Open-Door Playhouse to Present FLESH AND BLOOD in March

The one act comedy Flesh and Blood is set in a Jewish cemetery in Queens, N.Y. It is pre-dawn. Three headstones have been marked with swastikas. Shelia Krickstein appears and crosses to the desecrated grave of her mother. She's looking for the caretaker who called her with the news, but instead, encounters an older grieving woman in 50s attire and, later, a judgmental Rabbi.

Pregnant, overdue, abandoned by her husband, and scarred by her upbringing, Shelia has little patience with these unwelcome representatives of a religious culture that she believes has failed her. As tensions rise, and her long-repressed grievances emerge, Shelia suddenly finds herself in an unexpected moment of spiritual and physical salvation.

Writer/Director Dana Coen is the former director of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill's Writing for the Screen and Stage Program, a two-year, dramatic writing program. A former New York actor and stage director, he has written extensively for television, including Co-Executive Producer/Writer positions on the Fox series BONES, the CBS series JAG, where he spent eight seasons and wrote 37 episodes, and a comedy development deal for Walt Disney Studios. Screen and television writing awards include the 2021 Silver Bullet Screenwriting Award for his screenplay SLEEPING UPRIGHT, The Jewish Image Award and The Templeton Prize. As a playwright his work has been produced extensively, including an off-Broadway production of his play SYMPATHY.

Dana's cast for Flesh and Blood includes Lisa Robins, Sharron Shayne, Alex Wasserman and Anne Cooper.

Open-Door Playhouse will present this play in podcast form starting Wednesday, March 29, 2023.

Founded by playwright and filmmaker Bernadette Armstrong, Open-Door Playhouse launched in September 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, when playwrights had nowhere to produce their plays and actors were left without a creative outlet. Since its inception, Open-Door Playhouse has presented over 80 new short and one-act plays, with no limit in sight.

Plays are produced by Bernadette Armstrong, Sound Engineer is David Peters, sound effects are provided by Audio Jungle, and music from Karaoke Version. All plays are recorded at The Oak House Studio in Altadena, CA. Associate Producer, Laree Griffith, manages our website.

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