SILVERTHORNE THEATER COMPANY PRESENTS READING OF NORTHAMPTON PLAYWRIGHT JAMES McLINDON’S WHEN WE GET GOOD AGAIN

Greenfield, MA –  Silverthorne Theater is proud to present the 2021 iteration of our Theater Thursdays play reading series, beginning on May 13, with When We Get Good Again by Northampton playwright James McLindon, directed by Mark Dean. This free event will be available to watch starting at 7:30 p.m. on the Silverthorne Theater Company YouTube channel. Following the reading, audience members are invited to attend a live Zoom discussion with the playwright, director and cast members.

When We Get Good Again Description

“… Tracy can’t wait to graduate and leave the rich kids at her prestigious school in her rear view mirror. In fact, she’s planning on graduating in three years, and only partly because that’s all the college she can afford. But there’s one problem: Tracy needs to keep her 4.0 GPA intact to get into a top law school to have even a chance of getting one of the few public interest jobs available to represent the poor. And the only way she can get all her work done by the end of the semester while holding down two work-study jobs is to take a short vacation from her ethics and buy a term paper from Hire Education. … When We Get Good Again is a play about integrity, excuses, and doing the right thing … as soon as you can figure out exactly what that is.”

James McLindon is a member of the Nylon Fusion Theater Co. in New York. When We Get Good Again won the Playhouse on the Square’s New Works @ The Works competition and premiered there in Memphis this past January, winning an Ostrander Theatre Award for Best Original Script. His short piece Choices  was one of the top plays in Silverthorne’s Short & Sweet (tiny) New Play Festival presented online in mid-February this year. In 2020, his full-length play, Distant Music, was streamed as the third in STC’s Theater Thursdays series.

The cast of When We Get Good Again includes Jen Campbell (Holyoke), Michael Garcia (Bondsville), Kevin Tracy (Holyoke) and Alexandra O’Halloran (NYC). Director Mark Dean (Northampton) is well known in Valley theater circles with his work as actor and director at the Majestic Theater in West Springfield, New Century Theatre, and lately for Silverthorne Theater. Campbell, Garcia and Tracy were recently seen in STC’s live Zoom production of The Waiting Room.

Silverthorne’s Theater Thursdays play readings program was launched in 2019 as a series of free rehearsed readings of new (or new to us) plays, followed by audience discussions. The purpose of the readings is to give a platform for new work to be heard, and when possible, to be able to give playwrights direct audience feedback.  It also provides Silverthorne a look at plays that we might consider fully producing in future seasons. This year’s 2021 series is supported in part by a grant from the Greenfield, Bernardston, Buckland, Conway, Deerfield, Northfield, and Shelburne Cultural Councils, local agencies which are supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.

SILVERTHORNE THEATER COMPANY PRESENTS “THE WAITING ROOM”: AN INTERACTIVE ONLINE PLAY IN TWO WORLDS

Greenfield MA – Silverthorne Theater is proud to present the World Premiere of the unique, written-for-Zoom play, THE WAITING ROOM, by Steve Wangh.  During each of the six live online performances, audience members will have chances to interact with the actors. The shows are scheduled for March 26, 27, April 2, and 3 at 7:30 pm and March 28 and April 4 at 3 pm.  Tickets are available at Eventbrite.com and on the theater web page at https://silverthornetheater.org/special-events.

THE WAITING ROOM is set in two worlds. On one level, it takes place in the Bardo – a liminal reality between one life and the next, where souls gather to await their next earthly assignment. On another level, it occurs on the Zoom platform, in which actors and audience members exist in separate “rooms” but share the fiction of being together. It will be performed by a diverse cast of Western MA actors under playwright Wangh’s direction in conjunction with veteran STC director Chris Rohmann.

Silverthorne’s production of THE WAITING ROOM continues its mission of engaging with artists bringing new work to the stage. In this case, the piece is ideally suited to current performance conditions. “At the time we started work on the play, live performance venues were still shuttered,” said STC producer Lucinda Kidder. “The Waiting Room enables live audience participation in a truly unique theatrical experience from any location!” The Company has launched several successful online performances throughout 2020, and it recognizes that it may be some time before patrons will feel comfortable returning to live productions.

THE WAITING ROOM reflects contemporary society in whimsical but often unsettling ways. Characters speak as the person they were when last on earth, but they may inhabit a body differently gendered or of different ethnicity or race. They enter and exit their Zoom rooms as they are called to be born in a new body. In the course of the play, actors and audience members meet up in Breakout Rooms for conversation and questions.

In its examination of the cycle of life and death, the play proposes a different take on mortality that will spark reflection and discussion among all ages and persuasions of theater lovers. It wipes away all personal and societal divisions to affirm the very essence of what it means to be a human as each new arrival departs to be born once more with a clean slate. Such a premise prompts the most basic of existential questions- as well as humorous reactions to the mixed bag of reassignments.

Residing in Brattleboro, Steve Wangh has been a playwright, director and teacher of acting throughout his highly successful career. He was associate writer for Emmy-nominated The Laramie Project, and penned the influential acting text, An Acrobat of the Heart, detailing the training methods of Jerzy Growtowski. He maintains his connections with New York University’s Experimental Theatre Wing as professor emeritus. He is the author of fifteen plays and was dramaturg for Moisés Kaufman’s Gross Indecencies: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.

The cast includes Kyle Boatwright (Amherst), Jen Campbell (Holyoke), Mark Dean (Northampton), Michael Garcia (Bondsville) and Kevin Tracy (Holyoke). Ethelyn Friend (New York) plays the unseen Stationmaster who oversees the Bardo. The technical director is John Iverson (Bernardston), assisted by Maggie Donovan (Mt Holyoke College).

Silverthorne shifts to online format for ‘tiny’ play festival

Short & Sweet (tiny) New Play Festival

from the GREENFIELD RECORDER

https://www.recorder.com/Silverthorne-shifts-to-online-format-for–tiny–play-festival-38839241

A safe space for healing

Survivors’ Voices: Works of Resilience Written and Read by Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

from the GREENFIELD RECORDER

https://www.recorder.com/Survivors-showcase-38278080

SILVERTHORNE THEATER PRESENTS “HOLIDAY TALES FOR WINTER EVENINGS”

Greenfield, MA – Many of Silverthorne’s best-known actors have joined with STC friends and family members to record a series of evenings full of song, music and spoken word, Holiday Tales for Winter Evenings, scheduled for December 18, 19, and 20 starting at 7 pm on the Silverthorne YouTube channel.

Each evening will feature a different menu of pieces: holiday stories and songs for children; reflections on the season for adults; and traditional favorites for the whole family. The full schedule for each evening will be posted on our web site (https://silverthornetheater.org) under Special Events by December 15.

Thom Griffin serves as host for the series. Featured performers include Chris Rohmann, Stephanie Carlson, Myka Plunkett and Kyle Boatwright, Chris Devine and Rosie Caine, Rona Leventhal and Larry Picard. Also taking part are David Rowland, Penney Hulten, Kimberly Salditt-Poulin, John Reese, Heather Tower, Kackie St Clair and Lucinda Kidder. And there are guest appearances by Bryan Griffin and Nathan Carlisle.

Selections include A Child’s Christmas in Wales, The Grinch that Stole Christmas, A Visit from Saint Nicholas, Channukah in Santa Monica, The Snowy Day and many more.

The full schedule will be posted on the Silverthorne website and social media (Facebook and Instagram) by December 15. Patrons can join us for some or all of these free offerings.

Silverthorne Actors Bewitched Halloween at Highland!

Silverthorne actors took part in the Greenfield Recreation Department’s first-ever Halloween at Highland Park Drive-Thru event on Thursday, October 30. Working at the Greenfield Business Association’s station which featured Witches and Black Cats were Stephanie Carlson (at the potions table), Kimberly Salditt-Poulin being very witchy, Thom Griffin whose vampire checked with occupants of each car whether they had donated blood lately, and Kim’s son Zac who was a cheerful warlock! Lucinda Kidder stirred a cauldron full of eye-of-newt stew for take-out customers. Over 570 cars drove through the park over the two-hour period of the event and all agreed that despite the cold, it was a fantastically fun way to celebrate a COVID Halloween.

In conjunction with our mission to promote unheard voices, Silverthorne Theater Company is assisting with this important project by Time To Tell.

SURVIVORS’ VOICES:
Works of Resilience Written and Read by Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Call for Written Entries: Due by 8 p.m. November 11, 2020
Live Zoom Event: January 22, 23, 24, 2021

Submission Guidelines

Submissions due by 8:00 p.m. on November 11, 2020
Submission Form

Thank you for considering a submission to Survivors’ Voices: Works of Resilience Written and Read by Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. We already know that you are courageous and resilient—even if you decide not to submit anything!

Our Goal: Our goal is to support the creative and courageous voices of survivors while educating the community about the issue of childhood sexual abuse. Survivors will read their works of poetry, short fiction, prose or essays, in an innovative, community supported and survivor-led, weekend event.

Our Process: We know that childhood sexual abuse is universal. It cuts through all populations leaving scars in every community. In order to ensure that all Survivors’ voices are heard we will be inviting applicants to share their demographic information including race, LGBTQI, gender, age, person with a disability, and any identities that are important to the applicant.

All submissions will be curated to reflect the goals of Survivors’ Voices—giving voice to the courage and resilience of survivors of childhood sexual abuse. This will be a difficult task since every submission is an important voice to be heard! However, given our limited performance time we are not able to choose every submission. Three survivors (Jackie Humphreys, Donna Jenson and Strong Oak Lefebvre) and one ally (Lucinda Kidder) will conduct a blind review of the submissions and curate the final pieces to be read. This project is made possible by a generous grant from The Art Angels, a group of donors supporting the arts and social change in Western Massachusetts.

Find out more about the project, and/or submit your writing.

Survivors’ Voices: Works of Resilience Written and Read by Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

A live zoom event on January 22, 23, & 24, 2021

This project & performance was inspired by the courageous and eloquent, yet often silenced, voice of a Survivor poet whom Jackie is blessed to know. This project offers Survivors an opportunity to share their original writing regarding their experiences of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and their paths of healing in a creative, community supported and survivor-led, virtual, weekend event. The audience will be community and family members as well as professionals who work with CSA Survivors.

To support Survivors’ writing, Donna and Jackie will hold a series of workshops including two for teens. To learn more see below.The main event will take place over the weekend of January 22nd, 23rd, and 24th 2021, and will consist of one hour, virtual readings on each day.  After each performance there will be a facilitated dialogue between the audience and Survivors.

Each participant selected will have the option of attending a (virtual) workshop with a coach from Silverthorne Theater, to receive guidance and theatrical support for the performance of their piece/s.

Find out more about the project.