Island Theatre Workshop’s (ITW) annual One Act Play Festival will be up and running tonight, March 22, through the weekend and next weekend at the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven.
Featuring short plays by David Mamet, Edna Ferber, Robert Anderson, Susan Shafer, and Islander Wayne Greenwell, the five plays are a showcase for local actors and directors.
The plays
“Big Bang Theory: A Sexual Revolution” is a battle of the sexes as sperm and egg, swirling around each other, discussing important current day issues, prepare to meet. Written and directed by Vineyard resident and ITW board member Wayne Greenwell, who wrote “Separation Tango” that was produced in ITW’s Island Authors Festival in 2010, it stars The Kahoots singer/guitarist Rob Myers, and Jihan Ponti, as the yang and yin.
“I’m Herbert,” a play by Robert Anderson, is a funny and sometimes touching sketch about two old, old people sitting on a porch in a pair of rocking chairs and talking. Just talking. They don’t know how funny they are. Each has had one or more previous marriages and perhaps a few flings, but the details are hazy. In fact, they don’t always know which one the other one is. Long time Vineyard stage regulars Don Lyons and Lee Fierro team up again. We still think they are still playing against type. It is one of the four plays comprising the 1967 “You Know I Can’t Hear you When The Water Is Running,” one of the most successful comedies in Broadway history.
“Lou Bitterman, Attorney at Law” by playwright Susan Shafer: Island actor and director, Leslie J Stark, directs himself and Karen Krowski in this short play about a boorish veteran attorney who specializes in accident cases. He counsels his client but not necessarily in the direction she wants to go and the tables are turned.
“The Reunion” is an early one-act play by David Mamet, the successful playwright and screenplay writer. After a 20-year separation, veteran Island actor George Ricci plays a distant father re-establishing contact with an estranged daughter, played by Katrina Nevin. The play is directed by the irrepressible Lee Fierro, co-founder of ITW.
“Sun Dried” is an adaptation of a short story by Edna Ferber (1885-1968), a popular American novelist and playwright. A young female writer from the Midwest, played by Cassidy Look, struggles but finds inspiration and romance in the most unexpected of places in New York City in 1912. It is beautifully written and still very current in today’s world. Directed by ITW vice president Kevin Ryan, the play also stars Micheal Gilman.
Island Theatre Workshop’s One Act Play Festival, 7:30 pm, March 22-24 and 28-30, Katharine Cornell Theatre, Vineyard Haven. $15; discount with Our Island Club card.
