Theater 79: Spell
Summary
A piece in verse. In this sequel to The Tempest, Ariel and Caliban contemplate revenge on Prospero.
Writer
Barbara Blatner
BARBARA BLATNER is a playwright, poet and composer. Her Zoom play SHE CAME IN THE DOOR was produced by New Circle Theatre Company, Scribe Stages, and Hong Kong’s Aurora Theatre. LIGHT was featured in the New Play Development Workshop at the 2020 Theatre in Higher Education Conference. TWO SISTERS, published in Synkroniciti, will be produced online by Spark Creative Works and featured at the Inge Play Festival 2021. Three monologues from full-length scripts will be published by Applause Books. YEARS OF SKY was produced by Scripts Up! at the 59E59 Theatres and was read at the Great Plains Theatre Conference. A monologue from YEARS OF SKY was published in Best Men’s Monologues of 2019. NO STAR SHINES SHARPER, was produced for radio by New Voices/Public Media Foundation, published by Baker’s Plays, aired repeatedly on Christmas eve on NPR stations, and acquired by New York’s Museum of TV and Radio.
Ms. Blatner is a Senior Lecturer in Writing at Yeshiva University. She has been a fellow at many residencies, including Tyrone Guthrie Center, Blue Mountain Center, Banff Colony, Ragdale, Virginia Center for the Arts, Jentel Foundation, HBMG Foundation’s National Playwrights Retreat and La Mama Umbria International Playwrights Retreat.
Barbara Blatner
Bernadette Armstrong
Bernadette moved to Los Angeles to work in film in the late 1990s and after her first two films went to festivals she took a short hiatus from writing until she fell in love with small theater. Since 2008 she has had several successful theater projects produced in No Hollywood. Her play The Reading Group was named Pick of the Week by LA Weekly Magazine and in 2017 her play Simple Lives was nominated for Outstanding Writing of an Original Play or Musical by the Valley Theater Awards (the only woman nominated.) Bernadette is also the producer and founder of Open Door Playhouse Podcast!
Bernadette Armstrong
Cast:
Sue Gisser (Prospero)
Sue Gisser is trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, Steppenwolf West, the Groundlings, iOWest, Second City, Antaeus Academy, Theatricum Botanicum, and holds a BFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers. In her professional career, Sue is blessed to seldom work with a director, show, or theatre company only once. She's recurred on "Shameless," "Strangers with Candy," and "Solved;" did multiple spots in campaigns for 'Burlington Coat Factory,' 'Mercury Insurance,' and 'Cedar Fair;' completed 20 tours between the Shoestring Players, Open Window Entertainment, and the George Street Playhouse; her films include "The Activist" and "In the Air"- both by French Director Cyril Morin.
Sue Gisser
Christine Uhebe ( Ariel)
Christine Helena Uhebe started her training at Scuola di Cinema Immagina, where she graduated after 4 years. Still, in Italy, she was cast for Cattedrale, film finalist at Capri Art Film Festival and Taormina Film Festival 2011, among others. She then came to Los Angeles for a Summer Program at Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute and moved, once again, to Los Angeles, looking for new depths in her acting. Since then, she has starred in more than a dozen short films, was nominated for "Best Supporting Actress" in 2013 at The London International Film Festival for her performance in "Early Summer" and had her theatre debut in Beverly Hills in 2014 with her lead role in the World Premiere of Affluence.
Christine Uhebe
Whitton Frank (Caliban)
Whitton Frank is a voice, film, television, and theater actor living in Los Angeles. Recent work includes the award-winning horror short Seeing Green as well as immersive vo work in the VR world of The Under Presents and The Tempest and as Kate in season 1 of RomCom Pods. Her theater credits include Florence Boorman in Her Naked Skin/Greenwood Theater, Andrea in Cat’s Eye/Pleasance Theater, King Arthur and Mordred in Clarissant/Little Candle Productions, Grumio in Taming of the Shrew/The Porters of Hellsgate, and Flaming Girl in What the Moon Saw/Son of Semele Ensemble. She can also be seen as Jenna Laffy in season 3 of the TNT show Murder in the First. She is a popular audiobook narrator and can be found on Audible and other sites. And in her copious free time, she moonlights as a DJ and specializes in vintage jazz, blues, and soul.
