Doug DeVita's PHILLIE TRILOGY Finds All-Star Company for Fresh Fruit Debut

An all-star cast chosen for Doug DeVita's Phillie Trilogy, premiering at the 2017 Fresh Fruit Festival. The festival running July 10 - 23, is celebrating 15 years this year.

"In the canon of works that include The Boys in the Band, Torch Song Trilogy, and Falsettos, DeVita's play, The Phillie Trilogy, will stand proud... and equal" writes noted former columnist and reviewer, Bob Green, about Doug DeVita's play, which receives its first full production at the Fresh Fruit Festival this summer.

Growing up gay in the "fabulous" 70s was no picnic for the precocious Phillie McDougal. Through nuns, priests, bullying classmates, parents and - years later - the realization his best friend may not be the person he thought she was - he lived to tell the tales, with results no one bargained for... including him.

This first fully-staged and designed production features in the cast: David Sabella, who created the role of Mary Sunshine in the Broadway revival of Chicago; Carole Monferdini, winner of an Obie Award for The Club, directed by Tommy Tune, stood by for Diana Rigg in The Misanthrope on Broadway, and appeared in Charles Busch's Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, off-Broadway (to name a few); with Terri Kelsey who won a Fresh Fruit Award of Distinction for her performance in Doug DeVita's play, The Fierce Urgency of NOW at last year's Fresh Fruit Festival and celebrated cabaret artist, Karen Irwin.

The youngsters of the cast are equally prominent: Bonale Fambrini, was one of the Royal Children in the recent Lincoln Center revival of The King and I; Maeve Press appeared in Before Your Very Eyes at The Public Theater in New York; and featured is film actor, Daniel G. Cunningham.

The Phillie Trilogy comes with its own accolades as well: 2016 Winner, Scrap Mettle Arts Playwrights Program Competition and inaugural presentation for The Great Griffon Series: Seeking The Queer Voice.

Once again, celebrated director Dennis Corsi will helm one of DeVita's plays. Corsi spearheaded award-winning productions of DeVita's the Fierce Urgency of NOW and Nell Dash. He was also associated with the original staged reading of Phillie for Scrap Mettle. Mr. Corsi just received a Broadway Alliance Award for his production of The Commedia Cinderella.

Festival producer, Louis Lopardi, is currently finalizing all production dates for the Fresh Fruit Festival.

Pictured: Nicole Kontelefa, Carole Monferdini, Doug DeVita, Dan Fingerman, and Dennis Corsi at the fresh Fruit Festival Awards ceremony last month. (Photo courtesy of Doug DeVita)