Creative Team
Written by Ann Marie Shea
Ann Marie Shea’s plays have been produced at Torrent Theatre (NYC) Southeastern Regional Technical High School, Boston Theatre Marathon, Shakespeare and Company, Worcester Children’s Theatre, Boston Actors’ Theatre, Redfeather Theatre, Turtle Lane Theatre, Newburyport’s Firehouse Center for the Arts, and at Barrington Stage’s “10 x 10” festivals. She performs her one-woman play, Madame Secretary, Frances Perkins, at venues throughout New England. Both as writer and performer, she has participated in the Last Frontier Theatre Conference, Valdez, AK. She has acted at Stoneham Theatre, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Redfeather Theatre, Apollinaire Theatre, and Boston’s Huntington Theatre. In the film, Abe and Phil’s Last Poker Game, she plays the role of Martin Landau’s wife.. A member of Dramatists Guild, AEA and SAG-AFTRA, she has earned an M.A. (Drama) from Catholic University and a Ph.D. (Educational Theatre) from New York University.
Directed by Terry Berliner
Terry Berliner specializes in developing, directing, and writing new plays and musicals. Ms. Berliner’s Broadway credits as resident and assistant director include The Lion King, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, The Sound of Music, and The Red Shoes. She has directed Off Broadway, in regional theatres, and universities across the country. This season she wrote and directed the holiday musical One World for a major financial institution. She also directed the first reading of a new musical written by Frank Wildhorn, Rinne Groff and Robin Lerner. Other recent direction and choreography includes the new Julie Dunlap & Sara Stotts musical Motherfreakinghood at the Peter J. Sharp Theatre in NYC; Rehana Lew Mirza’s new play Soldier X at Brooklyn College; Bob Carlton’s musical Return to the Forbidden Planet at SUNY at Buffalo; the A.R.T. New York Gala honoring Jessie Mueller, Andy Truschinski and Joe Solway; Michelle Elliott’s new play Promising (produced by InProximity Theatre Company), at The Beckett, Theatre Row, NYC; and Kirsten Guenther and Tony Asaro’s new musical, The Cable Car Nymphomaniac (nominated for a Theatre Bay Area award for Outstanding World Premier Musical), at Z Below and The Eureka Theatre, in San Francisco. She has served as artistic director for the North Shore Summer Theater Workshop, Long Island, and LeAp Onstage (a playwriting program for NYC public school students). Ms. Berliner has written for American Theatre magazine, Asolo Rep (2016/17 season Program), Theatre Bay Area, Theatre History Studies, and been selected to participate in the CAP21 Writers Residency and the Rhinebeck Writer’s Retreat. Her new musical Alone in the U.S., written with Bobby Cronin, has been presented at CAP21, New York Film Academy, Penn State, made its U.K. debut at the University of Cumbria, and won the Outstanding Program of the Year Award at Marymount Manhattan College. For 5 years Ms. Berliner served as a member of Off Broadway’s Lucille Lortel nominating committee. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. terryberliner.me
Event Sponsor
Space for this event was sponsored in part by Sokoloff Arts
Synopsis
As a student Gwyneth was a prolific writer, but now, thirty five years into a May-December marriage, her life consists of caring for her aged husband, Marshall Rivers (a famous poet and her former teacher) as he struggles with paralysis and aphasia. Gwyneth had submitted to adulterous Rivers’ demand that she never burden him with children, nor seek publication of her work. The unexpected arrival of two strangers –an ambitious young scholar, Larry, and a mysterious girl, Maggie – lead to revelation of Rivers’ sexual predation, and subsequent plagiarism. Maggie is the love child of Rivers and another talented student he seduced after he grew tired of Gwyneth. Larry is torn between maintaining the “integrity” of his research on Rivers, or revealing Rivers as a fraud. Gwyneth, finally finding her “voice,” devises a subtle revenge on helpless husband as he is forced to live with the words of his silenced student chasing him to his grave.
Cast
Zach Clark (Larry)
Zachary Clark is an actor and teaching artist living in NYC. Zach has performed regionally and in NYC in a variety of productions most recently Macbeth at Classic Stage Company as well as Promising at Theatre Row and Petie at Urban Stages. Zach’s performance as Edmund in King Lear was nominated for an Innovative Theatre Award in 2017. For the rest of the summer, Zach will be up in Cape Cod working on a production of Blithe Spirit with Elements Theatre Company. As a Teaching Artist, Zach has worked with Stages on the Sound for 4 years, and also works at Stella Adler with their teen program. TV: Boardwalk Empire, Limitless. Zach is a graduate of Columbia University.
Ana Isabel (Maggie)
OFF-BROADWAY: Tanya Saracho’s Fade at Primary Stages, Motherfreakinghood at NYMF. REGIONAL: Much Ado About Nothing with Shakespeare Theatre Company in DC, Song for the Disappeared with Passage Theatre Company. TV: I Love You…But I Lied (Lifetime) and the Late Show with David Letterman (CBS). Proud Mexican Immigrant. NYU Tisch. IG: @anaisabeldow
Joel Rooks (Marshall)
BROADWAY: Fish In The Dark, The Royal Family, Say Goodnight Gracie, Taller Than A Dwarf, The Tenth Man, The Sisters Rosensweig, Frankie and Johnny in The Clair de Lune. OFF-BROADWAY: The Law of Return, Iron, Comic Potential, Jewtopia, Rocket to the Moon, Under The Bed, The Secret Order, The Louis Slotin Sonata, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Richard II, School for Scandal, More Stately Mansions. REGIONAL: Many plays-many placesFILM: My Bakery in Brooklyn, Outliving Emily, It Runs In The Family, Snatched, The Sightseer, Why George?, On The Run, American Blue Note, LBS, The Gig, His and Hers.TV: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Deadbeat, Copshop, Law & Order, L&O SVU, L&O Criminal Intent, Ed, The Beat. Ensemble Studio Theater member.
