Peninsula Players Host Free Reading of 'WHO AM I THIS TIME?'

Peninsula Players Theatre will present a reading of "Who Am I This Time? (& Other Conundrums of Love)" by Aaron Posner, adapted from stories by Kurt Vonnegut at Björklunden at 7590 Boynton Lane, Baileys Harbor at 7p.m., Monday, April 4. Posner's charming comedy explores love, pure and complicated, by weaving short stories from Vonnegut's early masterpiece "Welcome to the Monkey House." Join the Players reading of comedic love stories that explores, with warm hilarity, human foibles in a small town. Admission is free.

Posner has woven together "Go Back to Your Precious Wife and Son," "Who Am I This Time?" and "Long Walk to Forever," three short love stories Vonnegut wrote for "Ladies Home Journal" and "The Saturday Evening Post." Endearing characters wander through these delightful home-spun stories, searching for love and understanding.

"The stories you're going to hear tonight are true," states Tom Newton, the play's friendly stage manager and guide. "Now, whether any of them ever happened or not, I'll leave entirely up to you."

"Who Am I This Time?" highlights a troupe of misfit community theater actors staging "A Streetcar Named Desire" in the fictional town of North Crawford, Connecticut. Mild-mannered Harry is cast as Stanley and doesn't know what to do when his leading lady expresses an off-stage interest in him.

"Long Walk to Forever" features the love conundrum of Newt and Catharine, two best friends who grew up next door to each other while "Go Back to Your Precious Wife and Son" explores the failing marriage of a glamorous movie star and writer.

The cast includes veteran Peninsula Players stage and winter reading performers Harter Clingman ("Saloon"), Ashley Lanyon ("Lend Me a Tenor," "Nunsense"), James Leaming ("The Foreigner," "Wait Until Dark," "Bringing up Baby"), Mark Moede ("And Then There Were None," "Waiting for Tina Meyer"), Amy Ensign ("The Trip to Bountiful," "The Savannah Disputation") and Chad Luberger ("The Who & the What"). Making her Players debut is Claire Morkin.

Clingman's stage credits include "The Addams Family" with Chicago's Mercury Theater and the 1st National Tour of "Peter and the Starcatcher." Lanyon's New York credits include "South Pacific" with Westchester Broadway Theatre and "Le Cabaret Grimm" with the New York Musical Theatre Festival. Leaming's recent regional credits include performances of "This Wonderful Life," a one-man stage adaptation, at the North Coast Repertory Theatre in San Diego, California and "A Body of Water" at Kitchen Theatre in Ithaca, New York.

Ensign, Luberger, Moede and Morkin are active in the Door County theater community with such companies as Door Shakespeare, Isadoora Theatre Company, Northern Sky Theater, Third Avenue Playhouse and Theatre M. Ensign and Moede both performed in the Players reading of "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter," "The Trip to Bountiful" and "Go Back for Murder." Luberger performed earlier this winter in the Players reading of "The Who & The What." Morkin recently portrayed Clariee in "Steel Magnolias" at Third Avenue Playhouse.

Posner is a Helen Hayes and Barrymore Award-winning playwright and director whose work has been produced at major regional theaters including the Folger Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, The Alliance, The American Repertory Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, California Shakespeare Theatre and Seattle Rep. His published and produced adaptations include "The Chosen," "My Name Is Asher Lev," "Sometimes a Great Notion," "Cyrano" and "A Mystery & A Marriage" (music by James Sugg).

Posner's adaptions of Chaim Potok's "The Chosen" and "My Name Is Asher Lev" have enjoyed successful runs at more than 50 theaters across the country. "My Name Is Asher Lev" ran for 10 months off-Broadway in 2012-2013 and won the Outer Circle Critics Award for Best New off-Broadway play and the John Gassner Award. Posner was born in Madison, Wisconsin, raised in Eugene, Oregon and now lives near Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and is an Eisenhower Fellow.

Vonnegut's career spanned more than 50 years and his published works include three short story collections, five plays, 14 novels and five works of non-fiction. He is considered one of the most influential American novelists of the 20th century, known for his satirical literary style and for elements of science-fiction in his writing. His best known works include "Players Piano," "Cat's Cradle," "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Breakfast of Champions." He was also a graphic artist and illustrated a number of his publications.

Vonnegut's interest in journalism began in high school and continued through his college career in the early 1940s. The simple rules of journalism would influence his future writing: get the facts right, compose straightforward declarative sentences and know the audience.

Vonnegut entered the Army in 1943 and was sent to study engineering. Eventually, he was sent to Europe and served on the front lines where he was captured by the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge in December of 1944. He was in Dresden as a POW on February 13, 1945 when British and American incendiary bombs destroyed the city in an inferno. The uncanny fate of being housed in a former meat locker and slaughterhouse 60-feet underground warranted Vonnegut and his fellow POWs survival and was the inspiration for his best-selling novel, "Slaughterhouse-Five."

After the war Vonnegut married his high school girlfriend and worked various jobs to support his family while writing short fiction on the side. He turned his creative energy to novels when the short-story market dried up and he needed the income to support his growing family. Vonnegut was raising not only his three children, but his three nephews as well when their parents tragically died within days of each other.

With "The Sirens of Titan," "Mother Night," "Cat's Cradle," and "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" Vonnegut honed his voice and found an audience in college students. In 1969, "Slaughterhouse-Five" and its film adaption brought his black comic, counterculture style to the masses.

Vonnegut became known for his sharp wit, unique voice, artistic nonconformity and commitment to abandoning social convention in favor of common human decency. His humorous tone, pessimism and persona as a humanistic curmudgeon often led to comparisons to another great American satirist, Mark Twain.

Vonnegut was named the 1992 Humanist of the Year, was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Hugo award-winning writer. He fell on the steps of his New York brownstone and sustained head injuries which led to his death April 11, 2007.

"Who Am I This Time? (& Other Conundrums of Love)" is the final of three readings of The Play's the Thing, a winter series of play readings produced by Peninsula Players Theatre. Phone the Peninsula Players at 920-868-3287 for more information on the reading at Björklunden on Monday, April 4 at 7p.m. Admission is free; general seating available.

The Play's the Thing is funded in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin, as well as generous grants from Ministry Door County Medical Center, Friends of Door County Libraries and the Anne & Richard Egan Charitable Fund, a donor advised fund of the Door County Community Foundation.

Peninsula Players Theatre is America's Oldest Professional Resident Summer Theatre. The Play's the Thing is part of the Players' winter outreach programming, presenting professional play readings for the public. Learn more about Peninsula Players at www.peninsulaplayers.com.

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