What’s the story, friends? Tonight we are delighted to present Nostalgia-rama at Dragon Theatre in Redwood City. Five years in, we have an amazing cast of Play On Words regulars who are hungry to share the stage. We’re dedicating tonight’s show to our childhoods–to good writing, bad hair, terrible puns and overall awesomeness:
Wishbone “Flea-bitten Bargain”Written by Vincent Brown and Mo Rocca
Cheers “Fairy Tales Can Come True” (1984) created by Glen Charles and Les Charles written by James Burrows and Sam Simon
Tales From the Crypt “Top Billing” (1991) created by Steven Dodd screenplay by Myles Berkowitz based on comic by William M. Gaines
The Twilight Zone “Shadow Play” (1961) written by Charles Beaumont
We’re grateful to our amazing readers and to the Dragon for making tonight possible: Melinda Marks, Ronald Feichtmeir, Jeremy Ryan, Adam Weinstein, Erin Southard, Tonya Duncan, Nita Duarte Lambert and April Culver. Artist Clif Gold will also be live drawing the event tonight, and photographer Branden Frederick will be there to take photos.
Join us at 7:30 pm tonight in Redwood City for a wonderful evening. RSVP on Facebook for more details.
Big news, Playonwordsians! We’re returning to Redwood City’s Dragon Theatre on Monday, August 27, for Nostalgia-rama, an evening of comedy and drama performed by our stellar POW cast. If you’re as tired of the news as we are, and hungry for something fun, join us for staged readings of four of our favorite television shows: The Twilight Zone, Cheers, Tales From the Crypt and Wishbone.
Will it be funny? Yes. Will it be goofy? Most definitely. But most of all, will it be entertaining? You can count on it.
We’ll be rolling out more information about the show as the day draws nearer. In the meantime, RSVP on our Facebook page to stay in the loop. Hope to see you there!
On October 9th, 2017, Play on Words was fortunate enough to be given the space to perform on a stage, with lights, sounds, microphones, everything by the Dragon Theatre located in the Redwood City’s downtown theater district neighborhood. Leaving San Jose is hard to do, but the good folks at the Dragon made it all possible with Monday Night Play Space, when they make the theatre available to local artists like us to do cool stuff.
The night was titled “Leading Women,” and you can watch it all on our YouTube page!
Let’s talk about all three segments:
1) “Exposure,” by Julia Halprin Jackson. Read by April Culver.
It begins with breasts, and ends with a camera. What happens in between is a picture of a place, Spain, at a time, the George W. Bush era, that shows us the experience familiar to Americans in college abroad at a crossroads of culture, sex, work, and life.
This translation rules! For real, it puts this Dante fellow in the time and place of the artists and poets and people that hang around artists and poets talking about those things that artists and poets always invariably talk about: death, sex, and love. Sprinkle in some obsessive impulses (does Dante really move away to some other place NOT because of the woman that also moved to that place?) and you got yourself some good old fashioned Dante angst. Check it out.
3) “Unigirl,” by Leah Griesmann. Read by Ivette Deltoro.
Ivette reads this gem by Leah Griesmann, one of the first writers featured by Play on Words, where we walk in the shoes of an unicycle riding escort who is getting their doctorate and needs to make some money in between teaching gigs over a summer. Want more, click the link and tell us what you think!
For the first time ever, Play On Words is performing in a theatre! We are kicking off our 2017-2018 season with a special reading at the Dragon Theatre in Redwood City on Monday, October 9. This show features work by Bay Area women writers who challenge–and occasionally mock–gender norms. Unlike our ensemble shows, Monday’s performance will showcase two short stories and one translated monologue. Look forward to work by:
Leah Griesmann
Leah Griesmann has received grants and residencies for her fiction from the MacDowell Colony, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Key West Writers’ Workshops, Seoul Art Space Yeonhui, the Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai, the DAAD (Berlin), and the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies. Her stories have appeared in Burrow Press Review, J Journal: New Writing on Justice, The Weekly Rumpus, Union Station, The Boiler, The Cortland Review, Boston University’s 236 Magazine, and PEN Center USA’s The Rattling Wall, and have been performed at Litquake San Francisco, The Center for Literary Arts, Sacramento Stories on Stage, the New Short Fiction Series in North Hollywood, and the Shanghai American Center.
Melinda Marks
Melinda Marks, Play On Words co-founder and casting director, has performed as an actor for more than 25 years. Melinda has an MFA in Shakespeare and Performance with a concentration in directing at Mary Baldwin University and an MA in Theatre Studies from San Jose State University.
Julia Halprin Jackson
Julia Halprin Jackson, Play On Words co-founder and publicity director, is a writer whose work has appeared in Oracle Fine Arts Review, West Branch Wired, California Northern, Fourteen Hills, as well as selected anthologies. She has an MA in creative writing from UC Davis and currently contributes to Washington Square, San Jose State University’s alumni magazine.
We are delighted and grateful to showcase performances by Melinda, as well as:
Ivette Deltoro is the casting assistant and patron experience manager at City Lights Theater in San Jose and artistic manager of the Mini Lights Emerging Artist Program at City Lights. She is also a local actress whose credits include City Lights Theater Company’s I and You and Silicon Valley Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
April Culver
April Culver earned her BFA in Acting at Drake University. Some recent roles include Mrs. Givings (In the Next Room, Pear Theatre), Cordelia / The Fool (B8 Theatre), Catherine (A View From the Bridge, Pear Theatre), Gillian (Permanent Collection, Piedmont Players ), Constance (Three Musketeers, Silicon Valley Shakespeare), Calpurnia (Julius Caesar, Silicon Valley Shakespeare), Sonya (Uncle Vanya, Pear Theatre), and Olivia (Shakespeare in Hollywood, Silicon Valley Shakespeare).
RSVP for our show here. There is a $5 suggested donation for Monday’s show. Hope to see you there!
Good news, Playonwordsians: We are extending the deadline for the chapbook that we are producing in conjunction with the fabulous Flash Fiction Forum. You’ve got until October 15 to send 500 words of fiction, nonfiction, poetry or theatre to activistchapbook@gmail.com.
Not sure where to start? Here’s a brief recap of recent headlines that might trigger a response:
Last week, Trump announced that he plans to rescind the DACA program, which will affect approximately 800,000 students and their families who are working and studying legally in the United States.
Hurricanes like Harvey and Irma displace thousands of families, many of whom may have been previously displaced by Katrina in 2005.
Charlottesville–August 12, 2017, and the rise of neo-Nazism.
Trump’s July announcement to ban transgender citizens from serving in the military.
There are lots of ways to resist and show solidarity with communities whose livelihoods and basic civil rights are at risk. We’re hoping to provide a platform for writers to speak up and speak out.
Attention poets, playwrights, and other creative writers!
Community activists from Play on Words and Flash Fiction Forum are producing a chapbook and want your fiction, poetry, works of theater and creative nonfiction work about activism.
Specifically, we’re interested in the complexities of activism (humorous, tragic, inspiring, or all three), situations that call for activism, pitfalls and rewards of activism, and above all, the personal, unexpected, and inexplicable. We’re interested in stories that move but don’t preach, and shed light on communities or causes that may not make it to the news every day. Help us prove that our words matter–perhaps now more than ever.
In addition to publishing a chapbook in collaboration with Flash Fiction Forum, Play On Words will select a number of the accepted pieces for a corresponding performance in early 2018.
The rain might be coming, San Jose, but you know what else is? New Year Nouveau, our first show of 2016. We’re delighted to share our lineup for tonight’s performance, which starts at 7pm at Cafe Stritch:
ACT ONE:
“Not the Madonna” – Allison Landa, read by Nita Lambert
“Suck it Up” – Tania Martin, read by Ivette Deltoro
“Indra’s Low Sodium-Oxide Streetlights” by Gary Singh, read by Ryan Alpers
“Land of the Thunder Dragon” – Sarah Lyn Rogers, read by Ivette Deltoro
“Van Tribe: Free Medical” – Rick Alpers, read by Brian Van Winkle
“Compassion: the Essence of Nursing” – Lita Kurth, read by Melinda Marks
“A Girl in Pink” – Christine Keating, read by Taylor Sanders, Alex Draa, Brian Van Winkle and Ryan Alpers
INTERMISSION
ACT TWO
“The Night Subway Crawl” – Pratibha Kelapure, read by Taylor Sanders
“Collectibles” – Betsy Miller, read by Melinda Marks
“The Golden Beauty of Carlina Johansen” – Keiko O’Leary, read by Alex Draa
“Van Tribe: Dudley & Donnie” – Rick Alpers, read by Brian Van Winkle
“End of Time” – Freya Seeburger (Cellista), read by Julia Halprin Jackson and Ryan Alpers
“Fabulous Water Sports” – Roy Proctor, read by Jeremy Ryan and Ryan Alpers
For our online fans and friends around the world, we invite you to tune in to our live-stream channel, provided courtesy of the fabulous online and print magazine South Bay Pulse, at 7pm Pacific Standard Time. Intrigued? It’s easy as one, two, click:
South Bay Pulse was founded by journalists and graduate students at San Jose State University. Not only do they write great stories–they’ve mastered the art of live-streaming events such as CineQuest, and their YouTube channel hosts all kinds of great content, such as lectures from the Santa Cruz Music Festival, the SubZERO Festival, and interviews with Silicon Valley Artists. We’re delighted to be working with them on New Year Nouveau.
Bottom line: you’ve got no excuse to miss out on all the greatness that is headed your way. We can’t wait to share the work of our writers and artists. Grab a specialty cocktail at Cafe Stritch’s great bar, try out their spicy macaroni and cheese, drop us a few bucks at the door and prepare yourself for New Year Nouveau. See you there.
This January we are delighted to bring back Bay Area playwright Christine Keating, author of “Girl in Pink,” which we’ll be showcasing January 6 at San Jose’s Cafe Stritch. Play On Words fans might remember Christine’s biting play, “Misery Olympics,” from our Spring Fling show in 2014.
Christine Keating. Photo by Grace Kinder
Christine is a playwright and director living in San Francisco. Her directing work includes productions with Those Women Productions and Santa Clara University, and readings with Magic Theatre, SF Playground, Custom Made Theatre, and TheatreWorks’ YPP. Writing credits include SF Olympians, Pint-Sized Plays, Theater Pub, Shotz, and Magic Theatre. She is the Director of New Works (The Forge) at Quantum Dragon Theatre. Look at her face and read things from her brain at www.KeatingMarie.com.
What inspired you to participate in Play On Words?
The awesome mix of material, both in form and content. You never know what you’re going to get, it opens up my mind a little more every time I see the show!
Name a book or performance that fundamentally affected you.
As a reminder, our January 6 show will be collecting $5 donations at the door. We also will be live-streaming this show with South Bay Pulse–stay tuned to learn more!
Sad that Christmas is over? Don’t worry; you’ve got one more event to add to your holiday calendar: our January 6 show at Cafe Stritch. This week we’ll be teasing you with previews of next Wednesday’s lineup, which will feature the work of a few of our favorite local writers, as well as a number of new voices from around the world. First up: playwright Roy Proctor. We can’t wait to produce his hilarious short play, “Fabulous Water Sports.”
Roy Proctor wrote his first play in 2012 after retiring from a 30-year career as the staff theater and art critic on the two daily newspapers in Richmond, Va. Since then, he has completed four full-length plays and 43 short plays in addition to audio adaptations of a number of those plays. They have been either fully produced or presented as staged readings in London, Cambridge, Bristol, Bath, Cardiff and Sheffieldin the United Kingdom as well as in New York City, Washington, Richmond, Raleigh, New Orleans, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Huntington (W. Va.), Charleston (S.C.), South Bend (Ind.) and Edinboro (Pa.). Two have been published. Four are being produced for broadcast and/or podcast by radio theaters in New York City and San Francisco. Three of his many Chekhov short story adaptations, collectively titled “Russian Roulette: Shots for Chekhov!,” were part of England’s Bath Fringe Festival in 2015. Proctor grew up in Thomasville, N.C., and graduated in 1962 with a BA in English (Creative Writing) at the University of Iowa, where he wrote fiction under Philip Roth in the Iowa Writers Workshop. He lives in Richmond and is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
Roy Proctor
Honors and Awards:
Richmond Folio Award (first annual award “for outstanding contribution to Richmond theatre community”), a crystal trophy presented by the merging Richmond Shakespeare and Henley Street Theatre at their first annual Bootleg Ball, Virginia Holocaust Museum, May 11, 2013.
Upcoming projects:
Right now, I’m especially proud of the podcast of one of my Chekhov story adaptations, “Settling the Score,” that was created by Amy’s Horse in Vermont. It stars Broadway luminary James Naughton (best-actor Tonys for “City of Angels” and “Chicago”) and veteran Broadway character actor John Christopher Jones, was released on Dec. 22, 2015, and can be heard free at www.amyshorse.com.
What inspired you to participate in Play On Words?
I saw your call for submissions on Facebook and said, “Why not?” I’ll jump on any vehicle that will carry me as a playwright. I don’t think a play is complete until it has connected with audiences. I’m delighted to be able to connect with folks in San Jose.
Which writers or performers inspire you?
As a theater critic, I reviewed all 37 plays in the Shakespeare canon, and I never tired of good productions of his incomparable work. As a Southerner, I also have a soft spot in my heart for Tennessee Williams.
Name a book or performance that fundamentally affected you.
Innumerable books and performances have shaped my vision, and I can’t cite some to the exclusion of the rest.
As a reminder, our January 6 show will be collecting $5 donations at the door. We also will be live-streaming this show with South Bay Pulse–stay tuned to learn more!
Ivette Deltoro is the casting assistant and patron experience manager at City Lights Theater in San Jose and artistic manager of the Mini Lights Emerging Artist Program at City Lights. She is also a local actress whose credits include City Lights Theater Company’s I and You and Silicon Valley Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
Play On Words 