SATE’s Original Work ‘Confetti Kids’ Is Hard-Hitting Act of Conscience

SATE’s Original Work ‘Confetti Kids’ Is Hard-Hitting Act of Conscience

By Lynn Venhaus

Calls to action come in familiar places – neighborhoods, schools, and city halls, which we know produce results because of the recent primary election and other grassroots activism on display in St. Louis.

And who knows? Maybe even a theater. Playwrights can sound a clarion call like moms, nuclear scientists and teachers do. Produced by SATE, an original play “Confetti Kids” by Aurora Behlke kicks of their “Season of Motherhood.”

And sometimes, the lead character can be a nifty combo of all three — a mom, nuclear scientist and teacher. Such is the protagonist Dr. Rachel Graves, who is realized by Nicole Angeli, in a quietly devastating, emotionally shattering performance.

Behlke uses humor and hope to spotlight the enduring public health and environmental crisis from World War II radioactive waste contamination in Coldwater Creek and the north St. Louis County communities.

Adam Flores as Daniel and Nicole Angeli as Rachel. Photo by Joey Rumpell.

Sure, it’s from a long time ago, but the ripple effect is enormous – generations of St. Louisans and new hot spots continue to surface, therefore it is very much a contemporary issue, and it affects us all as a region.

The past is going to collide with the present, and not in a good way. The world that Rachel desperately tries to control is unraveling. She is on the front lines of the nuclear waste crisis as the community confronts this decades-old contamination near her daughter’s high school.

Behlke tells this story through relatable relationships – the single mother’s only child Maya (Tia Renee Williams), the mother’s friend Daniel (Adam Flores) and the daughter’s teacher Vera (Hailey Medrano).

While Rachel is naturally drawn to the fight for environmental justice, she wants to protect her teenage daughter, and that makes her guarded and vulnerable. Maya’s world is one of drama – friendship issues and prom preparations are priorities.

Nicole Angeli and Hailey Medrano. Photo by Joey Rumpell.

Because of those rites of passage, her mother doesn’t want to distract, so she keeps her significant medical news to herself, despite her friend , who is also a doctor, urging her to tell Maya and start treatment.

In his grounded way, Adam Flores plays the sincere caring friend. He also expresses frustration by Rachel’s stubbornness and what he perceives to be inaction and poor decisions.

A natural dynamo, Tia Williams continues to impress after her first local stage performance this spring as Juliet in A Chorus of Fools’ “Romeo and Juliet.” While she’s not exactly in the age range of high school students, she’s still a bright spot here.

While the provocative play weaves a history lesson into a lecture by Rachel, who recently lost her professor job, these are not dry textbook examples – these relate to the humans affected.

Mother and daughter. Photo by Joey Rumpell.

For the unfamiliar, starting in 1942, Mallinckrodt Chemical Works downtown St. Louis processed uranium for the first atomic bombs. That resulted in the Manhattan Project nuclear waste being uncontained in North St. Louis County.

Byproducts containing radium, thorium and uranium were moved to poorly secured sites near Lambert Airport and piled openly along Latty Avenue. Rainwater and floods washed radioactive materials into the 19-mile Coldwater Creek and the West Lake Landfill, contaminating neighboring suburban yards, parks and schools.

Residents have documented staggering clusters of rare cancers, autoimmune diseases, and birth defects. Grassroots activism, led by such groups as Just Moms STL and the North County Community Advisory Group, is pushing to expand radioactive soil testing and expedite the multi-million-dollar cleanup of Coldwater Creek.

The play’s audio includes sounds of a child playing in the creek accompanied by her mother, which would be innocuous if we didn’t know the frightening implications, and why we’re hearing it. Studies have linked those living near the creek in childhood to having significantly higher rates of various cancers.

Confetti of course. Photo by Joey Rumpell.

The very real consequences of neighbors walking, kids playing, and families spending time with each other have led to unimaginable horrors scarier than anything Stephen King has conjured up in his more than 65 novels.

One must mention Jana Elementary School in Florissant, part of the Hazelwood School District, which closed in late 2022 after independent tests found radioactive contamination there. The building is now a district logistics and storage center, and the students were shifted to other schools. This place is part of Behlke’s story.

Rachel reluctantly delivers a PTA lecture, at the urging of an overzealous teacher marvelously embodied by Hailey Medrano, which is a way to detail all the accurate historic facts.

Rachel acknowledges the conflicting safety reports between private testers and federal agencies, with the EPA on hand, too. Behlke has painstakingly researched this subject, and the result is a passion project that has legitimate staying power and perhaps can advance more discussion, more activism and more understanding.

Adam Flores, Nicole Angeli, Tia Williams and Hailey Medrano. Photo by Joey Rumpell.

The basics – that neighborhoods and schools should be a safe and healthy place to learn, work, and play – are no longer a given. And that should send a chill down your spine. That’s why Rachel wants to carry the torch for action and reform.

One of her most powerful lines: “…and I will fight. Because I guess that’s what moms do. Love so hard it becomes a fight.”

Don’t ever discount a mom. While the subject matter is serious, Behlke also included character traits to make sure community advocacy is appealing. She has engaged with small details – including an enthusiastic first-year teacher who runs on caffeine and home-baked treats – and a desire to genuinely shift the narrative.

In this 90-minute one-act show, the ensemble delivers poignant and affecting portraits of people you may interact with daily. Director Kristen Strom allows this tender tale to unfold in a realistic way, showcasing flawed characters and the performers’ instincts for nuance. Angeli and Williams are convincing as the close-knit mother and daughter, and the other relationships are earnest as well.

Grooving to Donna Summer. Photo by Joey Rumpell.

Pitch-perfect sound design by Ellie Schwetye, and video/ projection designs by Eric Satterfield add to the message’s urgency. Theresa Comstock’s lighting design and Erik Kuhn’s set design give this intimate play a cozy feel, and director Kristen Strom has adroitly staged the action for maximum effect. Kayla Lindsay’s costume designs project personality and Cecile “Cece” Entz’s prop work helps the atmosphere.

A finalist in St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s Confluence Writers Project in 2024, which spotlights Midwest stories, Behlke is an intriguing emerging voice that was mentored by three prominent local playwrights – Courtney Bailey, Taylor Gruenloh and Deanna Jent.

Communities come in all configurations, and one seems to have been born through audience engagement during “Confetti Kids.” The impactful work is not finished by any means.

(And special mention to stage manager Jim Bernatowicz and assistant stage manager Tara Laurel for managing all that confetti.)

“Confetti Kids” by Aurora Behlke is a world premiere, with performances Aug. 20–Sept. 5, Thursdays through Saturdays at 7 p.m., at The Chapel, 6238 Alexander Drive (63105). Tickets are $20 for artists, seniors, and students; $25 for general admission; and are available through Eventbrite.

Prom Night. Photo by Joey Rumpell.

SATE opens its Season of Motherhood with World Premiere of ‘Confetti Kids’  

SATE opens its Season of Motherhood with World Premiere of ‘Confetti Kids’  

Maya doesn’t have a ride to prom. Her friends have ditched her, and her mom, Dr. Rachel Graves, is too busy fighting for a community that’s been poisoned by WWII-era radioactive waste. Like most fights, the front line has formed at a St. Louis County PTA meeting.

Confetti Kids by Aurora Behlke is a world premiere, with performances Aug. 20–Sept. 5, Thursdays through Saturdays at 7 PM, at The Chapel, 6238 Alexander Drive (63105). Tickets are $20 for artists, seniors, and students; $25.00 for general admission; and are available through Eventbrite. 

Confetti Kids follows Rachel Graves, a nuclear scientist and single mother whose carefully controlled world begins to unravel as her community confronts the legacy of decades-old radioactive contamination near her daughter’s high school. As Rachel is drawn into the fight for environmental justice, she must navigate the tension between scientific objectivity and the deeply personal stakes of protecting her family.

All while life continues to revolve around the very real, very urgent matters of teenage friendships, prom preparations, and growing up. Blending humor and hope, Confetti Kids explores motherhood, friendship, inherited consequences, and the choices we make when the past presents constant obstacles. 

For generations, Coldwater Creek has been woven into the fabric of North St. Louis County. A place where families walked, children played, and neighborhoods grew. What many residents didn’t know was that the creek also carried the legacy of radioactive waste generated during uranium processing for the Manhattan Project.

As contamination spread through flooding, Coldwater Creek became the center of decades of community advocacy, scientific investigation, and ongoing environmental cleanup. Its story raises urgent questions about environmental justice, public trust, and what we owe communities living with the consequences of decisions made long ago.

The performing ensemble includes: Nicole Angeli, Adam Flores, Hailey Medrano, and Tia Williams.

Kristen Strom will direct the production. Jim Bernatowicz is the stage manager. Lighting design by Theresa Comstock, costume design by Kayla Lindsay, set design by Erik Kuhn, with sound design by Ellie Schwetye. Props by CeCe Entz, Video/Projection design by Eric Satterfield. Dramaturg was Keir Aitken. Mason Hunt serves as master electrician, and graphic design by Dottie Quick. Ellie Schwetye, Rachel Tibbetts, and Summer Baer are co-producers. 

Confetti Kids was developed through the 2024 Confluence Writers Project, the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s fellowship supporting emerging playwrights from Missouri and Illinois. Written by Aurora Behlke for the festival, the play continues the Confluence Writers Project’s mission of nurturing new voices and bringing original Midwestern stories to the stage.

This production also marks SATE’s second full production of a Confluence developed play, following its acclaimed world premiere of Courtney Bailey’s Brontë Sister House Party, another commission that went on to earn multiple St. Louis Theater Circle Awards. SATE is proud to continue to foster new and impactful work by local playwrights. 

Funding for Confetti Kids made possible by Missouri Arts Council and the Regional Arts Commission.

Prism Theatre Co. ‘Progress’ Royally Entertains with a Cozy Inside Look

Prism Theatre Co. ‘Progress’ Royally Entertains with a Cozy Inside Look

By Lynn Venhaus

With a modern sense and sensibility, local playwright John Wolbers created a warm, welcoming and wild woman’s world of the 16th century in the private chambers of Queen Elizabeth I.

In Prism Theatre Company’s world premiere of the comedy-drama “Progress,” this is an uninhibited Bess – presented informally and not on official duty, although she prepares to meet dignitaries, ambassadors and advisors.

In discussions with his life partner Liz in 2020, he discovered an aspect of Bess’s untold story he needed to tell – that she had a savvy squad of advisors uplifting her so that her regal image would be impressive and dignified every day.

With an uncanny ability to write multi-dimensional roles for women, Wolbers has peeled back the curtain, creating a chummy workplace environment that feels lived-in and nurturing. Straight talk is how conversations are played – even if it would be TMI or NSFW in today’s parlance.

Featuring an all-star cast, these six crafty servants surround the queen in her inner sanctum. They manage her daily routine – dressing her, checking personal care, taking care of correspondence, schedule, budgets, sweet snacks and liquid refreshments.

Local treasure Michelle Hand assuredly plays the swearing sweet-and-sour “Virgin Queen” whose 45-year reign from 1558 to 1603 was viewed favorably as “Progress” and called a “Golden Age” because it brought stability, a cultural Renaissance and the rise of England as a world power.

Prone to emotional outbursts, Bess flies into a rage but then switches to warm and witty. Hand conveys the royal’s intellect, charm, and energy – and dishes dirt with glee. She’s also pragmatic when dealing with world leaders, not making hasty decisions.

KODAK Digital Still Camera

The play begins on Christmas Day in 1562, in London, at the Palace of Whitehall. Sarah Lantsberger excels as an earnest and eager newcomer, Mary, who is nervously introduced to the key ladies.

These colorful characters, all properly prepped and styled by virtuoso costume designer Liz Henning, include Nicole Angeli as right-hand Blanche, a rather stern taskmaster who is also a mother hen. Rachel Tibbetts is the pregnant Dorothy who prides herself on a good job.

Carly Uding is Sidney, who has a complex relationship with her majesty because she is the sister of childhood friend and suitor Robert Dudley.

Margeau Steinau is spicy as Kat, a crusty and blunt attendant whose husband is also on staff. She knows what’s what and who’s who and freely shares locker room talk.

The women are also given other duties to carry out and keep themselves busy when they’re not fussing and fretting. The queen delivers news of an impending bubonic plague in London, and in the second act, the women are relocated to Windsor Castle in late summer 1863, to evade the spreading infection.

They’re hot, tired, cranky and restless. Tempers flare and then cool down. The plague has everyone on high alert, and they all must learn to trust – and soothe each other.

The experienced ensemble is adept at the verbal jousting the dialogue demands, and as smart, intuitive actors, they shade their characters with personality. Wolbers laid out conflicts in those challenging times, and the women rose to their best selves when they’re with each other.

In Act II, there is an amusing dream sequence where Bess is visited by past and future queens – Steinau is Queen Elizabeth II, Lantsberger is Lady Jane Grey, Uding is Queen Boudica, Tibbetts is Queen Anne and Angeli is Queen Victoria. They were all in that elite birthright club and know some things.

The final scene jumps ahead 25 years to Christmas 1589, in London’s Richmond Palace. The queen defeated the Spanish Armada a year earlier and is more comfortable ruling. Hand demonstrates Bess’s growth, for she has marched through the fire, with the help of her loyal ladies – and they’ve changed too.

Director Trish Brown has trusted these talented performers to play well with others in a sister showcase, designed by women artisans, who convinced us of the period trappings and their predicaments. Zayana Brown is the ensemble swing, if needed.

Katherine Stepanek, scenic and lighting designer, immersed us in a cozy period piece, intimately illuminated, with aid from assistant lighting director Brianna Shipley. Leo Young was the technical director, Delaney Plank production intern, and stage manager Joy Addler (and co-producer), along with assistant stage manager Avery Harrison.

Sound designer Bryn McLaughlin also composed nicely textured music, including a lively folk song that the women often broke into, and fight choreographer Riley Capp designed moves for when things weren’t so collegial. Jenni Ryan served as dramaturg and assistant director.

This community breathed life into an engaging piece of very funny, thoughtfully executed theater that showed us how strong women can be when difficulties must be overcome, a timely message no matter from what century.

Prism Theatre Company presents “Progress” July 3-5 and July 9-12 at the Kranzberg Black Box Thearre, 501 N. Grand, St. Louis, Mo. For more information, visit www.prismtheatrecompany.org

This production contains adult language and discussion of adult content.

KODAK Digital Still Camera Nicole Angeli, Sarah Lantsberger, Liz Henning, Michelle Hand, Rachel Tibbetts, Margeau Steinau, Carly Uding, and John Wolbers.

Duo’s Vigorous Work Grabs Hold in Albion’s Witty Drama ‘Lungs’

Duo’s Vigorous Work Grabs Hold in Albion’s Witty Drama ‘Lungs’

By Lynn Venhaus

With its emotionally rich storytelling, “Lungs” demands much from Joel Moses and Nicole Angeli, who fearlessly tackle those challenges in their finely chiseled performances as M and W.

As a couple linked through many years, the pair have seamlessly plumbed the depths of human nature to expose raw nerves, painful truths and tender intimacy. They start out as young lovers – enlightened, independent thinkers — figuring out their life together and separately, then acquire experiences and perspective, increasingly uncertain of tomorrow.

Because of their fluent reactions to developing relationship situations, you hang on to every twist and hairpin turn of daily living in this offbeat, unconventional drama that is laced with humor – and just may elicit a tear or two.

Under director Ellie Schwetye’s shrewd guidance, the duo has created such a level of comfort that it appears to unfold spontaneously, in real time. Their mental acuity, verbal dexterity, and agile physicality is astonishing, as is Schwetye’s modulated pacing.

Angeli and Moses are on stage the entire time, being honest and open, overthinking their lives as developing people on a planet in crisis. They reveal their flaws as they personify their genders – as they interpret the assignment. She’s more neurotic, but also empowered; he’s more even keel, but willing to adjust and can jump in, then deal with consequences. And you never doubt their sincerity.  

Duncan Macmillan’s thoroughly relatable two-hander play confronts making grown-up decisions that change your life’s trajectory — the small moments and the big milestones, the planned and the unplanned.

A recurring theme concerns current global environmental and climate changes underway. With such issues as carbon footprints, depletion of natural resources, and overpopulation being real dilemmas, M and W debate bringing children into the modern world. Is it reckless, risky or responsible – and are they ready?

The setting is various locations in the south of England, over a period of many years. Macmillan’s not so much obsessed with pollution as he is focused on communication as citizens of the world and our place in it.

The sagacious Albion Theatre is closing out its second full season with this penetrating production after entering the regional professional theater scene in 2022. Its mission is to present British playwrights (with forays into other United Kingdom territories and Ireland), mainly highlighting social, political and cultural influences.

This is their most contemporary effort to date. A Gen X’er, Macmillan was born in England.

Photo by John Lamb

Schwetye has minimally staged this 105-minute play without intermission, using Erik Kuhn’s bare set design that features two sloping slabs and a stationary middle. Her crisp sound design and Tony Anselmo’s natural lighting design keep that aesthetic, as does one casual costume design each by Tracey Newcomb. CJ Langdon did double duty as assistant director and stage manager.

The actors, both St. Louis Theater Circle Award winners, color in the rest – their ages, places and times in the ebb and flow of their lives. W is a Ph.D. grad student; M is a musician when they’re introduced in a ‘queue’ at Ikea. The team seasoned the material well, emphasizing the beats of Macmillan’s on-the-nose prose for optimum effect.

Macmillan’s 2013 play, ‘Every Brilliant Thing,” is in the same lane as “Lungs,” examining the complexities of modern living. It’s been staged several times in St. Louis, including a production Schwetye directed for New Jewish Theatre in spring 2023. The playwright is exceptionally articulate about being human, fretful and striving for goodness.

This match-up feels like five sets of championship tennis on Wimbledon’s Centre Court. Surely the intensity would exhaust both actors, but they seem invigorated. By the time Angeli and Moses bittersweetly wrap up this story, the audience has been through a tsunami of ‘feels,’ and all earned.

“Lungs” is not injected with any artificial sweeteners or saturated fat, and the play’s lean, muscular style is riveting. You may not have figured these two people out by the conclusion, but you know them, and are in awe of the actors’ ability to just ‘be,’ no pretense.

With such an articulate, sharp-witted piece, I am reminded that, for all our modern worries, above all, we get to carry each other.

Albion Theatre presents “Lungs” Oct. 18 to Nov. 3, with performances Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Kranzberg Black Box Theatre, 501 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63103. For more information, visit www.albiontheatrestl.org.

Performances Power An Intriguing Mystery-Thriller ‘Mindgame’

Performances Power An Intriguing Mystery-Thriller ‘Mindgame’

By Lynn Venhaus

“Mindgame” is one of those clever psychological thrillers that keeps you guessing through two acts, as the twists and gasps mount.

Set in an experimental maximum-security asylum for the criminally insane, a feeling of dread permeates the drab walls of Fairfields, which is located in an isolated part of the English countryside. In the director’s office, you can only imagine what horrors are on the other side of the door.

The program notes state that “nothing is what it seems.”

The 1999 play written by Anthony Horowitz is a rather verbose exercise, but the tension builds as we question who is legit and who is unhinged, and why the psychopaths who live undetected next door send chills up our spines.

It takes place in the summer at the turn of the 21st century, hence the modern references instead of the dated Agatha Christie-Arthur Conan Doyle tropes.

When Act One begins, a journalist has an appointment to see the director in hopes of gaining permission to interview a notorious serial killer named Easterman for a true-crime book. Easterman’s terrifying string of murders were grisly – and we’ll hear about them in more detail. Would you go near Hannibal Lecter or Ed Gein?

We will also hear about more cases, and while Easterman is fictional, the other stories are based on real murderers. For instance, sadist Andrei Chikatilo who is mentioned killed more than 50 women and children.

As presented by Albion Theatre, “Mindgame” is a tour de force for its two leading actors, Chuck Winning and Nick Freed, who are reminiscent of Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier going toe to toe (or head-to-head) in the brilliant 1972 film “Sleuth,” which was based on Anthony Shaffer’s Tony-winning play. (Fun fact: Both were so captivating that they were nominated for Oscars, losing to Marlon Brando for “The Godfather.”)

The third cast member, Nicole Angeli, is Nurse Paisley, and as always, she delivers a multi-layered performance in a smaller supporting, but pivotal, role.

Winning, Angeli and Freed. Photo by John Lamb

Winning, as Doctor Farquhar, and Freed, as writer Mark Styler, are on stage nearly the whole time, and work so well together that it’s like watching a 5-set tennis match at the Wimbledon finals, such are the nimble verbal volleys and quicksilver shifts of power between their characters.

Earlier this year, both actors stood out in Albion’s second play, “The Birthday Party.” As a pair of menacing villains, Winning was a revelation and Freed, who moved here from Chicago, made a stunning debut.

Winning’s Farquhar is garrulous, pompous, and brainy, displaying contempt for the patients and superiority in his psychoanalysis and therapy skills. When he pontificates about his perception of how to treat the mentally ill, Winning’s hot-air blathering teeters on that fine line between ridiculous and expertise.

Freed’s Styler is confident, cocky, and skeptical at first, then increasingly unsettled by the surroundings and peculiar behaviors. His instincts are finely tuned as his moods change.

The play is elaborate in how it threads the needle from point A to point B – and that can get a little tedious as dynamics flip. However, the actors hold our attention and bring out the best in each other as scene partners, and Robert Ashton ups the ante with his adroit direction.

In British slang, the mystery’s a corker, and Ashton, a nimble theater veteran with a flair for crisp and purposeful staging, masterfully controls the suspense.

To give more away would be to spoil the plot, and the fun part of being in the audience is the discovery. Because you know something’s not quite right, and deceit and delusions are there for the deducing.

It’s a credit to all involved that they never tip us off, stay in the moment and do not anticipate what’s ahead, making us fascinated by what’s unfolding.

The technical sight and sound work are also sharp, with Erik Kuhn the tech director and set designer, and an expert fight choreographer. Eric Wennlund’s lighting design is both functional and artful while Jacob Baxley’s sound design adds layers of fright. Stage Manager and Assistant Director Gwynneth Rausch keeps the danse macabre taut.

It’s only Albion’s fourth show, and they have impressed with their well-staged productions featuring strong performances and outstanding production values. Founded in 2022 to explore the rich history of playwrighting in Britain, with regular trips across the sea to Ireland, they not only entertainan audience, but strive to inform them of the social, political, and cultural influences of the time. So far, they are nailing every facet of the archetypes of a good drama/comedy.

One thing is always a given – that the accents will be spot-on, and the trio’s work here is superb. Albion provides a word and phrases guide for us in their programs, too.

If you like hair raised and minds bent, this is a dandy way to spend 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Chuck Winning as Dr Farquhar. Photo by John Lamb.

Albion Theatre presents “Mindgame” by Anthony Horowitz from Oct. 20 to Nov. 5 at the Kranzberg Arts Center, 501 N. Grand in Grand Center. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. For more information, visit www. albiontheatrestl.org.

Tickets On Sale for Midnight Company’s St. Louis Premiere of ‘It Is Magic’

Tickets On Sale for Midnight Company’s St. Louis Premiere of ‘It Is Magic’

Tickets are on sale for The Midnight Company’s St. Louis premiere production of Mickle Maher’s It Is Magic at MetroTix.com.  Performances, at Kranzberg’s Black Box Theatre, are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays October 21 through November 6, with all shows at 8pm.  Tickets are $15 for Thursdays and $20 for Fridays and Saturdays.  The production will be following all Kranzberg Arts Foundation safety protocols, including proof of vaccination for entry, and masks at all times.

It Is Magic is a sorrowful and hilarious meditation on the deep, ancient evil at the heart of the community theatre audition process, and an investigation into the mysteries of theatre-making itself.  Two sisters, community theatre veterans who’ve never had the chance to contribute artistically, are holding auditions for their adult version of The Three Little Pigs in the theatre basement, while the group’s pretentious artistic director is attending, then avoiding, opening night of his MacBeth on the MainStage above.  A third sister appears, and reality becomes really magical at the local playhouse.

It Is Magic premiered in Chicago in May, 2019, and Third Coast Review called it “…one of those love letters to theatre…delightfully wacky,” while New City Stage said “Any show that juggles loving critics and tearing their throats out is good in my book.”  Midnight has previously presented two Mickle Maher plays, The Hunchback Variations and An Apology For The Course And Outcome of Certain Events As Delivered By Doctor John Faustus On This His Final Evening.  

Mickle Maher plays have Off-Broadway and around the world, and have been supported by grants from the NEA, the Rockefeller MAP fund, and Creative Capital. They include There is a Happiness That Morning Is; Song About Himself; The Strangerer; Spirits to Enforce; Cyrano (translator), The Cabinet; Lady Madeline; The Pine; and An Actor Prepares (an adaptation of Stanislavsky’s seminal book). He is a cofounder of Chicago’s Theater Oobleck, and has taught playwriting and related subjects at the University of Chicago, Columbia College, and Northwestern University. He recently wrote the book and lyrics for a new musical about basketball, commissioned by the Catastrophic Theatre of Houston and Daryl Morey, the General Manager of the Houston Rockets. And he’s currently adapting the graphic novel Berlin by Jason Lutes for the Court Theatre.

Suki Peters will direct It Is Magic.  In Spring, 2022, Suki will play the bride in Cherokee Street Theatre’s adaptation of Kill Bill, and she will direct Once for R-S Theatrics.  The cast for It Is Magic includes Nicole Angeli as Sandy, desperate to get a part in a play, the part being the lead role of the Wolf in her sister’s play.  Nicole was most recently seen in Metro Theater’s It’s A Wonderful Life, in West End’s Photograph 51, and in Stray Dog’s Hedda Gabler and A Doll’s House.  Michelle Hand portrays her sister, the first-time, aspiring playwright, Deb.  This past year Michelle was in Max & Louie’s Tiny Beautiful Things and SATE’s Zoom show Tonya And The Totes In Subterrstrata.  Carl Overly Jr. is Tim in the play, another actor vying for that coveted Big Bad Wolf role.  Carl was in recent productions of St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s King Lear and COCA’s Billy Elliott, and upcoming will direct Rimers Of Eldritch at St Louis University.  Chrissie Watkins will be Elizabeth, arriving from seemingly nowhere to land smackdab in the middle of the audition process.  Chrissie was seen in Alpha Players’ The Mountaintop this summer.   And Midnight’s Artistic Director, Joe Hanrahan is in the role of Mortier Civic Playhouse Artistic Director Ken Mason, as arrogant, self-absorbed and sporadically brilliant as any Artistic Director comes.  This year Joe has acted in Midnight productions of Here Lies Henry, and in his own scripts of Now Playing Third Base For The St. Louis Cardinals Bond James Bond, My Violin My Voice at the St. Louis Fringe Festival, and Tonight’s Special at the St. Louis Theatre Showcase.  He will next be seen in his new script, Midnight’s Tinsel Town in December.

Linda Menard will be the Stage Manager for the show, Elizabeth Henning is designing costumes, Kevin Bowman is designing the set and lights, and Ted Drury will design sound.

For more information, visit MidnightCompany.com  

The Midnight Company Announces 2021 Season of 4 Plays

The Midnight Company Announces 2021 Season of 4 Plays

The Midnight Company will present four plays in 2021, including two St. Louis Premieres and one World Premiere.  The Company, which presented the only live theatre in town during the pandemic with Eric Bogosian’s SEX, DRUGS, ROCK & ROLL in November 2020, and mindful of the fears and realities of the ongoing virus war, will open the season with two one-man plays in June and July.

Midnight’s Artistic Director Joe Hanrahan said, “Last November, we worked with the State’s MissouriArtSafe program, the City of St. Louis and the Kranzberg organization to make sure all safety guidelines were in place and being followed.  We’ll be doing the same going forward, hoping that vaccine efforts will continue to positively affect quality of life, enabling us to provide  quality theatrical experiences for our audiences.”

Hanrahan also said, “If there’s a theme to this season, with theatre coming back it’s appropriate that these shows deal with the theatre and show business.  While HERE LIES HENRY focuses on the Art and Science of Lying (particularly relevant to this age of political and societal falsehoods), Marlon Brando did say ‘Acting is lying for a living.’  Our second show, NOW PLAYING THIRD BASE… specifically occurs during a young man’s introduction to live theatre, of a sort.  IT IS MAGIC, our third show, actually takes place during auditions in the basement of a theatre, and TINSEL TOWN, the season closer, tells three stories set in the Los Angeles entertainment world.”
  
The Company opens with HERE LIES HENRY by Daniel MacIvor, June 10-27 at the Kranzberg Black Box.  It will be directed by Ellie Schwetye, with Joe Hanrahan as Henry, a man in a room with a mission to tell you something you don’t already know.  He’s also a liar.  Midnight has presented two plays by MacIvor (a celebrated Canadian writer/performer) including CUL-DE-SAC, and then HOUSE at the 2015 St. Louis Fringe.  Hanrahan performed both one-man shows, and critics said “ CUL-DE-SAC takes you places you may not want to go.  But Hanrahan makes a spellbinding guide.” (Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch) and “HOUSE is a perfect combination of virtuoso acting and compelling storytelling.” (Chuck Lavazzi, KDHX.)

Tickets for HERE LIES HENRY, a St. Louis Premiere, will go on sale May 10 at MetroTix.com, and prices, performances, capacity and safety procedures will be announced at that time.


Midnight will then present the rescheduled (from 2020) NOW PLAYING THIRD BASE FOR THE ST. LOUIS CARDINALS…BOND, JAMES BOND, written and performed by Joe Hanrahan, directed by Shane Signorino, with video design by Michael B. Perkins. It will run July 8-23 at The Chapel.  First presented at the St. Louis Fringe in 2018, the script has been expanded, and Hanrahan said, “The Fringe version of this show had to come in under an hour.  This version, with additional material, should be deeper, hopefully richer.”  NOW PLAYING… is a memory show, of when a teen was introduced, in an unusual way, to live theatre, while the rest of life, including baseball, James Bond, racism, The Beatles, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and more swirled around him.  Michelle Kenyon in Snoop’s Theatre Thoughts called the play “…entertaining, educational, thought-provoking…” and also said it was “…difficult to describe, but what it is is excellent.”

In October, Hanrahan’s short play PATIENT #47 will be presented as part of True Community Theatre’s TRUTH, LIES, and CONFESSIONS October 1-3 at The Chapel.  PATIENT #47 was originally presented at the 2019 Theatre Crawl And later in the month, Midnight will begin to add additional performers to their cast lists. 

Midnight will present Mickle Maher’s IT IS MAGIC, also rescheduled from 2020, directed by Suki Peters, October 21-November 6 at the Kranzberg Black Box.  IT IS MAGIC takes place in the basement of a community theatre.  Two sisters, tireless long-term theatre volunteers but ignored in the artistic process, have finally received their chance to write and act for the group.  While opening night of the company’s Scottish Play goes on in the MainStage above them, they’re holding auditions for the role of the Big Bad Wolf for their new script, an adult version of THREE LITTLE PIGS.  But an inebriated, jaded artistic director and an unexpected, wild Third Sister intrude, delivering dire changes, dangerous chaos and, eventually, magic.  

The cast for the production includes Nicole Angeli, Michelle Hand, Joe Hanrahan, Britteny Henry and Carl Overly.  Chicago’s Third Coast Review called IT IS MAGIC “…one of those love letters to theatre…delightfully wacky,” and New City Stage in Chicago said “Any show that juggles loving critics with tearing their throats out is good in my book.”  

Midnight has previously presented Maher’s THE HUNCHBACK VARIATIONS and AN APOLOGY FOR THE COURSE OF CERTAIN EVENTS AS DELIVERED BY DOCTOR JOHN FAUSTUS ON THIS HIS FINAL EVENING (twice each), and IT IS MAGIC will be a St. Louis Premiere.
And rounding out the year (and rounding out a cycle of plays from three St. Louis theatre artists) is the World Premiere of TINSEL TOWN 3 Short Plays – 24 Hours In L.A. by Joe Hanrahan.  It will run December 2-18 at Avatar Studios, a television production studio on the edge of Downtown St. Louis, near Market and Jefferson, and will be directed by Rachel Tibbetts.   (Midnight has previously presented TITLE AND DEED and LITTLE THING BIG THING at Avatar.)

Joe Hanrahan

 In TINSEL TOWN, Ellie Schwetye and Hanrahan each play characters in the three plays set in the Los Angeles entertainment world.  In LATE LUNCH ON MELROSE, Hanrahan is a talent agent trying to convince his movie star client, Schwetye, to accept the new normal.  In JUST OFF SUNSET, Schwetye is a rock singer/songwriter who’s just finished a frustrating gig at a club, and Hanrahan is a grizzled backup musician who’s seen it all in the industry.  And in SHOOT IN SANTA MONICA, Hanrahan is a British actor brought to Hollywood for a role in a science fiction film, and Schwetye is the director trying to get her first film under her belt.

Hanrahan first worked with Tibbetts when he recruited her to direct an earlier Midnight run of SEX DRUGS ROCK & ROLL, after seeing her direction of BACHELORETTE for her home company, SATE.  Thus began an association between their two companies, with Hanrahan acting in ONE FLEA SPARE, OF MICE AND MEN, DOCTOR FAUSTUS and 2020’s APHRA BEHN FESTIVAL for SATE; and Schwetye directing JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG(with Tibbetts in the cast) and A MODEL FOR MATISSE for Midnight.

But it was during the winter of 2016/2017 that these three did two plays together that demanded a third, sometime in the future, to complete a triptych.  At that time, Hanrahan directed Schwetye and Tibbetts in the vampire drama, CUDDLES, for SATE, followed by Schwetye directing Tibbetts and Hanrahan in Midnight’s Irish thriller, LITTLE THING BIG THING.  So a third show was needed, with (as TINSEL TOWN provides) roles for Schwetye and Hanrahan, and Tibbetts directing.  And thus, the cycle will be complete, and TINSEL TOWN will bring Midnight’s 2021 season to  a close.