Introducing the Cast of Jasper's 2025 Play Right Series Winning Play - Busted Open by Ryan Stevens

Ryan Stevens - Jasper’s 2025 Play Right Series Winning Playwright & author of Busted Open

As we move toward July 20th and the first meeting of the Jasper Project’s 2025 Play Right Series Community Producers, we’re excited to announce the cast for Ryan Steven’s brand new original play, Busted Open!

Directed by Jane Turner Peterson, the cast of Busted Open includes the following —

Sunset: Ella Riley

Artemis: Kristin Cobb

Amy Bell: Maggie Baker

Jane Richmond: Allison Allgood

Painkiller: Beth DeHart

Rachel “Victory” Vance: Zanna Mills

Phil Kirkland: Clayton King

Trevor Richmond: Josh Kern

We’re still assembling our 2025 roster of Community Producers and we’d love to have you join us!

On select Sunday afternoons this summer you are invited to join with the cast, crew, and fellow Community Producers for an enlightening and entertaining session that pulls back the curtains of theatre development and illuminates how a stageplay goes from page to stage. Your first session will offer you a private viewing of the first step in a play production, the Table Reading – the first time the cast of the winning play will read their parts together.

Subsequent sessions will focus on essential ingredients in the production of a successful staged reading, such as the stage manager’s job; props, lighting, blocking, and sound; unique insights from the director; how the actors prepare for their parts; playwright perceptions from this year and past projects; and an invitation to the dress rehearsal. In addition to your invitation to gather with the cast and crew every Sunday in July, each session will also feature exciting snacks and beverages. And many more surprises each week!

Finally, you’ll take your reserved, best-in-the-house seats to a ticketed staged reading.

But there’s more.

Your name will be included as a Community Producer on programs, posters, press releases, and other promotional materials as well as in the perfect bound book published by Muddy Ford Press and registered with the Library of Congress, and you will take home your own copies as a souvenir of your experience.

What is expected of Community Producers?

We hope you can make it to every exciting Sunday afternoon meeting, but we understand if you have to miss some. Each session will last from 90 – 120 minutes.

The financial commitment for a Community Producer is a minimum of $250 per person, but other sponsorships are also available and appreciated.

Our hope is that you will be so enlightened and inspired by this experience that you will become a diplomat of live theatre, fresh playwrights, and the Jasper Project and encourage your friends and colleagues to participate in live theatre themselves!

Play Right Series 2025 Community Producer Schedule

SUNDAY, JULY 20: Introducing Ryan Stevens and Busted Open
Meet the 2025 Play Right Series Winning Playwright Ryan Stevens and witness the Inaugural Table Reading of Busted Open

SUNDAY, AUGUST 3: The Art of Stagecraft
The cast & crew of Busted Open explain the process of preparing for a role and tricks of the trade to demystify some of the magic of the theatrical arts   

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17: The Playwright's Craft
Learn about the processes of 4 award-winning playwrights including Ryan Stevens, Chad Henderson, Lonetta Thompson, and Colby Quick with your host Jon Tuttle, author of South Carolina Onstage, The Trustus Collection, and more

SUNDAY, AUGUST  31:  Sneak Peek Week!
Be a fly on the proverbial stage wall among an intimate group of guests to watch a working rehearsal of Busted Open – see how far the cast has come since the first ever Table Reading just six weeks earlier

SUNDAY: SEPT 14: The Big Event – Staged Reading of Busted Open
Take your reserved seat for the Premiere Stage Reading of Busted Open by Ryan Stevens at Columbia Music Festival Association and enjoy a post-show champagne toast to the cast, crew, and creator of Busted Open!

Purpose of the Play Right Series

Empower and enlighten audiences by allowing them insider views of the steps and processes of creating theatre art by

• Offering limited open table and stage readings of theatrical works as well as rehearsals of theatrical works to community members

• Offering Community Producer opportunities to the community members by keeping production costs low and involving community assets already in place. In exchange for an established minimal financial contribution, Community Producers are invited to attend designated open readings and rehearsals, informal presentations by cast and crew, and opening night performances with producer credits. The result: Community Producers learn about the extensive process of producing a play and become invested personally in the production and success of the play and its cast and crew, thereby becoming diplomats of theatre arts.

Increase opportunities for theatre artists to create and participate in new art without the necessity of being attached to an existing theatre organization by

• Offering a space and arts engineering for playwrights to workshop their plays and one-off theatre arts experiences and potentially have them produced

• Putting out calls for new works of theatre art from new and existing playwrights, as well as work opportunities for on-stage and backstage theatre artists.

Provide more affordable and experimental theatre arts experiences for new and emerging theatre artists and their audiences; thereby expanding cultural literacy and theatre arts appreciation in the

Introducing the Jasper Project's 2025 Play Right Series Winning Playwright – Ryan Stevens

It’s the 5th season for Jasper’s innovative project, the Play Right Series and we couldn’t be happier to announce that Ryan Stevens is our 2025 winner.

A native of Greenville and a 2020 graduate of USC with an MFA in Playwrighting, Stevens received his MA in Theatre in 2017 and BA in English in 2015, also from USC. Currently a Playwriting Fellow at Emery University, Stevens will commute from Atlanta during the upcoming summer to workshop his play, Busted Open, alongside a group of Midlands-area Community Producers, a process  that will ultimately lead the play to the staged reading phase of development. In addition to this performance at summer’s end, Jasper will also publish his manuscript and register it with the US Library of Congress.

The purpose of Jasper’s Play Right Series is threefold: to empower and enlighten audiences by offering insider views of the process of creating theatre art via the roles of Community Producers; to increase opportunities for theatre artists to create and participate in new art without being attached to a theatre organization; and, to provide more affordable and experimental theatrical experiences for emerging theatre artists and their audiences.

This year’s Community Producers will witness the first ever table reading of Stevens’ new play, Busted Open, as well as attend a private rehearsal and informal presentations by the playwright, director, cast and crew, and ultimately be celebrated for their financial and personal contributions (minimum investment $250) to the project at the staged reading premiere of Busted Open in late summer.

Previous Community Producers, several of whom have re-invested year after year, have included community members like Bill Schmidt, Ed Madden, Linda Khoury, Paul Leo, and James and Kirkland Smith. Additional financial support has also been generously provided by folks like Jack McKenzie, Hunter Boyle, Robin Gottlieb, and many more.

Judges for this year’s competition were Linda Khoury, executive director of the SC Shakespeare Co.; Stan Brown, professor of acting at Northwestern University and professional actor who recently enjoyed his Broadway debut in Water for Elephants; and, Jayce Tromsness, a longtime multifaceted SC theatre artist.

~~~~~

Play Right Series 2025 Community Producer Schedule

SUNDAY, JULY 20: Introducing Ryan Stevens and Busted Open

Meet the 2025 Play Right Series Winning Playwright Ryan Stevens and witness the Inaugural Table Reading of Busted Open

~

SUNDAY, AUGUST 3: The Art of Stagecraft

The cast & crew of Busted Open explain the process of preparing for a role and tricks of the trade to demystify some of the magic of the theatrical arts   

~

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17: The Playwright's Craft

Learn about the processes of 4 award-winning playwrights including Ryan Stevens, Chad Henderson, Lonetta Thompson, and Colby Quick with your host Jon Tuttle, author of South Carolina Onstage, The Trustus Collection, and more

~

SUNDAY, AUGUST  31:  Sneak Peek Week!

Be a fly on the proverbial stage wall among an intimate group of guests to watch a working rehearsal of Busted Open – see how far the cast has come since the first ever Table Reading just six weeks earlier

~

SUNDAY: SEPT 14: The Big Event – Staged Reading of Busted Open

Take your reserved seat for the Premiere Stage Reading of Busted Open by Ryan Stevens at Columbia Music Festival Association and enjoy a post-show champagne toast to the cast, crew, and creator of Busted Open!

For more information  about the 2025 Play Right Series schedule and Community Producer opportunities please visit the Projects section of our website JasperProject.org.

About Last Night - A Magical Evening of New Theatre & Unique Visual Art with Chad Henderson & Nate Puza

L to R: Jon Tuttle - PRS director, Chad Henderson - playwright, Marybeth Gorman Craig - director, Kayla Machado - very pregnant actor, Libby Campbell - actor & Jasper Project board member, G. Scott Wild - actor

Last night was a wonderful night for the Jasper Project as we were privileged to celebrate two artists from two different disciplines at Harbison Theatre for a double dose of Jasper goodness. We opened the evening with a reception for our featured visual artist in the Harbison Theatre Gallery, Nate Puza and ended it with the premier staged reading performance of the 2024 Play Right Series winning play, Let It Grow by Chad Henderson.

Visual Artist Nate Puza offers and artist talk at the opening reception for hi exhibition at the Jasper Project’s Harbison Theatre Gallery

Nate Puza is a South Carolina based artist, designer, and illustrator with over a decade of experience working with some of the biggest bands and brands in the world including Jason Isbell, the Avett Brothers, Chris Stapleton, Phish, and more. Internationally known for his meticulous attention to detail and high level of craftmanship, Puza created the new design for the Columbia, SC flag. When not creating art for your favorite band Nate can be found playing music with friends, being outside, wrenching on his motorcycle, mowing the lawn, or drinking a beer on the back porch.

Chad Henderson is a professional theatre artist from South Carolina. He is known for directing contemporary plays, musicals and original works that mix music, movement, imagination and invention to create unforgettable works for the stage. Henderson served as the Artistic Director of Trustus Theatre (2015-2021) in Columbia, SC, and is the current Marketing Director for the South Carolina Philharmonic, where he most recently produced Home for the Holidays at Koger Center for the Arts. Selected Trustus Theatre credits include: The Brother/Sister Plays, Green Day’s American Idiot, Evil Dead, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Last 5 Years, Assassins, The Great Gatsby, Next to Normal, and The Restoration’s Constance - an original musical for which Henderson also authored the book.

Libby Campbell and David Britt on the stage for Let It Grow!

L to R: Libby Campbell, David Britt, G. Scott Wild, Kayla Machado

Jasper expresses our sincerest appreciation to Kristin Cobb, executive director of Harbison Theatre at MTC and her team for welcoming us into their home and supporting our mission. Check out all the exciting performances coming up at Harbison theatre here and support this state-of-the-art performance space the way they support the SC Midlands performing artists!

Kristin Cobb, executive director - Harbison Theatre at MTC welcomes the crowd.

Jon Tuttle Interviews Chad Henderson Whose Original Play, Let It Grow, is the Winner of the 2024 Play Right Series -- Read On to Learn How YOU Can Help Birth This New Piece of SC Theatrical Art

Let it Grow … a quite perfectly-realized dramatic gem.

-Jon Tuttle

Everyone sit up please: you are reading this just in time to save your place for the fourth installment of Jasper Project’s Play Right Series--the launching of a brand-new play by a South Carolina author. Jasper regulars will recognize the PRS as the birthplace of Randall David Cook’s Sharks and Other Lovers (2017), Colby Quick’s Moonswallower (2022) and Lonetta Thompson’s Therapy (2023). Each of these plays, following its showcase staged reading event at the end of the PRS cycle, has been published by Muddy Ford Press and gone (or soon will go) on to full productions around the state. 

This year’s winner is Let it Grow, by Columbia theatre veteran Chad Henderson, a name likely familiar to anyone even peripherally connected to the Midlands’ arts scene. Chad was for six years the producing Artistic Director at Trustus Theatre, in which capacity he directed dozens of plays and musicals and developed, as writer or collaborator, several more, including (with Daniel Machado) 2018’s The Restoration’s Constance, a sprawling, gorgeous, Bernstein-esque epic-with-music that tells a generational tale of Lexington and environs. He has also brought projects to other theaters in Columbia, like Workshop and the Columbia Children’s Theatre, as well as to theatres in Charleston, Spartanburg, and Key West. In 2017, his short film Overture won the Audience Award in Jasper’s Second Act Film Festival. He is now the Marketing Director for the South Carolina Philharmonic. So yes: it’s that Chad Henderson.  

The play’s language, by the way, is magnificent.

His play Let it Grow is a gentle comedy about later-life love blooming on the set of a public television gardening show. The PRS judges (I was one) found that, besides checking all our boxes pertaining to cast size, length, and venue-suitability, Let it Grow was a quite perfectly-realized dramatic gem. It is at once highly original but still demonstrates a throughgoing mastery of the traditional conventions of stagecraft. It’s also deliciously funny and arrives at a denouement at once surprising and inevitable.  

The dramatis personae in the play include Mary Lily (played by Libby Campbell), the host of our favorite gardening show, also a widow and the play’s moral center of gravity, into whose studio strolls Christoph, a new panelist, and the author of the bestselling Fifty Shades of Stamens. Christoph is also, as it happens, a widower, and you might see where this is going. Trying to keep the show right with sponsors and donors is producer Charlotte, who begins the play as the uptight voice of fiscal necessity but who emerges as someone entirely more sympathetic to the humanities.  Finally there’s hot-blooded but kind-hearted Jeb, an expert on sustainable humanure who gets “madder than a one-legged diabetic at a cake-walk” at critics who should sooner “shit in their momma’s best frying pan than to mess with me, cause I’d fold ‘em up like a fourth-grade love letter.”  The play’s language, by the way, is magnificent.

This year’s PRS cycle begins with its first meeting on the afternoon of July 21, at the 1013 Co-Op off North Main in Columbia. On that day you can meet Chad, the play’s director Marybeth Gorman Craig, the cast and, if you choose to be one, the other Community Producers (more about that below). In anticipation of that first meeting, I tracked Chad down for a quick Q and A.  

JT:  How do you know so much about horticulture? And where did you get the idea for Let It Grow? 

CH:  The impetus for this play was my desire to...well, write a play. I have been researching the punk music scenes in Belfast, New York City and London for a spell with the intention of writing a trilogy of plays with music. It'd been years since I wrote the book for The Restoration's Constance (a process that felt like being in a fever-dream), so I wanted to ‘dust the cobwebs off’ of my writing. I wanted to write a play as an exercise, I wanted to write it for me, and I wanted to write something simple and human. In short, I wanted to write something that was the opposite of the kind of theatre I gravitate towards as a producer/director. 

Around that time, I was finally becoming a fan of SC ETV'S Making It Grow. I kept watching the show as my late-30s interest in plants grew, and I also felt the show was a great source for comedy—though completely unintentional. It seems to teem with innuendo and winks, and I can never be sure if the panelists are aware of it. So, I decided to tell a story about a public broadcasting program where the fun, pleasant, scandal-avoidant day-to-day rigor is upset by their being confronted with a conflict. 

So then I wondered...what conflict could I confront them with? I may or may not have injected some of my personal experiences along with the workplace experiences of friends into the plot and come out with Let it Grow. In the end, the play turned out to be an investigation of humanity in the workplace. It examines vulnerability, discomfort, and plants.  

JT:  So this play was, in fact, inspired by ETV's Making it Grow. 

CH: Yes, it was the steppingstone into the rest of the play. I recently met Amanda McNulty, "Making It Grow’s" host, at a local Publix. She was lovely. I did not tell her I wrote a play based on her show. But I have had a lot of hilarious conversations in recent months with other folks who work with her and know her, and apparently my "Mary Lily" character--the play’s protagonist--is not nearly as colorful or daring as the real-life source.  

JT: The play is stiff with botanical erotica. Comment?  

CH:  Honestly, the "botanical erotica" (my new memoir title, thank you!) came into play because the actual SC ETV show feels stacked with unintentional innuendo. So I wanted the characters to examine certain horticultural topics that might open me up to intentionally creating innuendo for the audience. Plus, the growing conflict in the play is directly related to this kind of dialogue being an issue on air, so it felt necessary. 

JT:  Anyone reading the above would assume that this play is bawdy. It most certainly is not. It is a gently witty exploration of later-life-romance that uses botany as its love language. Here's the question: this play, like every play, is a journey. From what, to what? Where do you want the audience to land? Or what do you want them to know or take away.

CH: I'm hoping that this play asks us to think about each other’s complexities and make an intentional effort to stop viewing each other as black or white, right or wrong--as dualities versus dichotomies. I'll be candid and say that while I am offering this idea in the play, it is a practice I fail at constantly.  

JT:  On which note, I notice there are no antagonists in the play, at least not by the end. Even Charlotte, the producer, who is the Voice of Business Sense, becomes sympathetic. Was that a discovery you made in the writing? Was she ever, to you, an antagonist?  

CH: I think it's easy to dislike Charlotte because she really needs to lighten-the-fuck-up. She's the type of person whose company I have never enjoyed, but is she the antagonist? No. The villains in this story are the faceless attorneys and sponsors who orbit the characters throughout the play. They view their staff as cogs in a wheel and sensationalize their humanity - making them liabilities versus assets.  

JT: Mary Lily is a remarkable character--gracious and wise, and clearly the conscience of the play. Whence came Mary? Anybody you know? 

CH: Mary is the confluence of a lot of the smarter and more genuine people I've met in my life. There's quite a lot of my own heart in her as well. I suppose that happens quite a bit when you're creating a character you intend audiences to love. You pull together all the best parts of yourself and others, and boom: you get a Mary Lily.  

JT: This is obviously not your first foray into playwriting, and your career in the arts has led you many places. Where does writing--plays or otherwise--fit into your conception of yourself?  

CH: This is a bit of a doozy to answer. Trying to be brief, I'll say that writing new work is putting my money (or time) where my mouth is. I have long championed new work, and I have long envied how the larger cities are creating new work that infiltrates our regional and community theatres over time. So while I continue to expect SC audiences to favor the familiar, I think we are capable of having our own creative "new works" scene. So, instead of waiting on local audiences and granting organizations to call for new work, I feel we must just create. new. work.  

My "self-conception" keeps changing, but I confidently call myself a storyteller. I think I've been a storyteller for most of my life. I recognize that the little kid who made stop-motion movies with his action figures is still alive and well in this 39-year-old with a greying beard. So playwriting seems like a sensible avenue to telling new stories (read: creating new work), and I had quite a fun time working on Let It Grow.  

Your curiosity having been piqued, you’ll be glad to know that you too can have a fun time working on Let It Grow, because there is still time—through July 21--to join the PRS cycle as a Community Producer. For a $250 (or larger) buy-in, you can participate in the development process and learn more about the many elements that go into creating, writing, rehearsing, producing, and marketing a new play. There are also opportunities to be a developmental sponsor for those who would like to support Henderson’s play but are not interested in or available to serve as a Community Producer.  

The PRS group meets about every two weeks through August into September, when, on the 14th, we will open some bubbly, pick up our just-published copies and enjoy a staged-reading, with talk-back, at Harbison Theatre. For more information about the project or becoming a Community Producer or sponsor, please click here, and then join us on July 21st for a read-through and lively chat.

--Jon Tuttle

Become a Community Producer or Sponsor of

Chad Henderson’s new play, Let It Grow

REVIEW: Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune

Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune

Trustus Side Door Theatre

April 11 – 20, 2024

The play opens on a darkened apartment, with a couple making love. After working together for several weeks Frankie, a waitress has agreed to a date with Johnny, a short-order cook, and the two have ended up in Frankie’s one-room walk-up apartment. Johnny (played by Jason Stokes) has fallen madly, absurdly, head-over-heels in love with Frankie (Marybeth Gorman Craig). Frankie thinks this is an absurd notion. She’s had a lovely evening but would be happiest if Johnny would just get dressed and leave so she could get in her pj’s and eat ice cream and watch television. 

The evening unfurls as our two world-weary, battered souls talk and listen and question and argue about love and the notion of love, and whether any of us are really and truly prepared to meet the love of our lives, that one soul without whom we cannot live. A late-night classical music radio station provides the score, complete with a velvet-voiced deejay. 

Johnny is persistent and obnoxious and relentless and meddling and romantic, and he NEVER SHUTS UP in his quest to convince Frankie that she is in fact his soulmate. There were several times when I wanted her to push him out the window or split his head open with an axe. He’s just adorable. This may be the best work I’ve seen from Stokes, and I’ve seen him in any number of roles. His shading, his timing, his nuance, his unending enthusiasm is all spot on. 

I’m not sure how Marybeth Gorman Craig is able to pull off world-weary and luminous at the same time, but she does it beautifully. Her Frankie has been burned and disappointed by men over and over. Her skepticism is as relentless as Johnny’s enthusiasm. She would like to believe him, but her experiences won’t let her. Yet.           

When I first heard this was being produced in the Side Door, I was  concerned that it would be too “cozy” for this show. In fact it’s the perfect space. We feel as claustrophobic as Frankie. Jayce Tromsness’ scene design and Erin Wilson’s set dressing is true to tiny NYC apartments. There’s a working kitchen! I love a working kitchen on stage; Frankie’s need for a late-night nosh (cold meatloaf sandwiches – delish) resulted in real meatloaf sandwiches ON TOAST. (I went home and made toast after the show.)  There’s a later scene where Johnny whips up a western omelet; there is a soupçon of menace to his chopping skill. 

For any of you who might hesitate to see this show because you’ve heard that there would be  NAKED PEOPLE onstage, relax. There are no naked people onstage in this production, and it didn’t affect the story one iota.

 We’ve all had those all-nighters, where we argued and made up and loved and snacked and made discoveries about ourselves and each other and made love again until the sun rose. Hopefully, we’ve sometimes even had “the most beautiful music ever written” as a soundtrack. Erin Wilson has given us a lovely, lovely show. Frankie and Johnny are tired and resigned and hopeful and hopeless. You don’t necessarily get a “happy ending,” but you don’t get a sad one, either. I was sad and hopeful and wanted a cigarette at the end of the evening.

Sadly, you only have 4 more chances to see this production: April 17 – April 20 at 8:00 p.m. There is limited seating in the Side Door Theatre so make your reservations now. Tickets may be purchased online or by calling the theatre at 803-254-9732. Beer and wine are available for purchase in the lobby.

REVIEW: The Visit at USC Theatre and Dance

THE VISIT

USC Department of Theatre and Dance

April 5 - 12

This writing is woefully late for a number of reasons; none of them particularly good, and for that we do apologize. However, the excellent work by everyone involved deserves an acknowledgement.

USC Theatre and Dance closed out the season with Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s The Visit, and what a production it was. The piece was first produced in 1956 in Zürich, Switzerland, and was adapted for British audiences in a production directed by Peter Brook and starring Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontaine. After touring Britain in 1957 – 58, the play was taken to Broadway. Ingrid Bergman and Anthony Quinn starred in a film adaption in 1964, and Kander and Ebb (along with a book by Terrance McNally) flipped it into a musical starring Chita Rivera in 2001. In 2020, Tony Kushner’s  new English language adaptation was produced in London.

The story takes place in the “somewhere in Europe” village of Güllen, a village which has not fallen on hard times, but under them. A miserable, poverty-stricken, dingy little hamlet. The one bright spot is the impending visit of Claire Sachanassian, the wealthiest woman in the world. Claire grew up in Güllen, and the townspeople are hopeful and desperate that she will provide them with much needed financial assistance. The scene opens with villagers, desperate to make a good impression, frantically preparing for Ms. Zachanassian’s arrival. And arrive, she does.

As a young girl, Claire fell in love with Anton Schill, who has grown up to be a model Güllenite – a successful shop keeper with a devoted wife and children, and on his way to becoming the next Bürgermeister. Alas, young Claire finds herself  with a brӧtchen in the oven. Her beloved Anton abandons her, denies his paternity, and turns the townspeople against her. She is run out of town in shame. Claire will gift the town and each of its citizens a grand fortune, in exchange for the life of the man who abandoned her. Anton’s life is about to go to hell in a ham biscuit.

Revenge is a dish best served cold…

Rachel Vanek, a Sophomore (repeat – A SOPHMORE) nailed the role of Claire. She moves like a glacier across the stage – all icy, brittle perfection. I have no doubt that if you touched her, you’d get frostbite. Cruella Deville notwithstanding, there is a shimmer of that very young woman who was shamed by the people of Güllen so very long ago, and Claire begins to win us over. Vanek’s Claire is the Ice Princess personified. (She does not “Let it Go”). I look forward to seeing this young performer in other productions.

Olan Domer plays Anton Schill to smarmy excellence. If you met him in a bar, you’d keep your cocktail covered. His expression when he realizes that he is the fee for Güllens future  prosperity is priceless. Domer played the equally smarmy Karl Lindner in USC’s production of A Raisin in the Sun earlier this year.

There truly isn’t a weak link in this cast. Maggie Davisson as Bobby, Claire’s assistant, Dominic DeLong-Rodgers as the Bürgermeister, Cameron Eubanks, the village doctor, Didem Ruhi, the priest, Elaine Werren as Fraü Schill, and Elizabeth Wheless as the teacher were all very well-cast. Along with the rest of the ensemble, many of whom were double and triple cast, the story builds in intensity and suspense. I must mention Koby Hall and Rafe Hardin, who play the two blind men. Not only are they hysterically funny (until we learn how they came to be blind), but they are also blind and on stilts.

Lindsay Wilkinson’s costume design is amazing. Working with Kristy Hall, she develops a costume plot which is a bit art-deco, a bit Weimar Republic, a bit Picasso, and a smattering of A Clockwork Orange…. It was fascinating to watch the costumes change  as the characters  wearing them changed. Her use of patterns and color brought another dimension to the production.

The stage at Drayton Hall is massive, and the set/lighting/sound designers (Ashley Jensen, Lorna, Young, Danielle Wilson) filled it completely. The use of beautifully painted scrims allowed the set to change completely with a light cue. The sound was very well done. The train station serves as a focal point, and the sounds and the smokestacks turned me into a gleeful five-year old kid again. (I must confess I so wanted Claire to burst into “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” when she stepped out onto the balcony.)

The Visit is not only a story of revenge, but also a warning tale about avarice, integrity, loyalty, and the effects of soul-searing capitalism. Director Craig Miller, a USC alum, brought all of this together in an entertaining, provocative production. The only negative to this show is the all too short length of its run.

USC’s Department of Theatre and Dance has long been a contributor to some of the very best of Columbia theatre. Its students and faculty share their talents with theatres throughout the city. Many of them have gone on to teach, perform, and share their gifts on stages and in schools across the country.

Jasper Announces the Winning Playwright for the 2024 Play Right Series

The Jasper Project is excited to announce that Chad Henderson’s play Let it Grow, has been selected as the winning play in the 2024 Play Right Series competition. Henderson’s play was unanimously chosen from 14 submissions by a committee of four theatre artists including Dewey Scott-Wiley, Libby Campbell, Bakari Lebby, and Jon Tuttle. Henderson’s play will be workshopped during the summer as part of the Jasper Project’s fourth Play Right Series, then presented as a staged reading. Previous winners of the Jasper Project’s Play Right Series include Randall David Cook’s Sharks and Other Lovers, Colby Quick’s Moon Swallower, and Lonetta Thompson’s Therapy.

The Play Right Series was created by Jasper in 2017 as a catalyst for encouraging new theatre art from South Carolina playwrights. The project is unique in that it invites community members to join the project as Community Producers, individuals and couples who take part in the workshopping of the manuscript while they learn about the process of creating theatre art. A minimum fee of $250 per person allows an individual to become a Community Producer who goes on to be recognized as an honored guest at the staged reading of the new script at the end of the project. Previous Community Producers have included James and Kirkland Smith, Bill Schmidt, Ed Madden, Bert Easter, Wade Sellers, Libby Campbell, Paul Leo and many more. Stay tuned for more information on openings for the 2024 Community Producer roster.

Chad Henderson is a professional theatre artist in South Carolina who is known for directing contemporary plays, musicals and original works that mix music, movement, imagination, and invention to create unforgettable works for the stage. Henderson served as the Artistic Director of Trustus Theatre (2015-2021) in Columbia, SC, and is the current Marketing Director for the South Carolina Philharmonic, where he most recently produced Home for the Holidays at Koger Center for the Arts. Selected Trustus Theatre credits include: The Brother/Sister Plays, Green Day’s American Idiot, Evil Dead, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Last 5 Years, Assassins, The Great Gatsby, Next to Normal, and The Restoration’s Constance - an original musical for which Henderson also authored the book. Henderson has directed with various theatres in South Carolina including Workshop Theatre of South Carolina, The Columbia Children’s Theatre, Spartanburg Next Stage, and Theatre South Carolina (USC). Henderson has completed three residencies at The Studios of Key West, where he developed new works and directed as part of TSKW’s One Night Stand, a 24-hour new play project. His short film Overture, which he wrote and directed, won the 2017 Second Act Film Festival Audience Choice Award. In the last theatre season, Henderson directed Hundred Days (Workshop Theatre), a staged reading of Moon Swallower (Jasper Project), Don’t Let Pigeon Drive the Bus (Columbia Children’s Theatre), and Clyde’s (PURE Theatre). Other Charleston directing credits include Living Dead in Denmark (College of Charleston), The Brothers Size (Piccolo Spoleto), and PURE Theatre’s lauded production of Fun Home in 2018 which was revived for Piccolo Spoleto that same year. Chad lives in Columbia, SC with his wife Bonnie, whose love and support fuels his passion for the theatre. Visit his website for more information on the artist.

REVIEW: USC'S A RAISIN IN THE SUN Offers "A Masterclass" by Turner and Sanders

A Raisin in the Sun is the story of the Youngers, a Black family, living in poverty in the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s. It is the story of the “American Dream,” and the true ability, and the cost, of achieving that dream. Lena (Jocelyn Sanders), her son, Walter Lee, Jr. (De’On Turner) and his wife Ruth (Aaliyah Broadwater), her daughter Beneatha (Fiona Schreier), and Walter Lee and Ruth’s son Travis (Dorian Mitchell)  live together in the same run-down apartment Lena and Walter Lee Sr. moved into right after their wedding. There is a shared bath down the hallway.

The Senior Mr. Younger has recently died, and the family is waiting on the arrival of a life insurance check for $10,000.00. A life-changing sum. Each family member has a different dream for the money – Mama and Ruth dream of owning a home, Walter Lee wants to purchase a liquor store in order to become a successful businessman, and Beneatha dreams of going to medical school.

Walter Lee is employed as a chauffeur, and chafes at the restrictions imposed on him by his color and his demeaning position. He sees purchasing a liquor store as the way out and up. Lena, a God-fearing, church-going woman, is utterly opposed to both the sale and consumption of alcohol; it becomes very clear very early that the insurance money will never be used to achieve Walter Lee’s dream. Lena and Ruth, each domestic workers, yearn to move out of the dingy apartment and into a “real” home. The small determined potted plant in the kitchen window represents Lena’s wish for a garden of her own. College student Beneatha is trying to fight the stereotypes of Black women, the oppression of the Black community, and is questioning the religious beliefs with which she has been instilled from birth. Travis is an adorable ten-year old kid being spoiled into oblivion by his doting and over-indulgent grandmother. But wait! There’s more! Ruth is pregnant. Yes. Conflict and confrontation abound.

Lena finally has had enough of the bickering. She leaves the house and, on her return, advises the family that she has purchased a home. In Clybourne Park. A very white neighborhood. (Why buy a house in a white neighborhood? Because it was less expensive than a home in a Black neighborhood.)

“I do not use the term tour de force lightly… It is the only phrase I can use to describe De’ On Turner’s performance”

I do not use the term tour de force lightly. Or even ever. It is the only phrase I can use to describe De’ On Turner’s performance as Walter Lee Jr. His frustration of being a young, intelligent, able-bodied, poverty-stricken Black man is inextricably intertwined with his frustration with trying to achieve his dreams of success. The coiled-up energy inside is barely/rarely concealed. Turner paces the stage with the fluidity of a cat, and is by turns loving, seductive, impish, frustrated, angry, and desperate. He is explosive and, at times, both frightening and frightened. I have seen Mr. Turner onstage a number of times; he improves exponentially with each role.

Jocelyn Sanders is a gift to the stage, and it’s been too long since she’s been on one. Her many directorial outings are well-received, but it is a joy to watch her create one of the theatre’s most enduring characters. Her Lena is loving and tired and frustrated and hopeful. Her musings on her late husband are so vivid that he becomes an unseen yet very present member of the cast. Her heartbreak over the loss of her Walter Lee Sr. is palpable; the family’s chance at achieving the aforementioned “American Dream” exists at the cost of the life of the family patriarch.

Sanders and Turner together is a masterclass. To watch two consummate actors play off  each other is mesmerizing. I truly found myself on the edge of my seat. Columbia has always had a bountiful supply of amazing actors; this is your chance to watch two of the best in action.

“Jocelyn Sanders is a gift to the stage”

Aaliyah Broadwater was able to hold my attention simply by walking across stage. Her love for her husband and her family is ever present, as is her utter exhaustion – both physical and emotional. Fiona Schreier is a fierce Beneatha! On fire to change the world, refusing to marry her current wealth suitor, and learning and understanding more about her heritage from an African exchange student. (Sometimes you also want to smack her for being so self-centered, but … such is youth.)

Michaelmikkel Wright and John Ballard play George Murchison and Joseph Asagai, respectively. Beneatha’s beaus, they provide two entirely different points of view of the Black experience. The son from a wealthy family, George is good looking, shallow, and conceited. He takes no pride his African heritage and has no interest at all in Beneatha’s intellect. (Fortunately, he is only the proverbial “passing fancy.”) Joseph is the absolute opposite. A student from Nigeria, he takes great pride in his lineage and hopes to go back and make a difference in his village.

Mylea Pressley was an absolute hoot as the nosy neighbor, Mrs. Johnson. She barges into the Younger’s apartment, makes herself at home, and proceeds to advise them of the mistake they are making in moving to an all-white neighborhood. She “just happens” to have a newspaper article about the bombing of a home in that neighborhood. She will not be surprised if she sees the Youngers meet the same fate. Her commentary might be seen as jealousy, but it represents the fear of some people to make a change, especially a difficult one. Mrs. Johnson seems quite content with the status quo and doesn’t understand the need to change anything, particularly if it might be dangerous. Pressley’s timing is excellent. Her program bio states this is her first role in a straight play. I hope isn’t her last.

Rowland Marshall is Bobo, one of Walter Lee’s boon companions. He comes to Walter Lee to give him the bad news that the two of them have been had, and both of them have lost all of their money. Marshall’s stance and delivery was exactly that of someone who (along with WL) has made a truly idiotic decision and has to confess the failure. You really hope Bobo’s wife is kind when he tells her the news. Olan Domer plays Karl Lindner, the sole white character. Lindner represents the Clybourne Park “welcome committee.” He is exactly as you would expect him to be and Domer portrays him as smarmily as he is.

There was some “hesitation” from some of the characters early on, but as the play progressed each actor became less halting and more confident, and the lines flowed more smoothly. This was the cast’s first night in front of an audience. It does take a moment to find the rhythm of a show when you add audience responses.

The set, the sound, the costumes were all beautifully executed. (I love a working sink onstage!)  However… having something real to drink in those coffee cups would be excellent. I understand not having any liquid in the beer bottles, but please give the coffee drinkers something to sip.

Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun debuted on Broadway in 1959, when she was a mere babe of 29. It was the first play written by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway, the first Broadway play with a Black director (Lloyd Richards), and, with the exception of one character, the first Broadway play with a Black cast. In 1959. It took nearly two years to come up with funding to produce the play which went on to win 4 Tony awards, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle “Best Play” of 1959, and a Pulitzer prize.

Ms. Hansberry was born into a politically active family; her father established one of the first Black savings banks in Chicago and was a successful real estate businessman. Mr. Hansberry did purchase a home in a white neighborhood, having won the right to do so after he challenged a Supreme Court decision against integration.

Many thanks to Ron Himes for bringing this classic piece to life. Raisin addresses issues which were prevalent in the 1950s and which still exist today, albeit in a more insidious fashion.

Stephanie Milling, Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance, PROMISED that the seats in Longstreet will be re-upholstered. From her lips to (insert the name of your chosen deity’s) ears.

A Raisin in the Sun runs through Friday, March 1st at Longstreet Theatre. Three acts with one intermission. Trust me, it does not feel like three acts. Parking is always at a premium around the University, so leave home early to get a space. This weekend there is also a show (“She Loves Me”) at Drayton Hall, a performance by the SC Philharmonic at the Koger Center, and there are women’s and men’s basketball games scheduled. Good luck with that.

A RAISIN IN THE SUN

University of South Carolina Department of

Theatre and Dance

Longstreet Theatre

February 23 – March 1

REVIEW: Trustus Theatre's Little Shop of Horrors is a Win!

“His Audrey II is a botanical Mae West.”

Once again Trustus Theatre knocks another show out of the ballpark. The Little Shop of Horrors was born as a movie way back in 1960. Directed by Roger Corman, the film featured (among others) a young Jack Nicholson. The musical adaptation opened Off-Broadway in 1982 as Little Shop of Horrors. It went on to open in the West End in 1983, Broadway in 2003, and has lived on in numerous tours and revivals, and countless community theatre productions. It has been produced more than once on various Columbia stages, with sold-out houses each time.

The show opens in a dark and dingy Skid Row. A Greek Chorus harkens back to the girl groups of the ‘50s in the prologue It’s funny, it’s sharp and it’s beautifully choreographed.

Our hero is Seymour Krelborn, an orphan employed in Mr. Mushnik’s run-down flower shop. (Of course it’s run-down. It’s in Skid Row.) His co-worker, Audrey, joins him in lamenting their lot and wondering if there is any escape to a better life. Seymour is seriously crushing on Audrey, bless his nebbish little heart. Audrey is in an abusive relationship with a frighteningly sadistic dentist. Mr. Mushnik bemoans the lack of business and wonders if it might be time to close the shop for the last time.

On the possible last day of business at Mushnik’s, Seymour comes in with a mysterious “exotic” plant. He suggests to Mushnik that if they put the plant in the front window, it might attract the customers they’ve been sadly lacking. With Audrey’s help, he convinces Mushnik to give it a try. Wondering what to call the plant, Seymour gallantly dubs it “Audrey II.”

Sadly, Audrey II weakens and appears to be dying despite Seymour’s valiant attempts to pamper and nurture. One evening, an accidental prick of Seymour’s finger gives Audrey II a taste of her favorite treat; the way to A2’s heart is blood. And chaos ensues….

Kristan Claiborne, Abby Smith, and Mel Driggers are the “Greek Chorus as Ronettes.”  They have gorgeous voices, and their tight harmonies are a counterpoint to the drab, dreary set and the drab dreary costumes and the scary underbelly of our story. “The human race suddenly encountered a deadly threat to its very existence. And this terrifying enemy surfaced, as such enemies often do, in the seemingly most innocent and unlikely of places.” 

The residents of Skid Row, Seymour, Audrey, and Mushnik are all yearning for something more, something better. Audrey “can’t” leave her abusive boyfriend because she sees him as a way out. Audrey II seemingly gives these characters the answers to their dreams. But (and there’s always a “but”) at what price? How far are our loveable ragtag residents willing to go to make their dreams come true.

Jessica Fichter’s (Trustus Theatre’s executive director — see our interview with Ms. Fichter in the spring 2023 issue of Jasper Magazine) vision of the piece makes this so much more than a musical with a puppet. The inequities of society, the substandard living conditions in which a frightening number of people live, underemployment, and the greedy, vociferous specter of insatiable capitalism are brough to life with vivid clarity. The set puts the audience square in Skid Row with its haphazard angles and dim, dingy lighting. (Warning – there is a “fog” effect from time to time. Nothing major, but if your sinuses are sensitive you might want to sit further back.) Janet Kile’s costumes are realistic and evocative, and each character is dressed perfectly. Randy Moore outdid himself (again) as Musical Director. Matthew DeGuire served as Props Master, and I do hope he had a dozen people helping him backstage. What a herculean task that had to have been. Every technical aspect of this show was without visible flaw (and I say “visible” because all manner of chaos can happen without the audience ever knowing it). Every member of the crew deserves the same kudos as the cast.

And what a brilliant cast. (I’ll attempt to mention them in order of appearance.)  As mentioned earlier, the “Ronettes” were perfection. Applause again to Kristan, Abby, and Mel. Katrina Patrice is stunning and funny and spot on in every role she takes on, and her blonde wig was just the right touch (IYKYK) Lanny Spires inhabited every one of his many roles to the point of disappearing completely. Jonathan Monk was the only person I could ever imagine playing Seymour. He was so pitiful and hopeful and … accommodating. Brittany Michelle Hammock was a most marvelous Audrey; her vocal quality matches her every mood and move. Hunter Boyle never disappoints. He always puts everything he has into every role he plays, and his Mushnik is no different. He is simply magical. Stann Gwynn is loathsome and despicable and delightful as the sadistic dentist, Orin. I have no idea how he managed to sing “Now (It’s Just the Gas)” while wearing a gas mask, choking, and dying without ever missing a note. He belongs in the same magical category as Hunter.

And then there’s Audrey II.  This ain’t no puppet, boys and girls. This is bawdy, bodacious, beautiful Terrance Henderson in all his glory. His voice, his moves, his costumes…. His Audrey II is a botanical Mae West. He is a gift.

This was the first time I’d ever seen Little Shop of Horrors. (I’m skeeved out by puppets.) I’m so glad I saw this one. I’m going back. Everyone should see this show. It’s a perfect storm of theatrical talent, with some of Columbia’s and the Southeast’s finest appearing on and behind the stage. Don’t miss it.

PREVIEW: DEATH OF A SALESMAN AT WORKSHOP THEATRE BY JON TUTTLE

The grinding wheel of American capitalism has become a Catherine Wheel: if you’re not helping to turn it, you’ll get lashed to it. This is what Miller called, in his eponymous essay, the tragedy of the common man: “the disaster inherent in being torn away from our chosen image of what and who we are in this world. Among us today this fear is strong, and perhaps stronger, than it ever was.”

The watershed moment for American drama occurred at about 10:30pm on January 22, 1949, at the Locust Street Theatre in downtown Philadelphia. It consisted of a stunned silence.  

Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman had been in rehearsals for several weeks but came to Philadelphia for a tryout before opening at the Morosco on Broadway. It would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for Best play, as well as a raft of other awards, and would be remounted on Broadway five times—including right now at the Hudson Theatre, with an all- African-American cast. There is no official count of such things, but it is surely one of the most-produced plays in history. At any rate, it ranks at or near the top of lists—such as a recent one by the Denver Post—of the most important American plays.  

But when the when the curtain came down on the first public performance of The Great American Play, there was no applause, no response at all. In his autobiography, Timebends, Miller recalls the strange moment: “Strange things began to go on in the audience. With the curtain down, some people stood to put their coats on and then sat down again; some, especially men, were bent forward, covering their faces, and others were openly weeping. People crossed the theatre to stand quietly, talking with one another. It seemed forever before someone remembered to applaud, and then there was no end to it. I was standing at the back and saw a distinguished-looking elderly man being led up the aisle; he was talking excitedly into the ear of what seemed to be his male secretary or assistant. This, I learned, was Bernard Gimbel, head of the department store chain, who that night gave an order that no one in his stores was to be fired for being overage.”

Salesman tells the story, of course, of Willy Loman, the disposable American Everyman who measures his worth only in dollars, and of his wife, Linda, whose every encouragement hastens his suicide. His sons, Biff and Hap, represent the competing halves of his personality and of the American psyche—one a rugged outdoorsman still invested in pre-Depression ideals of hard work and camaraderie, the other a wannabe cut-throat executive who equates price with value. Reunited for twenty-four hours, the Lomans can no longer live together under the same roof. By the end of the play, the family home—the artifact upon which the American mythos is based--is paid for—but empty.

We are living in the fallout from unchecked capitalism and patriarchy - burnout, classism, exploitation, income and wealth inequality, housing shortages, climate crises. We are poorer now than our parents were at our age, and without significant and sustained changes to our system, the future looks more uncertain than ever. Social media has turned many of us into salespeople, selling the version of our lives that we want others to see, angling for as many likes as we can get to increase our self-worth, believing as Willy does that it's important to be well-liked.” - Patrick Michael Kelly

“Attention, attention must be paid,” says Linda of her hapless husband, and by extension of every well-meaning, faceless citizen failing to fulfill their obligations to the economy, and that’s truer now than it was in 1949. The grinding wheel of American capitalism has become a Catherine Wheel: if you’re not helping to turn it, you’ll get lashed to it. This is what Miller called, in his eponymous essay, the tragedy of the common man: “the disaster inherent in being torn away from our chosen image of what and who we are in this world. Among us today this fear is strong, and perhaps stronger, than it ever was.” 

Patrick Michael Kelly, who is directing the Workshop Theatre production opening November 4, concurs. “Salesman speaks to many of the issues we grapple with today,” he says. “Miller sought to deflate the idea of the American Dream - that anyone could achieve anything with hard work and determination. My generation and younger generations believe less and less in that idea, and this play underscores our disillusionment. We are living in the fallout from unchecked capitalism and patriarchy - burnout, classism, exploitation, income and wealth inequality, housing shortages, climate crises. We are poorer now than our parents were at our age, and without significant and sustained changes to our system, the future looks more uncertain than ever. Social media has turned many of us into salespeople, selling the version of our lives that we want others to see, angling for as many likes as we can get to increase our self-worth, believing as Willy does that it's important to be well-liked.”  

Kelly’s production will emphasize, he says, the concept that originally informed the play—the stream of consciousness running through the mind of its protagonist. Miller composed the first act of the play in a single night in his backyard shed in Connecticut—emerging the next morning, he said, aching and exhausted. His working title was The Inside of His Head, and he imagined the setting of the play as an enormous face which would open, like French doors, to reveal the interior of the Loman household. Designer Jo Mielziner prevailed upon Miller to do away with the cranium, but the operative principle that drives the play—that Willy cannot separate his illusions and memories from his realities—remained part of its DNA. It’s that element that Kelly’s production will emphasize. 

“We are highlighting that much of the play takes place in Willy’s mind,” says Kelly, “in his memories, with moveable settings to illustrate the fleeting nature and impermanence of memory and time. Beyond a few period accents, our set largely eschews reality and instead looks to illustrate Willy’s true passion for building things and his desire to get ahead. A skeletal staircase to nowhere is the only permanent fixture - a visual metaphor for his thwarted dreams, which Biff declares in the requiem as being ‘all, all wrong.’” 

What’s different about this production, however, is that Kelly is seeking to “decolonize and deconstruct” it as much as possible. The cast is racially diverse because “we want audience members of all backgrounds to see themselves in this story,” and his set is “somewhat Brechtian” in its minimalism and desire to keep the audience asking the right questions. “Salesman is almost entirely devoid of references to race,” Kelly says, and is primarily “focused more on classism. Racism was very much alive in the ‘40s however, so it cannot be ignored, and casting this play with a diverse group of people presents new dynamics and problems that were not originally intended. At the end of the day, I wanted to work with the best actors I could find, and I believe I found them. We’ve got a stellar team.” 

Veteran Columbia professionals Paul Kaufmann and Libby Campbell as Willy and Linda head that team. “I always love working with my longtime friend and colleague Paul Kaufmann,” says Kelly. “Paul is a wonderful artist and will bring his expertise in creating a more sensitive version of Willy Loman, balancing the ferocity of his fears with his sweetness and sentimentality. This play is the third time I’ve had the pleasure of directing him. [And] Libby is Columbia theatre royalty. This is my first time working with her.” 

Kelly notes that Deon Turner (Biff) and Jon Whit McClinton (Happy) are fresh from Trustus Theatre’s True Crime Rep--Jason Stokes Composure and Charlie Finesilver’s House Calls, and that “Jonathan Yi (Bernard) was one of my students last year at the University of South Carolina, and actually played Biff in scene study in that class, so it’s a treat to work with him on this play. Ripley Thames (Charley) is an actor I’ve admired for some time, but never gotten to work with. Same goes for Emily Meadows (Woman/Letta). Caroline McGee is a 2022 UofSC theatre graduate, and Roderick Haynes, Jr. stepped in late in the process and has been a joy. Mostly, it’s just an honor to get to tell this story - it’s one of the greatest American plays for a reason, and it’s a privilege to get to work on it intensely. It’s intimidating, but I love a challenge, and I hope audiences love what we’re creating for them.” 

Likewise, he relishes the opportunity to work once again—in a new venue--with Workshop, for whom he’s performed in Some Girl(s) (2017) and The Little Foxes (2002). This production is the culmination of conversations he’d been having with Jeni McCaughan, Workshop’s executive director, about remounting American classics. “I don’t think we go back to the dramatic classics enough,” he says. “I am a champion of new work. I think fostering new voices and nurturing new plays is the most important work a theatre can undertake, but we can still learn a lot from producing the plays of Arthur Miller, Lorraine Hansberry, Tennessee Williams, and many others.”   

And he is “thrilled” about Workshop’s partnership with Columbia College. “I know it’s going to benefit both organizations in a big way - and I’m excited to direct a show in the historic Cottingham Theatre. It’s a beautiful space and an actor’s dream as far as acoustics are concerned. I’ve never directed in a true proscenium theatre that has wings and fly space before either, so it’s a real treat.” 

Workshop Theatre’s production of Death of a Salesman will run November 4 through 13 at Cottingham Theatre on the campus of Columbia College. Tickets are available here.

Concert in the Gardens, September 22nd at Seibels House & Garden

One of the few good things to come out of COVID was the collaboration between the South Carolina Philharmonic and the Historic Columbia Foundation. Unable to perform indoors at the Koger Center, the Phil teamed up with Historic Columbia to present concerts outside in such beautiful settings as The Hampton Preston gardens and the Seibels House & Gardens. My friends and I attended the “inaugural” event and haven’t missed a concert since.

Thursday’s program features a string quartet, presenting a concert of light classics.  Columbia Repertory Dance Company will also be performing. 

You can arrive at 1601 Richland St. any time after 6:00 p.m. The concert starts at 7:00.  We always bring folding chairs and/or blankets, a picnic basket chock full of goodies, and bubbles. (What’s a picnic without bubbles?). Wine is available at the event for $5/glass, and you can become a member of the Historic Columbia Foundation at a discounted rate.

Tickets are $20.00 and may be purchased online.

See you there!

- Libby Campbell

REVIEW: Hir at Trustus Theatre is an exceptional study in cultural constructs

By Cindi Boiter

Libby Campbell stars in Hir

Taylor Mac’s dark comedy Hir, playing at Trustus Theatre’s Richard and Debbie Cohn Side Door Theatre, is a play not everyone in Columbia is going to be ready for. And that’s a shame. Because mixed into the comedy and irony and more than a few truly exquisite lines of dialogue may be some answers to the questions so many of us keep raising our fists to the sky and shouting. Questions like How, as in How did our culture get into the mess we’re in? And What, as in What are we going to do fix it?

But playwright Taylor Mac, also an author, actor, singer-songwriter, director, drag artist, Pulitzer Prize finalist, MacArthur fellow, and recipient of a slew of additional accolades, knows something not all of us want to admit, and something some of us aren’t even capable of understanding – that the culture we have constructed isn’t working, it hasn’t worked for a long time, and it may have never worked very well to begin with.

We enter into the world of Hir after the protagonist Paige, played brilliantly by Libby Campbell-Turner, has already made this realization. Having bought into the American dream of a house in the suburbs, a cookie-cutter marriage, and two darling boys supposedly guaranteeing a happily-ever-after, Paige has already found the folly in her actions given that her husband has inflicted pretty much every kind of abuse at his disposal on her, one of her sons is an arrogant young transsexual, the other a washed up military man with a penchant for doing drugs in all the wrong places (you’ll get this later), and home-sweet-home is built on a landfill, complete with clandestine pipes emitting dangerous gases. But rather than fight the reality as it presents itself to her, as so many Americans are wont to do, Paige has not only accepted, but embraced her new reality and at times appears to celebrate it.  

When her oldest son Isaac, played by Tristan Pack, returns from war to find the family unit he left behind in a state of comfortable chaos, (Dad had a stroke and appears on stage at curtain wearing clown make-up and a lady’s housecoat, his sister is now his brother, and all housekeeping has been abandoned), Paige and Isaac clash over her newly open-minded life philosophy. In trying to reassert the patriarchal structure that governed the family prior to his leaving he enlists the aid of his brother Max, played by Sebastian Liafsha, who had previously rejected all gender roles prescriptions but suddenly declares himself trans-masculine. Isaac relies on the tried and true performative guideposts of masculinity—rhetoric, denigration, intimidation, confederation, and, ultimately, violence—in his attempts to restore what he considers order to the household. But in a jaw-dropping final scene Mac exposes patriarchy for the paper tiger anyone who has ever studied the social sciences knows it to be. A simple human construct and nothing more.

Directed by Lindsay Rae Taylor, a third-year MFA Directing Candidate at USC with a pedigree that belies her academic status, (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and Tisch), there is great nuance in Campbell’s treatment of Paige and it’s easy to see these two powerhouse theatrical artists working well together. Campbell brings the personal insight of having grown to maturity enduring the silliness of performative masculinity her whole damn life and applies that experience to her interpretation of Paige. While her performance teeters toward madcap at times, and the character could have been played closer to unhinged, Campbell keeps her version of Paige grounded, self-aware. In many ways Paige is a feminist prophet and Campbell plays the prophet comfortably.

Cleverly enough, it is Max’s story (previously Maxine’s) that provides the foundation on which the larger story is built. Liafsha, a student at White Knoll High School, is a charismatic young actor who plays Max as youthfully arrogant about hir enlightenment. It is from Max that Paige learns key terms that help her navigate the “paradigm shifts” of her new world. In fact, it is the adaptation of the newly created pronoun hir, a combination of him and her, which gives the play its title.

Ripley Thames convincingly plays the role of stroke victim Arnold, Paige’s husband, with generosity and humility. Costume designer Jessica Bornick effectively dresses Thames’ character in just about as unflattering a costume as any man could manage wearing and Thames does it with ease. The chaos of the setting is created by Sam Hetler who keeps the audience on edge wondering if the players might fall into the dishevelment of the set or be squashed by a falling mattress.  Patrick Michael Kelly, Tyler Omundsen, and Logan Davies provide sound, lighting, and scenic design, and Barbara Smith is the stage manager.

It should also be said that this writer had the pleasure of seeing Taylor Mac perform three years ago at Spoleto Festival in Charleston and judy’s one-person cabaret show at the Woolfe Street Theatre was profoundly transgressive then. (Mac uses the pronoun judy rather than him/her.) The fact that Mac’s Hir is playing in Columbia at all is a telling tribute to Trustus Theatre and proof, once again, that Trustus is the shiny glint on the steel blade that keeps the Columbia performing arts scene in the 21st century.

See this play and talk about it when it’s over. Let yourself question the efficacy or futility of the constructs Hir draws into question—masculinity, homemaking, institutionalized education, college, and more, but mostly patriarchy and how “the whole alphabet of gender” undermines it so damningly.

Hir runs through June 9th and tickets are available at Trustus.org

Cindi Boiter is the executive director of The Jasper Project and editor of Jasper Magazine

Civil Blood Makes Civil Hands Unclean: Jason Stokes Premiers Original Historical Screenplay, Composure - by Haley Sprankle

 

Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Columbia where we lay our scene...

The year is 1903. The Tillman family, headed by the Lieutenant Governor for the State of South Carolina, and the Gonzales family, headed by the founder of The State newspaper, are in a known feud. This ancient grudge (that began in the 1880s) broke to new mutiny as Lieutenant Governor James H. Tillman murders NG Gonzales.

That’s where local actor, filmmaker, and screenwriter Jason Stokes’ story begins.

“I first heard about this story at my ‘real’ work (Media Director for the South Carolina Bar) in 2000 during a presentation on the subject by Donnie Myers. I was fascinated by the story in part because of the sensational nature of the crime, but the more I began to research the story I realized that there was much more to it than just a murder and a murder trial,” Stokes explains.  “The Tillmans and The Gonzaleses were two powerful families in the city of Columbia who did not like each other for various reasons. This feud began in the late 1880’s and continued even after the events of January 15, 1903. During that time one side wielded power and opinion in the public press while the other side railed against the Gonzaleses and The State newspaper with every stump speech.”

This Saturday, Stokes presents an original screenplay titled Composure based on this rich piece of Columbia’s history. His cast includes such luminary local talent such as Paul Kaufmann, Eric Bultman, Stann Gwynn, Terrance Henderson, Hunter Boyle, Clint Poston, Katie Leitner, Stan Gardner, G. Scott Wild, Libby Campbell, Kevin Bush, Jonathan Jackson, Nate Herring, and Kendrick Marion.

“I’ve been very fortunate not only to have these talented actors lend their craft to this project but they are also valued friends and colleagues. I promise to anyone in attendance, if the story doesn’t impress you the talent certainly will,” Stokes says.

While Stokes is certainly no stranger to the Columbia arts community, having been seen in productions ranging from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to Rent, not many know that he is a writer.

“I began writing just after my father passed away in 1989. My mother gave me a notebook to write down memories of my father when I had them but, being an adolescent, as I started writing down a memory or story it would veer away from facts to whatever fiction my mind was dreaming up at the time. So I’ve been writing for the last 27 years (to varying degrees of success),” Stokes said.

After writing about 30 screenplays, some of which have television spec scripts pitched to shows such as The West Wing and Castle, Stokes has developed his own style and writing process.

“Each screenplay is different, but they all seem to start before I really know where they are going. For example, I’ll write a scene that I either have no idea what it’s trying to say in a grand scheme, or I don’t know where it belongs in the story I’m thinking about,” Stokes delineates. “Composure was no different. The surface story was there but to make it interesting and make it build to something that makes people think was the challenge. This being a historical piece I just kept doing more and more research to see if I could find anything new to add to the layers, which took time. I worked off-and-on on the screenplay for about three years, and it wasn’t until I decided to begin with the murder and then bounce back and forth in time during the trial, to add the ‘why’ of the murder, that made it really exciting for me to want to write it.”

Being an actor himself adds a particularly interesting dynamic to Stokes’ work and process, as well.

“As an actor, it’s always a blessing to work on a well written piece of work, Tennessee Williams, Terrance McNally, Jonathan Larson, you want to chew on it as long as you can because really good, juicy dialogue and lyrics don’t come around all the time. So when I write I like to think of the story and dialogue in the vein; Would this be something I would want to sink my teeth into as an actor and rejoice in the fact that I GET to say these lines and tell this story?” Stokes adds.

Don’t miss the two hours’ traffic of the Trustus Side Door Theatre this Saturday, January 16 for free! Doors and bar open at 6:30 with the performance beginning at 7:30.

“Opinion reporting is nothing new, as evident by this story, but with the advent of technology and polarizing news outlets only compounding the divisive nature and climate I think we find ourselves in today, this is a true story that still has relevance and meaning,” Stokes says. “No one story, one person, one political ideology can be measured strictly in absolutes. If the audience can be entertained and enlightened in some way through the events of these gentlemen, then maybe the cast and I will have offered a different perspective in which to view our own world.”