When the North Fork theatre company Corchaug Rep merged with Northeast Stage last year, one of the highlights Corchaug Rep brought to the partnership was its focus on original theater by local playwrights.
The Fourth Annual One-Act Festival, organized for the past three years by Corchaug Rep, comes to the Jamesport Meeting House Aug. 21 through 23, now under the auspices of Northeast Stage, bringing with it three new plays by North Fork playwrights.
Pictured Above: A Scene from “The Temp Agency.” |. Esmeralda Cabrera photo for Northeast Stage
The first one-act, “The Temp Agency,” starring Renee Schiefer and Sky Wowak, is written by Northeast Stage board co-chair Christian Lepore and directed by Jennifer Babtist.
“It’s a sketch I wrote for a group I was in in college, which takes place in an employment agency with a rather unusual client, and the attempts of the associate helping out to try to find the perfect job for them,” said Mr. Lepore this week. “I had always wanted to see another version of this show that was closer to what I intended, and I’m very excited.”
The second play is “An Artistic Dialogue,” written and directed by James Pritchard, an actor who you have probably seen before in Northeast Stage’s many Shakespeare productions.
Northeast Stage presented Mr. Pritchard’s full-length play about returning home to face the family you’ve left behind, “Lessons From Hollywood,” last December at Greenport’s Holy Trinity Church.
“An Artistic Dialogue,” starring Lee Meyer and Geoffrey Milton, is a conversation in an artist’s studio written by Mr. Pritchard earlier this year.
“The theme is how difficult it is for artists to take the time and get away from distractions that prevent them from doing their work,” he said. “It does come out of personal experience — I guess most writing does — some of that stuff is psychological, about self-doubt. The question is, ‘why do this if society doesn’t care about it?'”
While Mr. Pritchard has directed before, this is the first time he will be directing his own work. He handed off “Lessons From Hollywood” to veteran director and Northeast Stage Board Co-Chair Mark Heidemann last year.
“I wanted to see what somebody else would do with the material. I think he really understood it all,” said Mr. Pritchard.
Pictured: Scenes from “Bidayas in Waconda Springs,” “The Temp Agency” and “An Artistic Dialogue.” |. Esmeralda Cabrera photos for Northeast Stage. |. Beth Young photo
The final one-act, “Bidayas in Waconda Springs,” starring Matthew O’Connor and Kevin Magee, was written about two years ago by Northeast Stage board member Nicholas Auletti.
“It’s a very obtuse title, but there’s a lot in that title. Bidaya is ‘goodbye’ in Bengali, and there are two best friends, potato farmers in Waconda Springs, Kansas who are leaving each other.” said Mr. Auletti. “One has met a woman online from Calcutta and he’s leaving.”
“I never thought I would write something so sentimental. My best friend is trans, and I never fully got to say goodbye to him, and this sort of manifested into that in a very odd way,” he said. “I took them to get their first estrogen shots, because that’s what you do — you support — but my first thought was ‘I’m losing my best friend.’ I somehow siphoned that feeling into these two older potato farmers from Kansas.”
This production is directed by Stephen Ness — a director and costume designer who’s done a great deal of work with the North Fork Community Theatre.
“I found this play so emotional. We rehearsed at my home and my wife cried every night,” said Mr. Ness. “It’s beautifully written and so moving. It’s two friends saying goodbye and they know they’re never going to see each other again. It’s not going to happen and they realize it.”
“Your direction, and Matt and Kevin’s performance is so well done,” Mr. Auletti, who saw the play for the first time in rehearsals Tuesday evening, told Mr. Ness. “We had someone crying in the audience tonight. I wasn’t expecting that.”
“We go from absurd comedy with “The Temp Agency” to very philosophical deep thinking about the artistic process in James’ play to a rustic tragicomedy — very disparate plays,” said Mr. Auletti.
The company is in tech rehearsals at the Meeting House this week — a venue where Corchaug Rep has had success in the past, including a production of Edward Albee’s absurdist satire “The American Dream” just before the theater companies merged last year. Neither company has its own home theater, though Northeast Stage had good relationships with Holy Trinity and Greenport Village, which hosts the company’s Shakespeare in the Park productions in Mitchell Park each summer.
“We’ve developed a really good relationship with the Meeting House,” said Mr. Lepore. “We’ve been keeping the tech manageable, with one or two sound cues and basic lights, and everyone’s jumping in to help with the set changes. The plays are short this year, and we’re anticipating the performance will be about an hour.”
Mr. Lepore first met Mr. Heidemann, his co-chair at Northeast Stage, during a 1998 production of “Broadway Bound” at the North Fork Community Theatre.
“We used to joke that one of these days we would have our own company and do it the way we wanted. I couldn’t imagine it would actually happen,” he said. “It’s been a whirlwind. I like where we’re going. We have good momentum. We spent the last year learning how to put it all together, and now we can build on what we’ve already established and grow into our roles a little bit. It’s difficult to do all the things that need to be done with just seven people. We wear multiple hats. And it’s hard to keep me off the stage.”
“NFCT is that pool, where we all go to drink from the water, but with NES now, we’ve all solidified ourselves and got this good momentum going on, and we have this beautiful collaboration and synergy that has to happen with theater companies,” said Mr. Auletti.
Mr. Pritchard, who was deeply involved with Northeast Stage before the merger, is also happy with the new leadership.
“It seems like a committed group with good communication between all the members,” he said. “They divvy up the chores and everyone’s pitching in to make it happen.”
Up next for Northeast Stage? Mr. Heidemann will be directing the dark comedy “Reckless,” questioning how well we can really know anyone, this December.
Performances of Northeast Stage’s One Act Festival will be held at 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 21 through Sunday, Aug. 23 at the Jamesport Meeting House. Tickets are $20 and are available online here.
The Jamesport Meeting House is at 1590 Main Road in Jamesport.
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