Truro Playwright Collective
The Plays
All readings are free and open to the public at the Truro Public Library
Season 3 |2024-25
Join us for Season 3
PLAYERS ON THE HARBOR
Saturday, October 12, 2024 — 2:00 p.m.
In July of 1916 in Provincetown Massachusetts American Theatre is about to change forever. Eugene O'Neill, Louise Bryant, and Jack Reed are in a complicated love triangle that comes to a head on the evening of O'Neill's premiere of “Bound East For Cardiff”. The older writers Susan Glaspell and her husband Jig Cook, founders of the Provincetown Players have seen the shortcomings of Bohemia before and now try to manage these artist's emotions, tempers, and passions. Their worlds are about to change.
LARA: A LOVE STORY
Saturday, November 16, 2024 — 2:00 p.m.
In 1949, while Boris Pasternak was busy writing Doctor Zhivago, his mistress Olga Ivinskaya was arrested by the KGB and thrown into a gulag, where she would spend the next four years. This was done in an attempt to get Boris Pasternak to stop writing Zhivago, which was considered critical of the Soviet system. However, in all those years in captivity, Olga never turned against Boris, and Doctor Zhivago would eventually prove to be his masterpiece. "Lara: A Love Story” views the creation and publication of Doctor Zhivago as seen from Boris and Olga’s relationship, examining the hardships and sacrifices made by the couple and how their bond helped shape the classic novel into existence.
SOME THINGS OLD, SOME THINGS NEW: A COLLECTION OF SHORT PLAYS
By Fermin Rojas
Saturday, December 21, 2024 — 2:00 p.m.
TBA
By Gary Garrison
Saturday, January 18, 2025 — 2:00 p.m.
BESTON
By John Dennis Anderson
Saturday, February 15, 2025 — 2:00 p.m.
The literary couple Henry Beston and Elizabeth Coatsworth look back at lives, apart and shared, lived reveling in language and nature. Their marriage flourished despite their wildly different writing methods and temperaments. Beston, after a traumatic time in France in the Great War, published several books of fairytales and in 1926-27 spent a restorative year in a shack he called the Fo’castle on the Great Beach in Eastham. His vividly observed account of that year in his 1928 book The Outermost House is a classic of nature writing. The next year Beston married the world-traveling writer Elizabeth Coatsworth, prolific author of award-winning books for children. They eventually settled at Chimney Hill Farm in Maine and raised two daughters, balancing Henry’s depressive personality and perpetual writer’s block with Elizabeth’s gentle nature and profuse output.
JUST LIKE ALL THE REST
By Linda Fiorello
Saturday, March 15, 2025 — 2:00 p.m.
TBA
By Meryl Cohn
Saturday, April 19, 2025 — 2:00 p.m.
2023-2024 Plays
Plays from the Second Season
VISIONS OF BEATITUDE
Saturday, October 21, 2023 — 2:00 p.m.
VISIONS OF BEATITUDE takes us to the closed-for-the-night Atlantic House in Provincetown, Massachusetts at 4 a.m. as the ghosts of Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill have been summoned by St. Genesius, the patron saint of theatre to meet as America’s greatest playwrights and to pull each other’s final secret out of each other with their pens. Both are seeking redemption and this fateful meeting at the bar they both frequented in their lives is their final chance to move forward from their lives filled with drinking, secrets, and lies. Reading performed by Spencer Keasey and Clyde Shelby Mellert.
Watch a recording of the reading.
WHITE GAYS
By Jim Dalglish
Saturday, November 18, 2023 — 2:00 p.m.
Every year Rex throws a party for his closest friends in the South End townhouse he has lived for 40 years. The annual party marks a special anniversary, but this year there is something important that he has to tell them that may change the course of their lives. Invited at the last minute is a young street kid named Avery who sees Rex and his friends for what they are -White Gays. But what the hell is that supposed to mean? This fast-paced comedy/drama doesn’t pull its punches. Neither do any of the guests at the party.
THE FADE-AWAY ADVANTAGE
Written by Meryl Cohn
Saturday, December 16, 2023 — 2:00 p.m.
A writer and her life-long best friend meet at a Provincetown Airbnb to discuss an emergency plan they made years ago… but which plan is it? The plan to live together for the rest of their lives? Or the plan that would separate them forever? How far would you go to keep a promise to a friend? THE FADE-AWAY ADVANTAGE is a comedy about a deadly serious topic: Living in the face of mortality, while staying fully alive to the end.
A CULTIVATED FRIENDSHIP
Written by John Dennis Anderson and Co-authored with Karen Vuranch.
Saturday, January 20, 2024 — 2:00 p.m.
Both living near Paris in the 1930s, the expatriate American novelists Edith Wharton and Louis Bromfield shared a passion for gardening even more than for writing and travel. Despite being 34 years apart in age and of conflicting political views, they cultivated a close friendship. As Wharton moved through her last years, she intrigued Bromfield with her fascination for gossip and stories of murder. Though the looming specter of another war in Europe dismayed them both, they found solace in their gardens and in their affection for each other. A CULTIVATED FRIENDSHIP dramatizes their correspondence and imagines their interactions when visiting each other’s gardens.
VERTICALS AND HORIZONTALS - PART TWO
Written by Gary Garrison
Saturday, February 17, 2024 — 2:00 p.m.
Five ten-minute plays—comic, comic-dramas and dramas from Garrison’s acclaimed anthology of the same name.
4 A.M. FRIENDS
Written by Charlene Donaghy
Saturday, March 16, 2024 — 2:00 p.m.
Marlene Dietrich is quoted as saying, “It’s the friends you can call at 4 a.m. that matter.”
We all have those friends: the ones who understand you when you tell them your heart’s desires, who gently break your heart about love because you know they speak truth, the ones who pick leopard bras when all you want is a pink bow, who surprise you with an alligator in a garden to propel you forward, who might talk you into a misdemeanor or two when necessary. Becca, Tammy, and Kim are those kinds of 4 a.m. Friends with humor and heart the ties that bind. A myriad of iconic fashion, moments, and people from the 1970s to present day propel these friends through six short plays as they fight, argue, support, and love through some of life’s most challenging hurdles, growing from their teens to their sixties. You know, just like you might do with your 4 a.m. friends.
COLD WAR
Written by Fermin Rojas
Saturday, April 20, 2024 — 2:00 p.m.
Augie, a Cuban-America playwright who grew up in the 1960’s, and his husband are about to embark on a summer reunion with their longtime friends in the Catskills to celebrate Augie’s commission of a new play. But when Augie receives some life-altering news his doomsday clock begins ticking ever closer to midnight, threatening the end of his career, relationships, and memories.
2022-2023 Plays
Plays from the 2022 -2023 Season
SUMMER RENTALS
Taking place in two adjoining cottages on the water in North Truro, Massachusetts in the summer of 2022, this play deals with a married gay couple, their young son, and their long-time friend. When it's discovered that their son might be involved in a relationship with their middle-aged friend, they must all deal with the feelings of anger, confusion, betrayal, and regret that could threaten the fabric of their relationships.
Reading performed by:
Luke Bosco, Fermin Rojas, Linda Fiorello, James Wojcik and John Dennis Anderson.
LIBERTY TALKS!
by Fermin Rojas
Lady Liberty discovers she loves to talk. So, when she accidentally walks into a theater full of people, she decides to take a break from her daily life to spend a moment in time ruminating about her experiences, memories and plans for the future.
Reading performed by:
Julia Salinger, Sallie Tighe, Luke Bosco, Sam Sewell, Trevor Pittinger, John Dennis Anderson and Qya Cristál as Libby.
THE BOATHOUSE
Saturday, December 17, 2022 - 2:00 p.m.
The Boathouse is the story of a challenging relationship between two Provincetown families, a long-time Provincetown fishing family (The Atkins - Sally, Miles, and their teenage son Ethan) and the other “wash ashore” gay couple Bob & Steve Dunn-McDonald. The play explores themes of gentrification, addiction, class tensions, and conflict that transpires after the Dunn-McDonalds buy a home next to the Atkins and begin extensive renovations.
Reading performed by:
Joseph M. Paprzycki, Beau Jackett, Jennifer Cabral, Steve Myerson, John Dennis Anderson, Fermin Rojas, Stuard Derrick and Julia Salinger.
BEANIE’S LAST STAND
Saturday, January 21, 2023 - 2:00p.m.
A group of queer friends, led by a middle-aged DJ, drop their emotional masks while hiding out from a militia in a dune shack on Cape Cod.
Reading performed by:
Braunwyn Krist Jackett, Darlene Van Alstyne, Jody O'Neil, Tim Famulare, Jeff Schaffer, Halcyone Hurst, Jamie de Sousa, Jennifer Cabral, and John Shuman
VERTICALS AND HORIZONTALS
Saturday February 18, 2023 - 2:00p.m.
Five ten-minute plays — comic, comic-dramas and dramas — from Garrison’s acclaimed anthology of the same name.
Reading performed by: Joe Bruno, Nathan Butera, David Drake, Braunwyn Jackett, Kate Levy, Vanessa Rose, Julia Salinger, Sallie Tighe, and Frank Vasello.
FATTY PASTRAMI
Saturday March 18, 2023 - 2:00p.m.
The story of a daughter and father and their trials and tribulations in having a relationship. You’ll go on adventures from the Bronx botanical gardens, through the ins and outs of a pastrami sandwich and wind up full circle in the miasma of interactions.
ISHERWOOD
Saturday, April 15, 2023 - 2:00p.m.
Christopher Isherwood, avowed queer author and devotee of Vedanta, best known for his character Sally Bowles, reflects on his life as an outsider--in his native England, in Berlin between the wars, and in postwar America.
The Readings
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© 2024 Truro Playwright Collective