Into the Light

Marc Castle's new play Into the Light (which I'm directing) opens tonight, so get your tickets while you can!

In addition to writing the play, Marc Castle is starring as Sol, a newly departed soul who arrives in the hereafter only to find that none of the people waiting for him there are the ones he expected. Marc's previous plays have been done at EST, the Neighborhood Playhouse, and La Mama. In another age, he toured as a child actor in the first national company of the musical Camelot. He later wrote about it in his one-man show One Brief Shining Moment.

Acting opposite Marc is Terri Campion, who also wrote My Girl, one of the one-acts going up together with Into the Light. She's perhaps best known for her novel, Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, but she also has a long list of acting credits, including Hetty in Alice Gerstenberg's Overtones at Metropolitan Playhouse and Clytemnestra in Euripides's Iphigenia in Aulis with Greeks & Company.

Ralph Pachoda appears in the play as Jake, an old acquaintance of Sol's. Ralph is a regular at ARTC's weekly developmental workshop, but he also has had a long career as a classical actor. He appeared Off-Broadway as Creon opposite James Earl Jones in Oedipus by Sophocles. He also did a national tour of Lanford Wilson's Talley's Folly with Maryanne Plunkett.

Rounding out the cast is Jeannie Dalton, who plays Sol's mother Goldie. She's a brilliant comic actress who has played everything from Dunyasha in Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard to Raina in Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man to Puck in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream to Fanny in Eric Overmyer's On the Verge to Elmire in Moliere's Tartuffe. 

After tonight, we have only three more performances as part of the Two by Four festival playing at HB Studio's 124 Bank Street Theater. We're on again tomorrow, January 24th at 7pm, Sunday the 25th at 3pm, and then our final performance is on Tuesday the 27th at 7pm. I hope to see you there!

Coming in January

January is one of those months that seems to always feel longer than it really is, though this January I have so many things going on that I'm afraid it will fly by this year.

First up is the annual convention of the Modern Language Association, which begins tomorrow. I will not be traveling to Toronto this year, but I will be chairing an online panel on Shavian Family Resemblances.

The online session will apply the MLA Presidential Theme of Family Resemblances to the plays and critical writings of the dramatist Bernard Shaw. It will examine the fictional families in Shaw’s plays as well as the larger Anglo-Irish literary family of writers Shaw belonged to and resembled, even as he clashed with them.

In “‘People with unimproved minds’: Shavian Fathers and Resistance to the Ideal Paterfamilias,” Dibasi Roy will look at the early comedies of Shaw to examine the discursive construction of Late Victorian fatherhood, including how multidimensional aspects of masculinities intersect in varied and complex ways. 

Alice Clapie will examine resemblances among Shaw’s family of Irish writers in “Eugenic Laughter, Universal Laughter: Shaw’s Physiological Dramaturgy.” The paper will explore the uncomfortable notion of “eugenic laughter” in Shaw’s physiological dramaturgy, acknowledging the popularity of eugenics for social progress at the turn of the 20th century, when it was an important crux in the discussion of familial issues.

In the third paper, Dan Stuart will analyze the controversies behind Shaw’s most infamous family drama in “Reconsidering the Unpleasant: Victorian Morality and the Censorship of Mrs. Warren’s Profession.” The play, among Shaw’s most socially significant works, dealt with the then-controversial subject of prostitution, foregrounding the mitigating factors underlying the trade’s proliferation while exploring conflicting attitudes about gender roles and social mobility in Late Victorian society.

Later this month, American Renaissance Theater Company will be presenting Two by Four, two presentations of one-act plays at 124 Bank Street Theater. (If you're looking for the address of 124 Bank Street Theater, it is, in fact, 124 Bank Street.) Presentation A will include Mutual Bond by Mark Levine, Choose! by Bara Swain, Gators by Linda Kampley, and My Handiwork by Robert Kerr. Presentation B will include My Girl by Terri Campion, Eye of the Beholder by Kathryn Grant, The New Pasteur by Michael McGoldrick, and Into the Light by Marc Castle.

I'm directing Into the Light, which stars the author, Marc Castle, as a dead man who meets other departed souls in the afterlife, but not the ones he expected to find. It also features Terri Campion, Jeannie Dalton, and Ralph Pachoda. Today, I had a chance to check out the theater, which is run by HB Studio. It's a great space, and I look forward to having my directorial work there.

Presentation B will be going up January 23rd at 7pm, January 24th at 7pm, January 25th at 3pm, and January 27th at 7pm. Tickets are $25 for general admission. I hope you can come!

Coming Next Month

In January, I'll be directing a wonderful one-act play by Marc Castle called Into the Light for American Renaissance Theater Company.

The play is being presented as part of two bills of one-act plays, with each bill consisting of four short plays. Hence, the festival is called Two by Four.

Into the Light stars Marc Castle (the author himself) as a recently departed soul who arrives in the afterlife only to discover it's not exactly what he thought it would be.

The play also features Terri Campion, Jeannie Dalton, and Ralph Pochoda. Harriet Carr is stage managing. It will be going up with the plays My Girl by Terri Campion, Eye of the Beholder by Kathryn Grant, and The New Pasteur by Michael McGoldrick.

The Two by Four festival runs January 22nd through 27th at HB Studio's 124 Bank Street Theater. You can see Into the Light on the 23rd and 24th at 7pm, the 25th at 3pm, and the 27th at 7pm. Tickets are $25.