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#ACHEKHOVBURLESK: SCENES FROM A THEATRICAL LIFE Announces Free Pop-Up Performances
Proof of Vaccination and Masking is requested.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Aug. 26, 2021
#AChekhovBurlesk: Scenes from Theatrical Life, written and performed by John Robert Tillotson announced today a free Pop-Up reading of selections on Saturday August 28, 2021 at 4 PM at M Social Times Square, located at 226 West 52nd Street, just off Broadway on the Perch Terrace. Seating is limited, free and available 30 minutes before performance. Proof of Vaccination and Masking is requested.
Theatre Maker John Robert Tillotson is one of 3000 New York City-based artists to receive a grant from the City Artist Corps Grants program. It is presented by The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA), with support from the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) as well as Queens Theatre. The partnering venues include the Millennium Hotels (M Social, The Stewart and Millennium Times Square) as well as other sites throughout the five boroughs of New York City. #ChekhovBurlesk has been developed with the assistance of The Clark Family Fund, The PlayGround Experiment and Write Now, a branch of 29th Street Playwrights.
#AChekhovBurlesk: Scenes from Theatrical Life is a collection of monologues adapted from short plays and stories by the master Russian playwright and storyteller Anton Chekhov. The introductory play, The Harmfulness of Electronic Devices in the Theatre, observes a beleaguered stage manager, asked to give a pre-performance speech, which goes awry. Next, Weight of the World, a theater marketing director relates a single pandemic day, traveling from his suburban home into the city to accomplish a little office work, after being tasked with other people's demands. Then, in The Equivocator, an actor is caught in a compromising position when he reveals a little too much truth to an unknown audience at a theatre social function. In Confinement in Ulster County, a poor playwright makes a bet with a rich producer to remain cloistered for 15 years in exchange for two million dollars. In Last Words, an actor accidentally sneezes on a well-known casting director at a performance, and to avoid career disaster cannot apologize enough. In The Drowning Man, a performance artist pleads for audience remuneration in exchange for a showing of his latest piece. And finally, in Ghost Light, an aging actor finds himself abandoned in an empty theatre examining his career and preparing to walk into his next act.
John Robert Tillotson (Playwright/Performer) has been a theatre professional for 45-years working in major theaters throughout the United States and Canada, as well as Europe. As a playwright, Nomad Theatrical Company commissioned and presented his play from the pandemic, Mickey and Max as part of their The Park Bench Plays, as well as the Micro film, Phoebe Flips the Bird. His adaptation Independence Day: A New Play to Pay Old Debt was the recipient of the Michael Warren Powell Memorial Reading at the Dramatist Guild. His cycle of 12 short plays, Theatrikals, has received developmental workshops in NYC. His plays have been presented as part of Village Playwrights Valentine's Gay (The Contemplation of Cupid), Write Now! (Summer Play Contest) and 29th Street Playwrights Collective UN-Auguration (You Afraid). He performed his autobiographical solo piece, Residual Effects at the Hudson Guild Theatre. His most recent opus, All Men Do It: A Primer, freely adapted from Cosi Fan Tutte, awaits production(s).
As an actor he performed on Broadway in the Manhattan Theatre Club production of Enemy of the People and Off-Broadway in Strictly Dishonorable (The Attic Theater @ The Flea), La Mama, Mint Theater, Pearl Theatre, York Theatre, John Houseman's The Acting Company and The Public Theater. In Europe, he played Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Frankfurt and Vienna's English Theatres and starred in Ken Hill's operetta Phantom of the Opera in Berlin and at Paris' famed Opera-Comiqué. His US regional theatre performances include roles at The Guthrie Theater, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, McCarter Theatre, The Kennedy Center, as well as numerous other resident companies. He toured North America in The Sound of Music as Uncle Max opposite Marie Osmond, Cyrano de Bergerac opposite John Cullum and as Santa Claus in The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular starring The Rockettes. His film appearances include the award winning Anna and Die Hard with a Vengeance, and on television in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
For additional information and upcoming free public readings at various venues throughout the city visit www.facebook.com/johntillotsonplays/
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