Strand Theater Continues 2nd Saturday Reading Series with One Glitz Wish

The Strand Theater Company continues its first Second Saturday Reading Series with One Glitz Wish by Maryland native Kristin Harrison. The series is FREE and open to the public. Audience members are encouraged to provide feedback to the playwright after each reading.

Welcome to the Marriott Courtyard Hotel and Conference Center in Altoona, Pennsylvania, host of the Sheesh Louise Convenience Store-sponsored One Glitz Wish Pageant! Three contestants - who are really, probably, most likely little girls - compete as finalists for the ultimate prize, the Wishing Crown. Andi is everyone’s favorite to win, but Madison and her sweet charms might take the day. They both had better watch out, though, because Destinie - a runner up two years in a row - will stop at nothing to finally get her wish and claim the Wishing Crown.

One Glitz Wish - a semi-ridiculous comedy with teeth and heart - tries on notions about the performative nature of being a ‘little girl.’ The play’s absurd humor reconsiders the hierarchies of race, gender, and species using characters based on Commedia Dell’Arte stock types. Drawing on over a decade of shared visions for the stage, Harrison and Cariaso collaborate to create a new comedic form, Popcorn Commedia. This new form begins with characters that carry within them a strongly identifiable kernel from a traditional stock commedia persona. In contrast to a traditional, ad-libbed performance, Popcorn Commedia uses a script to build transformative heat with friction from an intersection of conflicts that are at once high stakes and ridiculous. Instead of representing an immutable stock type, mask work in Popcorn Commedia serves the evolution of the characters, allowing them to bloom, evolve, and ideally inspire delight in the audience.

Featuring:
Jessica Ruth Baker, Brian Francoise , Katie Kopajtic, Sara Ross, and Jeff Tremper
Dramaturgy: C. Denby Swanson

One Glitz Wish by Kristin Harrison
In collaboration with director Tara Cariaso of Waxing Moon Production
Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 7pm | FREE

http://www.strand-theater.org/upcoming-events.html