Quarantine Players

Country Fried Murder

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A group of people gathers for a songwriters’ retreat in the Rocky Mountains in the mid-2000s. Their “mentor” is an abrasive, charismatic country singer/songwriter named Kyle Samperson. He humiliates some for their songwriting, personally offends some and clashes about politics with others. By the time Kyle turns up dead in Act Two, everyone has a motive for killing him. Snowed in, without internet or phone, the other characters size each other up and wonder whodunit.

Judy Klass, Playwright, A. J. Campbell Producer Katy Blake, Director Clint Aphin as Brice Laurie Canaan as Roberta Lane Wright as Charlie Jack E. Chambers as Kyle Kathy Kerns as Martha Sophia Sutton as Tiffany Judy Jackson as Denise Alyssa Borg as Liz Robert Beard as Ed

Judy Klass Bio:

Eight of Judy’s full-length plays have been produced onstage, including Country Fried Murder. Another full-length murder mystery of hers, Cell, was in a mystery festival in Kentucky, got nominated for an Edgar and is published by Samuel French/Concord:

https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/836/cell-klass

Most of her plays are dramas and comedies. Thirty-six of her one-act plays have been produced onstage, many with multiple productions, all over the US, and a few have gone up in the UK and Ireland. Three will be produced in Canada in 2022. Three of her short plays are published, each as a stand-alone script, by Brooklyn Publishers. Others have appeared in magazines and in anthologies like Seven Hills Review and The Art of the One-Act. During the pandemic, Judy got involved more with podcasts, Zoom plays and streaming platforms; two of her short plays, A Different Kind of Strong and Tourists in Dystopia, are on The Shelter Plays platform: https://www.theshelterplays.com/current-productions Judy is from NYC and New Jersey, and she now lives in Nashville (since, like the characters in this play, she does write country songs!) and she teaches at Vanderbilt University.

http://www.judyklass.com
https://newplayexchange.org/users/5340/judy-klass

Author’s Note: I wrote this play with a mystery festival in mind, but that festival disappeared during the Recession, and mystery plays can be hard to place. I am delighted, ten years later, to see Country Fried Murder produced at last, here at the Shawnee Playhouse. I have made it into a period piece, set in 2006, since it is of that moment – but there are parallels and connections between that moment and this one. I have one request to make of audience members. As with any mystery – after seeing the play, please don’t tell people whodunit!

About the Quarantine Players

Produced by A. J. Campbell, Quarantine Players
Website https://quarantineplayers.org/
Podcast: https://anchor.fm/qplayers
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QuarantinePlayers
Twitter: https://twitter.com/q_players
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quarantineplayers
Amazon Fire TV APP: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08VJHBT8W/

We can all sit around and list off the problems with modern theater so I won’t bore you with a recitation of facts we all largely agree upon. The Quarantine Players are a scrappy theater start-up that is in a position to break all the rules. We were told we can’t put out new work all the time. Yes, we can you just have to treat playwrights like they matter, make them part of the process, and value our input. We are your source for new plays from amazing playwrights. Each week we choose a new play to read for you. We are different because we involve the playwright in every step of the process. Most of our writers will attend all the rehearsals and provide feedback along the way. We don’t just honor playwrights by waiting till their work goes into the Public domain so we don’t have to pay them. We prefer our playwrights to still have their pulse.

This play has an Iguana for a Protagonist by Liz Dooley

In the aftermath of a massive miscommunication about biology, iguana Arthur comes to the conclusion that his best friend, a human named Mari, must be dying. He makes up his mind to take the most “noble” course of action—whether Mari likes it or not. Part madcap comedy, part menstrual health PSA.

The play with an Iguana has a Sequel by Liz Dooley

Since the last… adventure, Arthur the iguana has done everything in his power to research human biology so he doesn’t make any more big mistakes. Armed with his newfound information, he sets out to protect Mari from a new threat: himself. But was she ever really in danger? And is she actually any safer now? Part madcap comedy, part menstrual health PSA—part two. Followed by a talkback with the cast and writer/

Directed by Monica Cross

Monica Cross is a playwright and theatre maker in Gainesville, FL. She earned her Master of Letters and Master of Fine Arts from Mary Baldwin University (formerly Mary Baldwin College) in 2012 and 2013, respectively, and her Bachelors of Arts from New College of Florida in 2010. Her plays include “Cyrano on the Moon” (Tampa International Fringe Festival 2017, Minnesota Fringe Festival 2018, and Femme Fatale Play Festival 2020 on Zoom), Wonder of Our Stage (winner of The Players New Play Festival 2018, The Players Summer Sizzlers Series 2019), and The Aria of Julie d’Aubigny (Semifinalist O’Neill New Play Conference 2021 and American Shakespeare Center’s Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries 2021). She is a board member for the Acrosstown Repertory Theatre, where she heads their Homegrown Local Playwrights’ Showcase, and spearheaded their Sunday Sci-fi Serials project online in 2020. This is her third time directing for Quarantine Players. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America and her work can be found on the New Play Exchange.

Director’s Statement:

Sometimes we put on plays because they have an important message, sometimes we put on plays because of their sheer entertainment value, but it is always an absolute delight to work on a play with both. “This Play Has an Iguana for a Protagonist” and “The Play With the Iguana Has a Sequel Now” are absolutely that! Liz Dooley finds a way to discuss the stigma and misinformation around discussions of menstrual health through the perspective of a pet iguana named Arthur. As Mari, Arthur’s Human, points out: as a reptile, it’s a stretch to assume an iguana would automatically know what a period is. So this play does an outstanding and hilarious job of explaining menstruation in a way that would be appropriate for your closest reptilian friend. Dooley highlights how avoiding topics that we might feel are “awkward” leads the way for misinformation to creep in and take hold. So check out “This Play Has an Iguana for a Protagonist” and “The Play With the Iguana Has a Sequel Now” to set the record straight. Also, we have puppets!

About The Playwright, Liz Dooley
Liz Dooley is an asexual- and female-identifying theatre artist based in Atlanta. Her Young Adult Play, FIDGET AND TILDY, has been featured at Synchronicity Theatre through Working Title Playwright’s First Light Series, and her work (WHEREVER) has been featured at Actor’s Express as part of the One-Minute Play Festival. In addition, her short play THIS PLAY HAS AN IGUANA FOR A PROTAGONIST has been produced across the country, including through Quarantine Players and as part of Iowa State University’s Undergrad Director Showcase. She is an active member of Working Title Playwrights and a founding member of the Cultivators, an Atlanta-based new-work development organization for theatre and film. Liz graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2014 with a dual major BA in Theatre Arts and Psychology. She studied as a playwriting apprentice at Horizon Theatre during the 2014-2015 season, under Addae Moon.https://newplayexchange.org/users/28626/liz-dooley

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About the Quarantine Players

Cast

Voice of Iguana: Scott Sickles
The puppeteer is Clayton Bauldree
Elizabeth Rossen as Mari
Draper Harris as Jeff Stage
Direction: Gayle Grimes

Draper Harris

Draper Harris (Jeff). Theatre credits include: Much Ado About Nothing, Dutchman, …and jesus moonwalks the mississippi, Ondine, West Side Story, and Golden Lotus. Film: Night School, Trial By Fire, The Hate U Give, Come Sunday. TV:”Star”, “The Resident”, “Quad”, “Insatiable”. BA Theatre UMASS. www.draperharris.weebly.com

Gayle Grimes

The Iguana plays were an extremely fun experience and Gayle is grateful to Monica for letting her be a part! Gayle has quite a lot of live theater experience and awards in the Northern Virginia area pre-pandemic and, hopefully, post- pandemic. Her most recent production was in November 2020 as Effie in ‘Waiting for the Host’ with The Arlington Players on Zoom.

Gayle has been a member of Quarantine Players since it’s inception back in March 2020 Pandemic lockdown. Some favorite on camera performance readings include Bette Davis in ‘Legends and Bridge’, Rep. Katie Porter in ‘The Washington Squares’, and Ka-wren Fuchs -Busey in the continuing Youtube production of ‘Offstage’. Gayle hopes to continue working with the Quarantine Players and other play reading groups in the future and can’t wait for Live Theater to again be part of her life!

Scott C. Sickles

(Voice of Arthur) does not usually act, but when he does it’s frequently on book. Memorized roles include Todd the artistic director in the webseries pilot Off-Off-Kilter, Gluttony in Martin Alper’s Seven Deadly Sins, and Phil Dezarian in Shooting Johnson Roebling. He was grateful for multiple takes. Primarily a playwright, recent publications include Playing on the Periphery: Monologues and Scenes for and About Queer Kids (Amazon/KDP), Hairdresser on Fire and Composure (Next Stage Press), and Badger and Frame (Applause). A nine-time Emmy nominee and five-time WGA Award winner for General Hospital, Sickles is a proud LGBTQ, neurodivergent, mixed-race Korean American. NPX.

Elizabeth Rossen

Elizabeth Rossen has appeared in several productions both on stage and online with the Acrosstown Repertory Theatre in Gainesville, FL. She recently appeared in the online Sci-Fi series The Visionaire and last appeared on stage as Lois/Savannah in the murder mystery comedy You Have the Right to Remain Dead. Elizabeth has shared her voice and dance skills as Florinda the evil stepsister in Into the Woods and as a Transylvanian in the stage production of The Rocky Horror Show. Elizabeth is grateful to her husband Brent, their daughter, and their family for their continued support and inspiration..

Clayton Bauldree

Clayton Bauldree is a queer theatre artist and playwright. Most recently, Bauldree’s Sci-fi/Horror play, The Graveyard Shift has been produced by The Garden of Voices, a podcast theatre troupe. While usually behind the scenes as a designer, they were happy to lend both their building skills and hands to this wonderful production.

What is Forever for Anyway?

Two brothers competing for the love of the same woman never goes well. A wife’s betrayal has consequences. Treachery, however, benign sometimes ends in tragedy. And the truth… well who really knows what good can come of it? Brandon is having an affair with Annie, Arthurs wife. Arthur comes home from work one day to find his younger brother and wife alone again in the apartment. Has he always had his suspicions? Later that week, Arthur escorts his young wife to an on-stage production of his new work about a younger brother having an affair with the older brother’s wife…and someone gets murdered. A play within a play, but who gets played?

written by Tom David Barna & Christine Barna
directed by Scott Olson
produced by A. J. Campbell, Quarantine Players

Starring Ricardo Padilla Lisette Gabrielle Tyler Brown

About the Quarantine Players Website https://quarantineplayers.org/ Podcast: https://anchor.fm/qplayers Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QuarantinePl… Twitter: https://twitter.com/q_players Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quarantinep… Amazon Fire TV APP: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08VJHBT8W/

We can all sit around and list off the problems with modern theater so I won’t bore you with a recitation of facts we all largely agree upon. The Quarantine Players are a scrappy theater start-up that is in a position to break all the rules. We were told we can’t put out new work all the time. Yes, we can you just have to treat playwrights like they matter, make them part of the process, and value our input. We are your source for new plays from amazing playwrights. Each week we choose a new play to read for you. We are different because we involve the playwright in every step of the process. Most of our writers will attend all the rehearsals and provide feedback along the way. We don’t just honor playwrights by waiting till their work goes into the Public domain so we don’t have to pay them. We prefer our playwrights to still have their pulse.

Christine Marie Barna is the author of several short plays, songs, essays and has completed her first novel. This is also Christine’s first collaboration with Tom David Barna on a full-length play. Christine resides in North Carolina and has had numerous featured an movies such as We’re the Millers, Safe Haven and From Faith to Freedom, the NBC TV series, background roles in Revolution and commercials for Pepsi and Daddy Dolls. Christine has an Associate of Arts Degree (Criminal Justice) from Coastal Carolina, a double Bachelor of Arts Degree (Psychology and Criminology) from the University of NC, Wilmington and is currently working on her Master of Social Work from Boston University.

Tom David Barna, playwright and lyricist and recipient of the 2021 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Grant. He is a four-time McKnight Foundation Grant recipient (most recently–2019), a recent Resident Playwright at the Twin Rivers Center for the Arts and two-time McKnight Artist Career Development Grant recipient. Barna is a five-time invitee to the international playwright conference, the VALDEZ THEATRE CONFERENCE. He has written twenty-seven full length plays, twenty-four short plays, co-author for a 13-part radio series and is the author of four children’s books (Cantata Publishing) and five eBooks (Rakuten Kobo Publishing). He has accepted commissioned work as varied as episodic radio and children’s musicals. He is the recipient of more than twenty-six regional non-equity and/or festival productions and/or staged readings since writing his first play in 2009. Tom is a twenty-two-year Marine Corps Veteran and earned his Bachelor of Arts at New Mexico State University. Tom has also directed, produced and performed on stage.

Whorticulture

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WHORTICULTURE is an unflinching look at the ways women/girls go through life.

Using narrative and spoken word, this all-female feminist production follows 3 girls coming of age in a toxic culture.

Produced by AJ Campbell, Quarantine Players.
Directed by Sophia Menconi.
Starring Tzena Nicole Egblomasse, Sarah Wiesehahn, and Teresa Hui. Written by Emma Goldman-Sherman.

From the director: Whorticulture is a play that confronts the dark truth of being raised a girl within rape culture. Throughout the process, I had the privilege of working with a team of three phenomenally smart and talented women on a play that is not only empowering but also challenging and complex. It is rare to find a play in the theatrical canon written just for women, let alone one that so deftly handles themes of sexual violence, abuse, and survival while still maintaining a strong sense of humor.

Emma Goldman-Sherman has distilled what being a young woman is like in the age of social media. She affirms the pain of growing up against a backdrop of the male gaze while also upholding the strength of young women to endure and to grow. The dizzying journey from childhood to womanhood is captured completely by Goldman-Sherman, who never shies away from the harsh and violent realities of life. What she captures at the heart of the play is the irreparable harm of sexualizing girls in childhood, a specter that hangs over the life of every woman. The rise of the #MeToo movement in 2017 shook the foundations of America’s media culture, and brought sexual harassment and violence to the forefront of the national conversation. It has become increasingly difficult to ignore allegations of abuse and harm, a reckoning that was a long time coming in Hollywood and beyond.

The #MeToo movement asks us to interrogate celebrity culture and those we look up, as well as investigate the ways sexualization and patriarchy have harmed our own lives. Women’s voices, and the voices of all those harmed by sexual violence, are now taking center stage, as we begin a collective effort to reframe the ways in which rape culture has been able to shape our narratives. Whorticulture, like Framing Britney Spears and Allen V. Farrow, explores power, our understandings of familial abuse, and how young people articulate trauma and pain. I am incredibly thankful to Emma Goldman-Sherman, AJ Campbell and the Quarantine Players for programming this work in 2021 and equally as grateful to the team at The Tank for giving it a second life. I’d also like to thank the team at Theatrical Intimacy Education, whose training in theatrical intimacy was invaluable to me during this process. This show was made by an all woman creative team and cast who were hard-working, generous, and remarkable. When we sat together and interrogated the ways in which the play spoke to us, not one of us could remember a time before we held hostage by the male gaze. Rape culture is pervasive and sinister, and it is the work of all of us to fight for a better future. To all survivors of sexual violence: you are seen, you are heard, and you are believed. Thank you. Sophia Menconi – Director

Never Is Now

Our license has expired to show this production. We hope you had a chance to see it.

What happens when contemporary people from diverse backgrounds experience the firsthand accounts of ten survivors who were labeled “undesirable” and thrust into Hitler’s systematic genocide. Playwright Wendy Kout disturbingly links then and now so we may understand what breaks us apart and embrace what bonds us together. NEVER IS NOW is just the beginning of the conversation.

Never is Now written by Wendy Kout
Directed by Lori Mulstein
Produced by A. J. Campbell, Quarantine Players (quarantineplayers.org)

WOMAN #1 BETH, HELEN Lynn Neal
WOMAN #3 AMY, ELLEN, EVIE Sarah Tubert

Never is Now is dedicated to the ten survivors who entrusted us with their stories: Eva Vezer Abram, Ellen Arndt, Erich Arndt, Arthur Hertz, Evie Schuerman Jacobson, Helen Prysuskier Levinson, Rosemarie Marianthal Molser, Henry Silverstern , Carl Voldman, Kurt Weinbach …and the victims and survivors of all atrocities. Adapted from Survivors by Wendy Kout commissioned, developed and produced by the CenterStage Theatre at the Louis S. Wolk Jewish Community Center of Greater Rochester, Ralph Meranto, Artistic Director. Never Is Now was developed and had its World Premiere on September 21, 2019 at Skylight Theatre Company, Los Angeles, CA. Gary Grossman, Artistic Director. Historic photos are in the public domain.

Eliza Blair

WOMAN #2 RILEY, ROSEMARIE, EVA

MDb: imdb.me/elizablair. Website: eliza-blair.com

Eliza Blair is honored to return to Never is Now! Eliza is a film, television, and theatre actor and intimacy coordinator from Northern California. Selected credits: Civil Defense (Multihouse Entertainment); Never is Now (Woman #2, Skylight Theatre); Peter Pan (Peter Pan, Long Beach Shakespeare); Proof (Catherine); Measure for Measure (Isabella); Into the Woods (Baker’s Wife). Upcoming: Family Affair (feature film); Maybe Someday (feature film). Training: LAMDA, Atlantic Acting School. Education: B.A. Theater Dance & Media, Harvard College. Thank you to Kreativ Media Partners and AMT Artists, Inc. Unendingly grateful to artists and activists everywhere. Donate to Eliza’s LA LGBT Center Marathon Fundraiser at give.classy.org/elizablair. IMDb: imdb.me/elizablair. Website: eliza-blair.com.

Michael Kaczkowski

MAN #3 ALEX, CARL Michael Kaczkowski

Michael Kaczkowski is a film and theatre actor based in Los Angeles. He appeared in Skylight Theatre Company’s original production of Never is Now in Fall 2019, and is excited to revisit this play in a new medium. Michael graduated with a BA in Acting from the USC School of Dramatic Arts in 2019. He would like to dedicate this performance to his Grandparents, Jan and Eva Kaczkowski, who are Polish-born survivors of the Holocaust.

Robert Beard

MAN #1 JASON, KURT, HENRY.

Robert Beard has appeared at Riverside Center in Fredericksburg, VA, in the 2019 Christmas Spectacular, La Cage Aux Folles (Renaud/Dindon), Beauty and the Beast (Maurice), My Fair Lady (Col. Pickering),
White Christmas (Gen. Waverly), Les Miserables (Thenardier alternate), Phantom (Carriere), Anything Goes (Sir Evelyn), and Fiddler on the Roof (Rabbi). A BFA graduate in theatre and music from East Carolina University, he has also appeared in Judgment at Nuremberg (Ernst Janning) (Outstanding
Featured Actor Award, Washington Area Theatre Community Honors), South Pacific (Emile de Becque), 1776 (Secretary of Congress), Pirates of Penzance (Sergeant of Police), Oliver! (Sowerberry), and La
Boheme (Schaunard).

A JD graduate from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, he is a practicing attorney, and concentrates his practice in cases involving abused and neglected children and adults, and children
in foster care.

Trevor Butler

Trevor Butler is an alumni of the School at Steppenwolf in 2014, and the Conservatory of Performing Arts at Point Park University in 2016. And as his second appearance working in a Quarantine Players reading, he’s forever grateful to play MAN 2 in such a weighted story within stories. AJ Campbell is just as amazing as ever, Lori Muhlstein doesn’t fall short either, and
Wendy Kout rounds out his entire experience with such a brave and poignant play. Never is Now is such an appropriate title, and he has a million thank you’s because of it.

https://resumes.actorsaccess.com/trevorbutler

JUST GET OVER IT by Matthew Garlin

This is the story of a couple that has broken up who gets caught at a resort during a storm and now has no choice but to face the ghosts of the past relationship. Both come clean in a hilarious, high-stakes autopsy of their failed relationship.

Original Concept by Matthew Garlin & Samantha Davekos
Writing Supervision by Rebecca Greene

DIRECTOR’S NOTES
Sometimes (maybe most of the time) a first love, that one that got away, leaves an indelible mark that shapes all future relationships. Matthew Garlin gives us a deep dive into one such relationship when David and Jessica are forced to share a hotel room during a storm. As these two rehash their four-year relationship, we see not only why they didn’t work but also why they did. In their reminiscing, I think audiences will find reflections of their own romantic past. Those times when you fell hard and fast and got a little scared of it; those times when you thought you were a clear communicator only to find out the message the other person was getting was complete gibberish; those times when you realized that you had hurt someone just as much as they had hurt you. These are the moments that shape and define us from that point forward, and as we watch Jessica and David come to terms with the “what was” and the “could have been,” we are invited to reflect on our own relationships and how they shape who we are now.

Hope you enjoy the show!
Monica Cross
Director

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