By Meridith Beaumont
San Miguel Playwrights forge ahead for another year with their all-new presentation of original short plays encompassing a gamut of genres. These seven works involve Crime, Terror, Romance and Poignancy and often err on the side of comedy. Thoroughly entertaining – short and incredibly sweet, they should, over the course of the evening, provide something for everyone!
Is lockdown just a bad memory or did it teach us something? As David Temple’s characters wander out onto the streets of San Miguel, in his play “Nobody Knows,” they face the reality of the pandemic. But not just the reality, one might say the hilarity, as they go to battle and assert themselves for their personal needs.
Afloat on a Bayou of Louisiana, Dante paddles a Pirogue canoe while Flo sips champagne. Objects appear: are they real or imaginary? Only Flo knows, but can she be trusted? Lia Gladstone creates an adventurous reverie in her play “Tunnel of Love” as her characters navigate through a channel of treacherous rocks, bad weather, and violence.
We all get old, don’t we? But how we deal with it can be startlingly different. As psychologist Bruce Sarbit explores in his new play “Mirror, Mirror”: it’s how you look at – then feel about yourself.
But Sam Simons doesn’t like what he’s looking at, so can his wife Dina come up with an answer?
In “Murder on the Titanic,” veteran playwright Anne Campbell takes us aboard that ill-fated ship. The outcome of that doomed voyage is common knowledge but what we don’t know about are the shipboard intrigues and scandals. An injured tennis player and a traumatized suffragette vie for our attention as a heinous crime begins to involve them both.
Coming into the second half of the program we enter the world of cat-sharing. Can Sharon Steeber’s two fictional daughters really be too impecunious to each have a cat of their own? Enter their rich mama and her new boyfriend and it’s a recipe for financial frivolity. “Will to Live” reveals how mother, of course, always knows best.
Fathers and sons: relationships that can be difficult to fathom. How far does their love stretch when the narrative is broken? In Dennis Lanson’s and David Ziff’s play “Fathers’ Day” we discover to what distance a father is prepared to travel to repair a fractured past.
When vacationing schoolteachers, Roger and Jean, check into a remote motel late one night they discover a hilarious underworld they hardly knew existed. In Marilyn Bullivant’s “Slumbertime Inn” their horizons are widened beyond their wildest dreams.
There will be four performances, Thursday through Saturday, February 9 – 11 at 7pm and a matinee on Sunday, February12 at 3pm. The Showcase is presented at the San Miguel Playhouse, Avenida Independencia 82. The Playhouse features reserved seating, supervised on-street parking and taxi concierge service.
Advanced sale tickets are available online at boletocity.com or at the door one hour before the show.
Theater
San Miguel Playwrights Winter Showcase 2023
Thu., Feb. 9; Fri., Feb. 10; Sat., Feb. 11, 7pm; Sun., Feb. 12, 3pm
San Miguel Playhouse
Avenida Independencia 82
300 and 400 pesos (reserved seating)
Advance sale at boletocity.com, or at the door one hour before the show
