Frank Blocker's SOUTHERN GOTHIC NOVEL Plays Its Last Performance At The Stage Left Studio Theatre 6/24

Author/performer Frank Blocker's highly acclaimed and multi-nominated “Southern Gothic Novel” The Aberdeen, Mississippi Sex-Slave Incident will play its last performance at the Stage Left Studio Theatre (438 West 37th Street - between 9th & 10th Avenues) Wednesday, June 24th.

The well-received comedy, which originally opened January 21st, has since been extended three times due to extremely brisk ticket sales and unqualified critical acclaim.
 
Mr. Blocker was nominated for a Drama Desk Award in the Outstanding Solo Performance Category.
 
Directed and staged by Cheryl King, “Southern Gothic Novel: The Aberdeen, Mississippi Sex-Slave Incident” has been conceived and written by Frank Blocker who valiantly plays all of the eccentric citizenry caught up in the now infamous incident that tore through Aberdeen like a tornado on its way to Biloxi. 
 
The tour-de-force comedy also received rave reviews in its pre-Off-Broadway-try-out incarnations at several Theatre Festivals nationally.

The whole thing started when Viola Haygood, the Assistant Librarian of the Charles B. Evans Memorial Library, fell in love for the umpteenth time.  This one was new in town.  He was tall.  
He was dark.  He was handsome.  And he smelled really good.  It was the dark coincidence of his arrival that caused the locals to comment.  Someone was kidnapping Aberdeen’s young women.  
They were eating cheese nachos at Big Otis’s Saloon one night and gone the next.  Not so much as a by-your-leave.

The town was getting nervous.  They were locking the stately front doors of their antebellum homes and the aluminum screen doors of their double-wide trailers.  For the first time.  Ever.
They would have called in the FBI but they didn’t have to, as that particular organization was proud to boast a national office on Aberdeen’s Main Street that runs along the scenic banks of the Tombigbee River.   This was a town in an uproar.  Dirty deeds being done dirt cheap.  Women being snapped up and carted off to who knows where.  FBI running up and down the streets like they knew which way was up.

Reporters descending like locusts.

Aberdeen, Mississippi (the county seat of Monroe County) is a 20-minute drive north west from Caledonia on Highway 45.   Located on the banks of the Tombigbee River, it was one of the busiest Mississippi ports of the nineteenth century.  Cotton was heavily traded in town, and for a time Aberdeen was Mississippi's second largest city.  Not today.  Today the population stands at 5,218, a small group that each spring still hosts pilgrimages to its historic antebellum homes, the most prominent of these being The Magnolias, which was built in 1850.  Located just outside the city, Aberdeen Lock and Dam forms Aberdeen Lake, a popular recreational area that is part of the Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway system.
 
Mr. Blocker’s plays include Eula Mae's Beauty, Bait & Tackle, (co-authored with Chuck Richards/off-Broadway, 2001, 7-week run @ The José Quintero), award-winning solo play Southern Gothic Novel (NY Fringe Festival, Left Out Festival, Midtown Theatre Festival, Columbus, Baltimore, Atlanta), Suite Atlanta (Fn Productions/78th Street Studio Theatre), Patient Number (2007 Inner Voices Social Issues Award, University of Illinois), The Wisconsinners (Dubuque Fine Arts Center) Air Marshals, Jesus Takes Manhattan, Clarabee in Wichita Falls and the book to the musical Alice with composer William Wade.

He also co-authored Macbeth: The Murder Mystery with Lydia Bolen-Gordon and Chameleüns with Rochelle Burdine.  His one-minute play 2=1 was recently presented by Brooklyn College for their GI60 project and his 10-minute play Kiss and Fade was presented in Boston by Atlantis Playmakers.

He is an honors graduate of Cameron University and studied theatre and playwriting at Southeastern Oklahoma State University.  He is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America
and a member of Actors’ Equity Association.  Frank edited sci-fi novel The Slaves of Votarus by Murray Scott Changar.  He is also editor and curator of the Stage THIS! short play series of books
and he manages PlaywritingOpportunities.com which is visited by more than 5,000 playwrights every month.

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