Scripts from Scratch Program

By Bobbie Bell MAY 14 | 3PM

By Brandon Cahela MAY 14 | 7PM

By Kay Esposito MAY 15 | 3PM

By John J. Kelly MAY 15 | 7PM

WELCOME TO THE SCRIPTS FROM SCRATCH NEW PLAY WORKSHOP. Over 40 playwrights submitted their never-produced scripts to The Studio Theatre in the fall of 2020. The playwrights had to be Florida residents submitting full-length scripts. Four plays were selected to have their plays workshopped over the past week. They have been rehearsing these staged readings while making edits to the newly formed performances. Today, you will be the first audience hearing this new play out loud.

With actor, director, and audience feedback these scripts can continue to grow and the playwright can make new drafts or perhaps hear a new perspective on their play they have not encountered yet. You are a part of a wonderful workshop journey. We thank you for being here with us all today.

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ANNOUNCING

SEASON 6 Tiny Revolutions, Big Changes.

MARCH 29th - APRIL 30th

JAN 25th - FEB 28th

NOV 21st - DEC 18th

SEPT 28th - OCT 30th

NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS AND INDIVIDUAL TICKETS ON SALE JUNE 29TH

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THE GOSPEL OF JOHN B. On the late night hours on the evening before John Brown’s execution on December 1st, 1859, John Wilkes Booth has bribed his way into the cell to confront the man whose beliefs he despises but whose actions he admires. Unsure whether he should kill Brown or whether the old man has some secret of mastering a “great act,” Booth and Brown wage ideological fencing matches covering topics as wide as the frivolous art of theatre to the justification for terrorism. By the night’s end the two enemies discover a common bond and Booth discovers the inspiration he came seeking for his own “great act.” The historical record of the play is thus: we know that Brown was the first American citizen to be given the contemporaneous title of “terrorist” for his murder of proslavery settlers in Pottawatomie in Bleeding Kansas and his plot to break the back of slavery in Virginia with his terrorist assault at Harper’s Ferry. We know that Booth at the start of his professional acting career, walked out of a professional production of the play The Toodles to enlist in the Richmond Virginia Greys, who were dispatched to Charles Town, Virginia for the express purpose of guarding Brown and his co-conspirators and to guard the gallows on the day of the execution. Booth himself was clear that he was going to see Brown a man whose beliefs he despised but whom Booth called: “a brave old man.” He also said: “John Brown was a man inspired, the grandest character of the century.” Booth stood next to the gallows in military formation and had a “front row seat” for Brown’s “great act.” Booth’s “great act” was to surpass Brown and become America’s first presidential assassin. Current research on the anniversary of the Civil War indicates that neither man was the lunatic or crazed zealot that previous histories have supposed. Both men planned their acts for years and were reported to be calm, cool, courageous, and focused on those acts: Brown convinced that God had appointed him to be the catalyst to end slavery, Booth motived by patriotism for his country sought to change the history of his country by cutting off the head of the Union administration.

That is the historical record. Although Brown had hundreds of visitors during his captivity, there is no record that Booth was one of them. The discussion that might have taken place between these two early terrorists is gleaned from their biographies, letters, and diaries.

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WRITTEN BY Bobbie Bell DIRECTOR Trevin Cooper CAST John Brown.................................................................. Mark Edward Smith John Wilkes Booth.................................................................. James Blaisdell

BOBBIE BELL, PLAYWRIGHT BOBBIE BELL (playwright) works in Central Florida as a playwright, composer, director, and actor. He has twice won the Florida Playwrights’ Competition for Pascua de Flores and Of: A Play of Artemis. His Ekpyrosis Loop won at the Playwright Festival in Miami. His throatingale was anthologized in Orlando Group and Friends. For the Studio Theatre he directed Frankie and Johnny at the Claire de Lune, did the translation/adaptation of Tartuffe, did the translation/adaptation of Lysistrata where he also played the Mayor, and performed Alfred Doolittle for Pygmalion. His most recent work elsewhere was composing three hours of original music for Mad Cow Theatre’s The Women of Pompeii project. He has had over thirty other plays, musicals, and one acts produced around the country as well as composing incidental music for as many productions. Bobbie’s poetry has been published in several journals including Revelry, in which he won the Editor’s Choice award. In 2018 Bobbie received the Louise J. Witzenburg Legacy Award from the Gwendolyn Brooks Writers Association of Florida.

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THE SPECIMEN Veteran ranch owner, Louis Desmond, halts all construction on his property after a juvenile T-Rex skeleton is discovered. To figure out the best course of action for dealing with the find, Desmond invites a paleontologist, and an auction curator to his ranch.

Desmond will then decide whether to preserve the prehistoric specimen, or sell it to the highest bidder.

This play explores the integrity of science versus capitalism, and the absurd lengths people will go to protect their own interests.

WRITTEN BY Brandon Cahela DIRECTOR Roy Hamlin CAST Desmond...................................................................................David Lowe Bailey.............................................................................David Paul Rowan Leigh.................................................................................. Randall Moring Fernandez.........................................................................Landon Williams Fielding................................................................................ Adam Cornett

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BRANDON CAHELA, PLAYWRIGHT Brandon Cahela grew up in Tampa, FL. In 2009, he graduated from Florida State University, where he majored in creative writing. His first play Excursions was published and performed in 2013 at Theatre Odyssey in Sarasota, FL. Brandon’s plays Shower and Earth Day premiered in 2016 at The Santa Monica Theatre. In 2017 his plays Lookout and Toxic also premiered at The Santa Monica Theatre. In 2020 several of Brandon’s monologues were performed virtually as a part of Theatre Is The Cure. In March of 2021, Brandon’s play Elemental was selected and performed for the Pick Of The Vine Festival presented by The Little Fish Theatre. In December of 2021 Brandon’s play Silver And Gold is slated to be performed by Kris P. Productions in Hong Kong.

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STILL LIFE WITH PAIRS Marriage is a work of art. But some spouses might wonder what life would be like without their better half, would it be “for better or worse”?

Peach and Deke have been married a long time and resentment is building up. With the interference of family and friends, these two start to wonder if “’til death do us part” is worth speeding up. This funny play intertwines art, deception, and a little murder mystery to paint the perfect picture.

WRITTEN BY Kay Esposito DIRECTOR Shami McCormick CAST

Peach............................................................................................. Beth Ely Deke.............................................................................................. Peter Ely Linda.......................................................................................Robin Olson Cassie......................................................................................... Lori Reeves Ford........................................................................................David Russell

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KAY ESPOSITO, PLAYWRIGHT As a high school English teacher, Kay spent 25 years trying to instill into hundreds of students a love for the intricacies and efficacies of language. She was 12 when she first fell in love with theatre, and has acted, sung, directed, and worked backstage ever since, working with professional, student, and community theater groups in the Milwaukee area and in Southern Florida.

In 2008, she and her husband Dan (favorite director and on- and off-stage partner) moved to The Villages, where they founded the Lake Miona Theatre Group. Among Kay’s favorite roles: Lizzy in The Rainmaker, Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, Edna in Prisoner of Second Avenue, and Emily Dickinson in the one-woman show, The Belle of Amherst. Greatly inspired by Dickinson’s poetry, Kay spends hours penning as yet unpublished poems, confident that she, too, “dwell[s] in possibility.”

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AND THE GLORY Set in Dublin 1742 George Frideric Handel is producing his newly composed masterpiece, Messiah. With the help of a few esteemed friends he overcomes the obstacles from the church and community to let his new work see the spotlight it deserves.

WRITTEN BY John J. Kelly DIRECTOR Gary Powell CAST

George Frideric Handel..................................................... Christopher Ryan Minna................................................................................ Whitney Morse Darcy.................................................................................Nathaniel Niemi Cavendish.................................................................................. Alec Speers Susannah.............................................................................. Leslie Munson Jonathan Swift..........................................................................Lon Abrams

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JOHN J. KELLY, PLAYWRIGHT JOHN J. KELLY is an Emeritus Professor of Theatre (Elmira College.) After well over 250 professional and educational theatre productions as an actor or director, he began work as a playwright only a few years ago. In that time, his plays have been published, anthologized, and performed in high schools, colleges, and professional theatres across the country (including New York, Chicago, and Washington) and internationally (the UK, Canada, Germany.) John is a member of the Dramatists’ Guild.

THEY COME AND COME was performed at the Metropolitan Playhouse in New York City while WE ARE NOT ANIMALS played Cultural DC’s Source Festival in Washington. AMONG THE QUICK AND THE DEAD premiered in Kentucky and was performed in Chicago as well. Two series of short plays, SHORT AND SWEET and 10 MINUTES TO FAME have also found production. A full-length work, A PASSING MOMENT, was a finalist in the Kentucky Theatre Association’s Roots of the Bluegrass festival and has been published by Heartland Plays. MANDALA, a play about texting while driving, was included in 25 10- Minute Plays for Teens (Applause Books). His full-length work, WC (war crimes) (about America’s desire to put a captured IS commander on trial at the ICC) won the Roots of the Bluegrass in 2016. A short play for young teens, SPECIAL, has been included in Best 5-Minute Plays for Teens published by Applause, and a bit of silliness, BUKI BUKI BUKI, played the West Coast. CHANGES, about the first African Pope hoping to bring radical change to the Catholic Church, received readings in New York, including one at the Dramatists’ Guild Foundation. AIDE ET RECONFORT, a World War II drama, was first workshopped in Elmira, NY and then premiered at Belmont University in Nashville. A workshop presentation of a new full length play, GRÁ - A SELKIE TALE, set in Ireland some one hundred years ago, was a fine success. The play won the Playwrights Round Table competition in 2019. STONED, a new short comedy, was performed in Kitchener, Ontario as part of the Asphalt Jungle Shorts and was recently seen in the Playwrights’ Round Table series Native Voices in Orlando, Florida. GIL AND BILL: TWELVE O’CLOCK AND ALL’S... WELL... played Canada and in Germany. KING DICK, about the historic privateer Richard Crafus (credited with staging the first all-Black productions of Shakespeare’s R&J and Othello) has had two readings and is now under consideration at theatres in the US and UK. AND THE GLORY, inspired by the premiere of Handel’s Messiah, will be workshopped in Florida’s The Studio Theatre Tierra del Sol later this spring.

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SEASON 5 | ON SALE NOW

Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History NOW ON STAGE AT THE SHARON! Previews: SEPT 22nd-24th

SPIKE SPIKE HEELS ELS HE

Performances: SEPT 25th - OCT 24th Scandalous comedy about who’s really on top

BY THERESA REBECK

“Spike Heels” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com

PIPELINE ELINE PIP

BY DOMINIQUE MORISSEAU

Previews: NOV 17th-19th Performances: NOV 20th - DEC 19th A dramatic play about race and education

“Pipeline” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com

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