ESCAPE FROM COTTAGE WOODS Debuts June 29 At Open-Door Playhouse

In the short play Escape from Cottage Woods, Macie, 94, is a longtime resident of a retirement community in a bucolic setting in North Carolina. Lily, her daughter, believes that Macie is being overmedicated into a compliant, zombified state by the establishment's staff. Macie and Lily have some unresolved mother-daughter issues.

Will Lily be able to extract her mom without attracting the attention of the staff and security personnel? Can there be an escape from Cottage Woods?

This short play is being presented by Open-Door Playhouse., a podcast created to introduce new plays, new writers, and a wealth of unknown talent. Founded by playwright and filmmaker Bernadette Armstrong, Open-Door Playhouse brings plays to the airwaves, in response to the fact that many small theatres have been shuttered all over the country due to the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving playwrights with nowhere to produce their plays. Open-Door Playhouse supports new and emerging writers. Since its inception, Open-Door Playhouse has presented 63 new short plays, with no limit in sight.

Virginia Linden is the playwright and director of Escape from Cottage Woods. She recently had two of her one-act plays produced at East Los Angeles College. She is also an actor with a career spanning four decades.

Kim Hlavac plays Lily. A graduate of SUNY Purchase, she is also a playwright and director.

Laura Gardner portrays Macie. She appeared on Broadway in Smile, and off-Broadway in Welded, The Cocktail Hour, and Other People's Money, as well as in the national companies of Doonesbury, Oliver, Showboat and My Fair Lady. Her local credits include King Charles III at Pasadena Playhouse.

Producer: Bernadette Armstrong. Associate producer: Laree Griffith. Sound engineer: David Peters.

Starting June 29, 2022, you can access the podcast of Escape from Cottage Woods at the Open-Door Playhouse website, where you can also find an archive of 64 previous podcasts, fresh new writing and skilled audio performances and directing.

There's no paywall at the Open-Door Playhouse site, so you could listen to everything for free. Open-Door Playhouse is a 501c3 non-profit organization, and if you would like to support performances of works by new and emerging playwrights, your donation will be gratefully accepted. Your tax-deductible donations help keep our plays on the Podcast Stage. We strive to bring our listeners thoughtful and surprising one-act plays and ten-minute shorts that showcase insightful and new perspectives of the world we share with others. To listen or to donate (or both), go to https://opendoorplayhouse.org

Depicted in photo: Virginia Linden.

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