by dick kerekes
Douglas Anderson School of the Arts held its l0th annual Writer’s Festival last weekend at Jacksonville Main Library. It featured writers who lead workshops and included Poet William Throwbridge, writer Pope Brock, Poet and fiction writer Diane Glancy, “People” magazine free lance writer Anne Driscoll and Playwright and TVs Movie of the Week writer, Merri Biechler.
To kickoff this festival , Ian Mairs, DA instructor produced a special theatre event. A reading of Merri Biechler’s new play Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver on the Douglas Anderson campus Thursday evening. Mairs is Jacksonville’s most successful playwrights with several published and produced plays. In addition he is an accomplished actor, producer and director for a number of years on the Jacksonville theatre scene.
I attended the reading, which was directed by Mr. Mairs and featured three well known Jacksonville theatre personalities.
Simone Aden-Reid is an award winning actress in this area, but in recent years has concentrated on her teaching responsibilities at Douglas Anderson and family life. Staci Cobb is Development Director/Marketing Director at Theatre Jacksonville. She graduated from JU, and then spent ten years working in theatre in New York, before returning to Jacksonville for her current position. She is a much in demand actress and singer and frequently graces the stages of the local theatres. (Lucky for us). Tod Booth is the owner/producer/director of the Alhambra Dinner Theatre, coming here in the l980s, to direct Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and fell in love with this city. Then he bought the Alhambra, which is celebrating its 40th year of providing great professional entertainment. Booth is an accomplished actor, and last appeared on the Alhambra stage as the father in the musical Shenandoah. Douglas Anderson instructor, Addae Moon, was a fourth member of the production, as a narrator giving us the stage setting and descriptions of the stage action.
I liked the title of Ms. Biechler’s play, Confession of a Reluctant Caregiver. No mistaking what this play is about as the title tells all.
The plot concerns a daughter in her 30s who is a TV actress in Los Angeles. She comes back to her small town in Oklahoma to assist when her mother develops cancer, and then her father develops the same illness. She has her hands full with her father who has a lot of anger, and is disappointed that the doctor has said his wife has exhausted all the treatment option and her case is terminal. With the help of a hospice worker, she is with her parents through her mother’s death.
This is a very well written script and very moving, and yes, I wish I had brought some tissues, I was that affected.
This was a reading, with the actors sitting and reading the script, and presenting about 45 minutes of the entire script. Mr. Booth, Miss Cobb and Ms.
Aden-Reid were superb and you would think they had been rehearsing for a lengthy period to be that accurate with their characterizations.
The playwright, Ms. Biechler came on the stage and answered questions about her play writing process. She explained that she had gone through a similar real life situation in her family which inspired her to write this play. I had a brief meeting after the event with Ms. Biechler and she said the play is finished and is not a work in progress. She is now working on marketing the script and has some medical schools interested. I feel this play can be a fine educational tool not only for people in the medical profession but the general public as well I learned a great deal about the function of hospice from this production. Ms. Biechler indicated that the play has an uplifting ending as the couple is reunited.
Thank you Douglas Anderson and Ian Mairs for making this new play reading available at no charge to the DA students and the general public. My only regret is that due to other commitments made several weeks ago, I was not able to attend the other events presented by this unique Writer’s Festival.
The next writer’s festival is scheduled for 2010, and if you missed this one you missed a good one. I will do my best to promote this fantastic event in the future.
|
