Six finalists have been selected for FutureFest 2008…a festival of new works. Founded in 1991, FutureFest provides up-and-coming playwrights the opportunity to have their work produced and professionally adjudicated during the three-day festival.
The spirit of the nationally renowned festival is to provide playwrights and opportunity to see their works produced in the early stages of writing. Feedback is provided after each production by professional theatre adjudicators, along with comments from the audience. “FutureFest is the best deal around for budding playwrights”, states Peter Filichia, past festival adjudicator and critic/columnists for The New Jersey Star Ledger and Theatremania.com. The festival productions are broken down to three fully staged and three staged readings. Since it’s founding in 1991, FutureFest has seen 17 plays published but more importantly has launched the careers of over 75 playwrights. FutureFest 2000 winner, David Van Vleck saw his play Four Beers have it’s Off-Broadway premiere in October 2003.
FutureFest weekend officially begins on Friday... here is the weekend line-up:
Coming Back to Jersey | Heartland | Inside the Gatehouse
Yellow to Lavender | Adam and Evey | The Mary Band Road Show
COMING BACK TO JERSEY
by Carl L. Williams
A middle-aged tailor indulges in daydreams to escape his humdrum existence, but his suspicious wife believes he is fantasizing about a sexy widow friend and enlists the friend's help in testing his fidelity. The trick backfires when he sets out to revenge his humiliation, leading to an escalation of flirtations by both man and wife, witnessed by their increasingly scandalized daughter and her guileless boyfriend, and involving a widower who gets drawn into the pseudo-adulterous charade while seeking a romance of his own.
Directed by Jim Lockwood
Howard: Dave Nickel
Norma: Debra Kent
Louise: Lynn Kesson
Freddy: Robb Willoughby
Dorothy: Susan Robert
Sidney: Richard Young
Coming Back to Jersey | Heartland | Inside the Gatehouse
Yellow to Lavender | Adam and Evey | The Mary Band Road Show
HEARTLAND
by Anita Simons & Lauren Simon
From 1943 to1946, the United States held captured Prisoners of War (POWs) in prison camps throughout the U.S. Although imprisoned, these German, Italian and Japanese soldiers were permitted to work in factories and on farms as part of the American effort to re-educate the prisoners in the American way of life.
Not widely known or acknowledged is the fact that from 1941 to 1945, the U.S. government also imprisoned nearly 11,000 German-Americans and 3,500 Italian-Americans. Unlike interred Japanese-Americans, many of these so-called enemy alien immigrants to the United States faced interrogation and internment conditions that were far worse than those faced by foreign nationals. Some of these prisoners were held in captivity even after World War II had ended, and more than 1,000 German-Americans, including innocent American-born children, were expatriated to Germany against their will.
HEARTLAND is set on a small, family-run dairy farm in Wisconsin where, in March 1945, a German-born widow and her children are struggling to make ends meet after the family patriarch has died. When they receive notice from the War Manpower Commission offering two Prisoners of War to work their farm, it seems like an answer to the family’s prayers, but the arrival of these two strangers causes changes no one had anticipated. Based on true stories of many such arrests of German-American families during World War II, HEARTLAND explores what can happen when fear and prejudice pit neighbor against neighbor in times of war.
A politically relevant drama with one set and a cast of four women, two men and one boy, the play is approximately 90 minutes.
Directed by Linda Dunlevy
Berta: Becky Lamb
Sonya: Allison Husko
Emma: Sarah Gomes
Rolf: Micah Stock
Gunther: James Goodwin
Peggy: Stefanie Pratt
Jack: John Bukowski
Peter: TBA
Coming Back to Jersey | Heartland | Inside the Gatehouse
Yellow to Lavender | Adam and Evey | The Mary Band Road Show
INSIDE THE GATEHOUSE
by Bill Hollenbach
On the eve of a trip to go black bear hunting, four wealthy friends meet at the gatehouse of an exclusive walled community. As they enter the architect of the community, takes a golf club and drives a ball out the front door. Immediately a ball bounces back against the wall, and they quickly discover a sinister note in the mailbox. “You think we can’t get in; we think you can’t get out.” The note is first dismissed as a joke, but as the evening progresses, the deadly nature of the evening emerges.
While there are hints of a possible affair between two of the insiders, and petty rivalries and resentments arise all around, the outside threat continues to mount. Most sinister of all, a rifle has been left in the house with all the cartridges missing. Except for one. And the outsiders want “repentance and a dead body”.
Who are these outsiders? What is their relationship to the insiders? And just who are the good guys here?
Directed by Saul Caplan
Art: Dave Williamson
Carol: Cheryl Mellen
Jackson: Geoff Burkman
Zipper: K.L. Storer
Coming Back to Jersey | Heartland | Inside the Gatehouse
Yellow to Lavender | Adam and Evey | The Mary Band Road Show
YELLOW TO LAVENDER
by Carl A. Rossi
(3 act comedy/drama) is set in 1944 and centers around the late, great actress Laurette Taylor (1888-1946) as she struggles to make a comeback despite her alcoholism and the theatre world’s indifference, culminating in the Chicago world premiere of Tennessee Williams’ THE GLASS MENAGERIE. The cast of real-life characters includes Miss Taylor’s student and friend Eloise Sheldon, her son Dwight Taylor, the young Tennessee Williams, fellow MENAGERIE actors Eddie Dowling, Julie Haydon and Tony Ross – and a most important dress. YELLOW TO LAVENDER was written with the approval and support of Miss Taylor’s granddaughters and the literary executor of Miss Taylor’s daughter Marguerite Courtney. CAST REQUIREMENTS: 8 men, 4 women. PRODUCTION REQUIREMENTS: Two sets: Acts One and Two: Laurette Taylor’s apartment. Act Tree: a dressing/makeup room in a Chicago theatre. Some sound effects.
Directed by Fran Pesch
Laurette Taylor: Barb Jorgensen
Eloise Sheldon: Devan Norsworthy
Dwight Taylor: Robb Willoughby
Marguerite Courtney/Ray Dowling/Woman: Angela Palazzolo
Eddie Dowling: Chuck Larkowski
Julie Haydon: Becki Norgaard
Louis J. Singer: Dave Gaylor
Tom “Tennessee” Williams: Micah Stock
Randy Echols: Ian Manuel
Young Man: James Goodwin
Tony Ross: Ben Norsworthy
Coming Back to Jersey | Heartland | Inside the Gatehouse
Yellow to Lavender | Adam and Evey | The Mary Band Road Show
ADAM & EVEY
by DeLora Whitney
an unexpected hero, the ultimate contender, a fight to the death, a love story
Adam is a young man happy with the status quo. Evey, his girlfriend, a struggling writer stuck in the midst of her first novel and terrified that life will fly past without them, convinces Adam that it’s time for more – a family.
God, with desires of her own and inspired by this loving relationship, appears to Adam with blessings for his unborn. But there’s a hitch. He must make offerings worthy of the gifts, with only hints at what will suffice.
The Snake, a bad guy, and God’s first true love, is distraught that she continues to rebuff his advances. Angry that she lavishes gifts upon the couple, he devises a plan. He’s got a bargain for Adam; some would say a sweet deal. And if accepted, promises an answer to those offerings – which bear far more weight than Adam’s grasped.
Despite the temptation, Adam resists until the birth day arrives and he faces the dire consequences of his failure. Once again the Snake appears with his offer. Adam must choose between saving his child and saving mankind.
Directed by Jennifer Lockwood
God: Amy Brown
Snake: David Shough
Adam: Ben Norsworthy
Evey: Annie Branning
Coming Back to Jersey | Heartland | Inside the Gatehouse
Yellow to Lavender | Adam and Evey | The Mary Band Road Show
THE MARY BAND ROAD SHOW
by Carole Lockwood
“The Mary Band Road Show” takes place on a small stretch of road on the old Route 80 in Alabama, 12 miles from downtown Montgomery on March 24
th, 1965. Two miles away the three thousand marchers – including many who responded to Dr. King’s “Call to the Clergy” after the bloodbath at the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma one month earlier – are camped out for the night. Not realizing that the marchers are already at St. Judes Educational Complex, three nuns wait to join the them … and hope to enjoy the celebrity packed Hollywood show hosted by Harry Belafonte. The youngest, Vatican 2 nun, Sister Catherine, is driving the elderly, irascible Sister Agnes and her chum, simple-minded Sister Mary Mary, to a home for elderly nuns in St. Augustine, Florida. They have tried to time their journey from Minnesota so that they might take part in this historic march for the right to vote.
Hoping to meet up with the marchers, they become stranded at this rest stop when Sister Mary Mary falls down in a diabetic coma, having consumed their entire stock of candy kept in the back seat. The Sisters are forced to spend the night in the tumble down shack they have parked next to. Much to their surprise, an elderly black minister, Reverend Eli, is revealed inside the hut, hiding behind the crates and rubble, and hoping to meet up with his 22-year-old grandson and continue onto St. Judes. Jonesy is coming by foot and arrives after dark with the Klan in hot pursuit, as they troll the area for stragglers outside the protected two mile perimeter imposed by then President Johnson and enforced by the federalized Alabama State Troopers. Seeing the car belonging to the Sisters of Mercy, the little hut begins to hold their interest as they patrol the back roads. The night is filled with new revelations and old disappointments revealed in the constant undercurrent of fear building with each passing of the KKK. Will the Ku Klux Klan stop to check out the shabby tool shed and what is the secret 89-year-old Sister Agnes carries with her regarding the KKK?
Will they all survive the night? And, if so, how will this night lead them into a clearer understanding of their common humanity?
Directed by Alan Bomar Jones
Sister Agnes: Dodie Lockwood
Sister Mary Mary: Renee Franck-Reed
Sister Cathy: Becky Barrett-Jones
Reverend Eli: Roi Douglas Miller
Jonesey: Duante Beddingfield
Coming Back to Jersey | Heartland | Inside the Gatehouse
Yellow to Lavender | Adam and Evey | The Mary Band Road Show
The weekend will conclude with the awards ceremony immediately following the final production.
The Dayton Playhouse is handicap accessible and is located at 1301 E. Siebenthaler Ave in the Wegerzyn Gardens Metro Park .
