It’s January and that means a group of Cook County High School students is in rehearsal for the High School One Act Competition! This year the One Act Play is The Undercurrent.
This play is about Annie Fishyer, whose tyrannical father comes near to wrecking her life and happiness. A tense and dramatic story reveals the very human characteristics of Ma and Pa Fishyer, their son and daughter, a meddlesome neighbor, and Miss Page, an investigator for the Morals Court.
The play was written in 1929 by Fay Ehlert who was the wife of the Chilean consul in Chicago. She was a social worker who visited many homes similar to the one in this play.
Ed Kozelka, in Fifteen American One Act Plays, writes, “Mrs. Ehlert realized that such children did not consciously break laws but that some force or undercurrent swept them along, freeing them from the rigid, unreasonable and unloving discipline of the home but at the same time dragging them unprepared and untrained into the realistic world.”
The cast for this production is Cy Fortunato as Pa Fishyer; Selien Morowitz as Ma Fishyer; Emma Nalezny as Annie Fishyer; Sam Kern a Emil Fishyer; Mikala Schliep as Mrs. Floyd; and Erika Marxen as Miss Page. Sue Hennessy is directing the play.
There will be a public performance on January 30 at 7 p.m. at the Arrowhead Center for the Arts before the group takes the play to competition on Feb. 1.
The Grand Marais Playhouse will be holding a “town meeting” about its future on January 23 at 7 p.m. The current status of the organization and proposed changes to its programing will be shared. All community members with an interest in the community theater are strongly encouraged to attend including audience members, performers, artistic team, crew members and volunteers. The Playhouse board of directors will provide refreshments. Memberships and T-shirts will be available as well as preferred seating sales for the upcoming Summer Theater Festival.
If you are unable to attend but would be willing to complete a short survey, contact the Playhouse at playhouse@boreal.org.
Auditions for the Spring Community Youth play will be January 28 at 7 p.m. at the Arrowhead Center for the Arts. This year’s production will be Our Town by Thornton Wilder. Auditions are open to the entire community, not just high school age actors.
Our Town is the classic American play! Our Town won a Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1938. The play takes place in the fictional town of Grover Corner from 1901 to 1913 and covers the life of the small town through daily life (Act One), love and marriage, (Act Two) and death and dying (Act Three). There is no set. Actors mime most of the props. The play requires a large mixed cast! Performances will be one weekend only, March 6 – 9, 2014.
Rehearsals will be Sunday-Thursday evenings 7:00-8:30 p.m. Individual schedule will be determined by role.
Come to the meeting on January 23 to hear more about plans for the upcoming season!
Grand Marais Playhouse Artistic Director Sue Hennessy provides this behind-the-scenes look at Grand Marais Playhouse activities.
Leave a Reply