The Strand Hosts First Second Saturday Reading, January 14

The Strand Theater Company continues its first annual 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 the performance.

This month’s play takes place on Saturday, January 14 at 7pm.

One Glitz Wish
by Kristin Harrison
in collaboration with Director Tara Cariaso of Waxing Moon Productions

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. The winner will have her one heart’s true wish granted, and the other two will learn a valuable lesson about losing. But it won’t be easy. 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 claim the Wishing Crown, and finally get her wish.

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 now create a brand 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. But, 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 also ridiculous. Instead of representing an immutable stock type, mask work in Popcorn Commedia serves the evolution of the character, allowing him or her to bloom, evolve, and ideally inspire delight in the audience.

Featuring:
Jessica Ruth Baker, Brian Francoise, Katie Kopajtic, Sara Ross, and Jeff Tremper

About the artists:
Kristin Harrison (playwright), a native Marylander, began developing new work for the stage with Distilled Theatre, the company she founded with several key directors in Baltimore in the late 1990’s. She then trained at the University of Texas at Austin in developmental dramaturgy and new play direction, culminating with an M.A. in Performance as Public Practice. Harrison has worked closely in development settings with many playwrights including Molly Rice and C. Denby Swanson, sometimes during new work intensives like Austin Script Works’ Out of Ink Festival and the David Mark Cohen Festival for New Work, but often much, much less formally. Harrison’s own plays have been produced in Baltimore by Distilled Theatre, and The Source of Uncertainty; in Austin by Fronterafest and The Vestige Group; and in Mexico City by La Universidad Autonoma de Mexico. Also a poet and multi-genre writer, Harrison’s forthcoming collection of speculative fiction short stories ‘Domestic Terror’ will be published by Inverspace Press in spring 2012. She is an entrepreneur by day, and runs a technology research company, Manifest Labs, Inc.

Tara Cariaso (director) is a Baltimore-based theatre artist that at times wears many different hats: performer, director, designer, movement instructor, producer, singer, writer, activist. She has worked with local companies such as The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, Faction of Fools, Distilled Theatre Company, as well as companies beyond the Baltimore/Washington region, including The San Francisco Mime Troupe, The Dell’Arte Company and Sojourn Theatre Company. Tara has collaborated on more than 20 original works for the stage; she received her MFA from the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre with an emphasis on Ensemble-generated work, her BA from UMBC in performance, and a certificate from the Sartori Centro Maschere e Strutture Gestuali.

The Strand Theater's Second Saturday Reading Series is free and open to the public. No reservations required. Doors open a half hour prior to the performance.

The Strand Theater is dedicated to providing opportunities for women artists, writers, designers and directors. With a focus on producing original works, the Strand hopes to foster a love of theater for a new generation of patrons. strand-theater.org

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