script of All About Eve. Enter the supernatural, and things get even bumpier.  Enter Bette Davis, and, well...fasten your seat belt!

TIME IN KAFTA

By Len Jenkin

Directed by David Lee

A manic recently ex-assistant professor at a small college, his loving wife, Franz Kafka, a European sanatorium, two mercurial con-people, and a time-slip -- the present sliding away to 1913...trains, bars, airplanes, poisoned sausage, The Trial....a fable, a quixotic journey, and a determined yet demented quest for one man's own truths.

VINO VERITAS

By David MacGregor

Presented by Orlando Theatre Project

On Halloween night two couples prepare to attend an annual costume party. Though the evening begins as usual, familiar traditions unravel when the foursome shares a bottle of South American ceremonial wine made from the skin of blue dart tree frogs.  Under the influence of this tribal truth serum, what follows is an unpredictable night of unbridled honesty that stretches the bounds of their friendship forever.

DAEDALUS
By David Davalos

Directed by Kate Ingram

The London Times, January 27, 2010: "Scientists Want to Exhume Leonardo da Vinci to Solve Mona Lisa Mystery." But why go to all that trouble when you can just see David Davalos' play, Daedalus, for the shocking and funny answer? And meet Machiavelli and the Borgias, as well as go for a ride on a 16th-century flying machine, to boot...

NIGHT BLOOMS

By Margaret Baldwin

Directed by Laurel Clark

Two families ­ one white and one black ­ cope with change in Selma in 1965. On the day of the march, the Stafford household laughs, cries, celebrates a bloom, and waits for news when an unexpected freedom fighter appears on their doorstep. A moving story of ordinary people and extraordinary change.

THE TRUTH WILL OUT

By Jordan Seavey

Directed by John DiDonna

In The Truth Will Out, an allegedly closeted national news anchor is confronted and threatened by the accused killer of an African American gay teenage boy. Tina Turner, Ellen Degeneres, Edward R. Murrow, and Katherine the Great collide with the theatrical doppelgangers of a famous news anchor (dare we presume the character might be inspired by Anderson Cooper? We at the WANZeGRAM sure think so) and his high society mother in a play that dares to tackle a recent national tragedy while asking some dangerous questions about human behavior and basic human rights.

SPECIAL EVENTS

PLAYWRIGHTS PANEL

What is the Role of Actor in New Play Development -

Join authors, actors, and directors for a scintillating conversation about new plays and their development

PLAY IN A DAY

Orlando Fringe Festival Artistic Director Beth Marshall brings the Orlando Community together to produce this much beloved, traditional Orlando event. WANZIE will once again be one of the writers who must write a 10-minute play overnight after just being given the genre or subject matter, a number of actors, and a director matched to the playwright by blind lottery draw.

PLAYWRITING CLASS WITH ARLENE HUTTON

Arlene Hutton is a MacDowell Colony fellow and member of the Dramatists' Guild. Her first full-length play, LAST TRAIN TO NIBROC, received a 2000 NY Drama League nomination for Best Play, and more than fifty regional productions. AS IT IS IN HEAVEN premiered in Edinburgh, opened in NYC at the 78th Street Theatre Lab, moved to the ArcLight Theatre, and received a highly acclaimed four-month run at the Actors' Co-op in LA. Both plays are published by Dramatists Play Service and in the Smith & Kraus Best Women Playwrights anthologies. A four-time Heideman Award finalist and a three-time Samuel French Short Play Festival winner, her NY credits include: The Barrow Group, Circle-in-the-Square Downtown, Alice's Fourth Floor, Ensemble Studio Theatre, HERE, and Vital Theatre. At the Australian National Playwrights Conference, she work shopped a sequel to NIBROC. She teaches at Fordham University and The Barrow Group, and is writing a play about the Brontë family, a commission for Clear Channel Theatrical Division.

Perks for a Donation / Sponsorship Opportunities:

Should you have an interest in becoming a Play Fest sponsor at the $500 level, you will not only be supporting the development of new plays and the presentation of workshops, you will also enjoy special VIP seating for the Phillip Seymour Hoffman event and many other perks throughout the festival. Interested parties should kindly contact Pat Flick A.S.A.P at Orlando Shakespeare Theater: 407.447.1700 x 212 or www.orlandoshakes.org

SPECIAL WANZeGRAM OUTING

To attend SHOTGUN as a group

 

Thursday evening, April 1, 2010

SAVE $18

Off regular ticket price!

To book in at the  WANZeGRAM group discount rate, simply dial

407-447-1700 and ask for the WANZeGRAM discount for the April 1 Performance. Bookings based on availability. Seating will be assigned on a first call, first served basis.

Pre-show cocktails at Savoy 

Mark your calendar and save the date

April 1, 2010

To save $18!

Tickets for the Philip Seymour Hoffman event and for regular performances of Shotgun are now on sale: 407-447-1700

As of this writing, tickets and show times for workshops and readings were not yet available. Watch for that information in an upcoming WANZeGRAM

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