Fri 4/15-Sat 4/23
Blank Canvas is Patrick Ciamacco’s toy chest. He pulls out plays to please his niche audience, which goes for contemporary, often off-the wall scripts. His latest effort was to allow Christine Howey, who appeared in this year’s New York Fringe Festival, to take two of festival’s one-act plays and stage them over two weekends. The result was a very creative and delightful evening of theater.
Adam Harrell’s Birds of Paradise finds Archie (Stuart Hoffman, with great comic timing and exaggerated facial expressions), a nerdy ornithologist and romantic, and Emma (a charming Rachael Swartz), a free-spirited but broken-hearted would-be artist, trying to figure out their own migration paths. The lovebirds struggle between giving love a chance and becoming authenic versions of themselves.
The other offering was the meta-fictional comedy The Screenwriter Dies of his Own Free Will by Jim Shankman. In it, a screenwriter of shallow sci-fi and action flicks (Willy) narrates to himself, complete with stage directions and dialogue, what happens when he goes to sell his “last” screen script to studio executive (Gabe), his frenemy since their college days at Princeton. Willy uses his impending death to sell a screenplay, yes, entitled The Screenwriter Dies of his Own Free Will, which was written while he was high on drugs.
The script is full of rapid-fire dialogue which builds as the play develops, leaves the audience giggling and the actors gasping for air. Both John J. Polk (as Gage) and Tim Tavcar (as Willy) were delightful!
[Written by Roy Berko]Cleveland, OH 44102