Join us at the Matthews Opera House for auditions for our new community theater experiment, “Page to Stage!” This unique reader’s theater production will offer opportunities for actors to read from four different scripts and is a perfect opportunity for those new to the stage, seasoned actors who are short on time but long on ambition, and anyone who would like to participate in a relaxed, creative theater experience.
“Page to Stage” will feature four plays: “Love, Loss, and What I Wore,” directed by Julie Walkins; “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds,” directed by Joanna Mechaley; “A Gap in Generations,” directed by Max Merchen; and a new play written and directed by local playwright Charlotte Dougherty, “I Know What You Did.” Each play is a full-length script. Due to its nature as a Reader’s Theater, however, actors will not face the typical rigorous requirements–the rehearsal period will be brief, there will be minimal movement and no memorization required!
Each play will perform on scheduled weekends throughout the month of May.
Auditions will be held simultaneously and community members are invited to try out for one or more of the four productions.
“Love, Loss and What I Wore,” written by Nora and Delilah Ephron and adapted from the memoir of the same name by Ilene Beckerman, will be directed by long-time Matthews thespian, Julie Walkins. This funny, compelling script is an intimate collection of stories about women, clothes and memory covering all the important subjects—mothers, prom dresses, mothers, buying bras, mothers, hating purses and why we only wear black.
Joanna Mechaley will direct “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds,” by Paul Zindel. This play focuses on a frowzy, acid-tongued mother who wreaks petty vengeance on everyone around her, including her two daughters. But her youngest daughter exhibits an intuitive gift for science, and proves that something beautiful and full of promise can emerge from even the most barren, afflicted soil.
Once again proving that laughter is the best medicine, Max Merchen will direct “A Gap in Generations,” by Jerry Blunt. This comedic-farce explodes with belly-laughs as the readers discover a square in old Bologna peopled by types that could have strayed from any of Shakespeare’s classic tales.
In addition to nationally published scripts, “Page to Stage” will also feature the work of a local playwright, “Dark Secrets,” written and directed by C.A. Dougherty. In Dougherty’s newest play, two sisters with a bad case of sibling rivalry find themselves faced with unexpected and sometimes hilarious consequences, trying to test out the theory that everyone has at least one secret that they don’t want anyone to know. Ever!
