Island Theatre Workshop’s One Act Play Festival this month serves up a full evening of theatre, with five one-act plays in a one-night program that travels through time and around the globe.
It beigns in L.A. with Frederick Stropel’s play Package Deal, directed by Kevin Ryan. This dark comedy invites the audience to sit in on lunch and the contract negotiations of Starla Simmons. An out-of-work actor, an out-of-touch casting agent, and an out-of-reach waiter make this luncheon delicious.
As he sits for an interview in the kitchen of his mother’s Oak Bluffs cottage, Paul Padua seamlessly breaks into and out of character — not just one, but many of the roles he’s played over the years as a member of the Vineyard Playhouse performance group the Fabulists.
In the good old Globe days, William Shakespeare’s audience welcomed the many hours it took to plow through one of his plays. What else did they have to do? There were no movies, no television, even books were in short supply: the richest citizens had two or three volumes per household, and at least one of them was the Bible.
Second City alumna Tara DeFrancisco — who also has performed with ComedySportz, iO, and Annoyance Theatres in Chicago, not to mention being named the funniest person in Chicago — is offering a workshop open to anyone 16 or older interested in the opportunity to learn Chicago-style improv here on the Vineyard.
A guest of Troubled Shores, the Island’s improv company, Ms. DeFrancisco also will work with IMP Camp kids enrolled in session four and the company’s professional troupes.
Phyllis Vecchia will be holding a winter creative drama workshop for four-and-a-half to ten-year-olds at the Oak Bluffs School. Classes will be held on Thursday afternoons from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. beginning on Thursday Jan. 22 and continuing until March 19.
High school drama students played in the Yard last weekend — performing in a new (for them) up-Island setting to match the students’ new much-upped fund-raising goal: enough money to take a strong ensemble to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival next year.
This fundraiser was particularly significant for the drama department because of their long-term endeavor to raise $6,000 per student to participate in the Fringe, at the invitation of a national student theatre organization.
The Fabulists: Theater for Children will extend the summer season one extra week to present a new show, Sally Jean, The Bicycle Queen, on Saturday, Sept. 5, at 10 a.m. at the Tisbury Amphitheatre at the Tashmoo Overlook on State Road in Vineyard Haven.
Starting tonight, three directors for Island Theatre Workshop present a festival of five one-act plays in one program at the Katharine Cornell Theatre over two weekends.
The musical Summer of ’42 will open Thursday, July 16, at the Katharine Cornell Theatre on Spring street in Vineyard Haven.
Based on the novel and screenplay by Herman Raucher, the story takes place on a small island in New England in the infamous summer of 1942. America is at war, and 15-year-old Hermie and his buddies experience hilarious adolescent adventures in a summer they’ll never forget. Along the way Hermie learns about life, love and the scope of human compassion.
The IMP Free For All — when award-winning improv students open their doors to the community for free improv performances and workshops for all ages — begins on Friday, May 8, with two performances.
First the middle school troupe, IMP-act, takes the stage to perform short pieces from games and skits based on audience suggestions.
Then the IMPers, the teen professional improv troupe, take the stage to present their new piece — Animal Farm — created at the Chicago Improv Festival.
