It’s 2012, And The Mobtown Players Are Going To Hell!

BALTIMORE, MD- In a new translation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential classic, NO EXIT, Mobtown explores the most valuable aspect of the human condition: free will. But with freedom comes great responsibility.

Garcin, Ines, and Estelle are in “Hell,” condemned to spend eternity in one room together, forced to examine the consequences of the choices they made on Earth. The manner in which they will be “tortured” soon becomes clear as truths are revealed.

The production runs January 20 through February 11, with performances Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm. Matinees are scheduled on Sundays, January 29 and February 5, at 4 pm.

After performing on the Mobtown stage many times over the past few years, Brian Kraszewski takes his first turn as director with this production of NO EXIT. He directs a cast and crew comprised of Mobtown board members and members of the Baltimore Rock Opera Society (BROS), many of whom performed various roles in the production of this play.

Michael Baker’s new translation was written expressly for the Mobtown Players. And with contributions from local designers, this production promises to bring exciting new elements to Sartre’s existential masterpiece.

Tickets are $15 (general admission) and $12 (students and seniors). Tickets may be purchased at the door or online at http://www.mobtownplayers.com. The Mobtown Theater is located in the Meadow Mill complex at 3600 Clipper Mill Road in Hampden. Directions to the theater are available on the website.

One of Baltimore’s most popular young theater groups, the Mobtown Players were founded in 1998, finding a permanent home in Hampden in 2003. The non-profit theater company is dedicated to making both classic work and contemporary plays accessible to a wide variety of audiences.

Pictures

AUDITIONS for the Mobtown Players’ production of DARWIN IN MALIBU by Crispin Whittell have been EXTENDED!
       
WHEN: MONDAY, DECEMBER 19th and TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20th from 6:30-8:30pm. Callbacks will be scheduled as needed. Auditions will consist of cold readings from the script.
WHERE:
The Mobtown Theatre at Meadow Mill
3600 Clipper Mill Road
Baltimore, MD 21210                                                                                                                                                  
PERFORMANCES: MARCH 30th-APRIL 21st, Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays (4/1 and 4/15) at 4pm.
Rehearsals will likely begin in mid/late January.
SYNOPSIS
Nearly 130 years after his death, we find Charles Darwin relaxing on the beach in Malibu, sipping fruit smoothies with a girl young enough to be his daughter. As he reads trashy novels and ponders the meaning of life, he is surprised by the sudden appearance of Thomas Huxley, the biologist considered to be the greatest advocate of Darwin’s Origin of Species. Shortly after Huxley’s arrival, Bishop Samuel Wilberforce washes ashore seeking to continue their famous 1860 debate between evolution and creationism. The argument between science and religion is cleverly transformed into this insightful comedy that asks, “Who needs evolution when you have plastic surgery?”
CHARACTERS (ages are approximate)
DARWIN, 60s
WILBERFORCE, 60s
HUXLEY, 40s
SARAH, 18-20
Please email Caitlin Bouxsein at cdbouxsein@verizon.net if you are interested in attending the scheduled auditions, or if you would like to audition and cannot attend either of the above dates. Please feel free to email if you have any other questions about the show.

AUDITIONS for the Mobtown Players’ production of DARWIN IN MALIBU by Crispin Whittell        
WHEN: SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10th from 1-3pm and MONDAY, DECEMBER 12th from 6:30-8:30pm. Callbacks will be scheduled as needed. Auditions will consist of cold readings from the script.
WHERE:
The Mobtown Theatre at Meadow Mill
3600 Clipper Mill Road
Baltimore, MD 21210                                                                                                                                                  
PERFORMANCES: MARCH 30th-APRIL 21st, Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays (4/1 and 4/15) at 4pm.
Rehearsals will likely begin in mid/late January.
SYNOPSIS
Nearly 130 years after his death, we find Charles Darwin relaxing on the beach in Malibu, sipping fruit smoothies with a girl young enough to be his daughter. As he reads trashy novels and ponders the meaning of life, he is surprised by the sudden appearance of Thomas Huxley, the biologist considered to be the greatest advocate of Darwin’s Origin of Species. Shortly after Huxley’s arrival, Bishop Samuel Wilberforce washes ashore seeking to continue their famous 1860 debate between evolution and creationism. The argument between science and religion is cleverly transformed into this insightful comedy that asks, “Who needs evolution when you have plastic surgery?”
CHARACTERS (ages are approximate)
DARWIN, 60s
WILBERFORCE, 60s
HUXLEY, 40s
SARAH, 18-20
Please email Caitlin Bouxsein at cdbouxsein@verizon.net if you are interested in attending the scheduled auditions, or if you would like to audition and cannot attend either of the above dates. Please feel free to email if you have any other questions about the show.

Mobtown Playwrights Group Announces 2011–2012 Season

BALTIMORE, MD (September 12, 2011) ­– Over six weekends last season, the Mobtown Playwrights Group staged readings of three new plays by writers from Baltimore, Frederick, and the Eastern Shore, including Jessica McHugh, whose dark comedy Fools Call It Fate received a complete production at the Mobtown Theatre this summer. We are now pleased to announce our lineup of readings for the 2011–2012 season:

• October 21–29: BRIGID OF IRELAND: A TRAGEDY, by Patricia Montley
• December 2–10: IN THE RAMBLE, by Mardee Bennett
• February 17–25: COME OUT AND SAY IT, by Erica Smith

All performances will take place at 8 P.M. at the Mobtown Theater, 3600 Clipper Mill Road, Baltimore, MD 21211. An audience “talk back” session with the playwright and cast follows each reading. Attend as many times as you can to experience how the play changes as a result of the workshop process and your feedback.

* * * * *

What is history and who gets to tell it? What is biography? How does folklore intersect

with fact? with faith? with politics? Brigid of Ireland, once the Celtic Goddess of Fire and Fertility, was co-opted by the Christian church and reduced to saint. Inspired by the mythology and folklore of this remarkable figure, BRIGID OF IRELAND: A TRAGEDY is the imaginable, though not historical, story of why a young druid abandons her heartfelt faith and reluctantly accepts Christianity.

Patricia Montley, a member of the Dramatists Guild, has had twelve plays published. Her plays have been given readings at the Kennedy Center, Baltimore’s CENTERSTAGE, and the Abingdon Theatre, and productions at the Nebraska Repertory Theatre, the Manhattan Theatre Source, the Harold Clurman Theatre, the Nat Horne Theatre, and Baltimore’s Theatre Project. Montley has taught playwriting at Chatham University, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Goucher College, and the Johns Hopkins University Odyssey Program. Her non-fiction book, In Nature’s Honor: Myths and Rituals Celebrating the Earth (Skinner House Books), includes a chapter on Brigid’s feast of Imbolc.

* * * * *

After leaving home at twenty-three, Chloe’s bond with her mother, Jessica, is stronger than it has been in years. But when she returns to the Upper East Side for a visit, Chloe makes a discovery that will re-ignite long-suppressed tension between Jessica and her sister, Miriam. IN THE RAMBLE asks powerful questions about our attraction to power and what we’re willing to do to stay in its orbit.

Mardee Bennett is a writer and an actor whose play Falling Debris was a finalist in the CENTERSTAGE Young Playwrights Festival, where it received a workshop.  Other plays include A Pleasant Place To Be and When The Baby Comes. As an actor, his regional credits include The Studio Theatre, Signature Theatre, CENTERSTAGE, Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, and Olney Theatre Center. Awards: Two Helen Hayes nominations. Education:  NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, Playwrights Horizons Theater School, and The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. He is a proud member of Actors Equity. He currently resides in Baltimore.

* * * * *

Five people. Four pros. Three murderers. Two lovers. One miscalculation. Vale’s day just got complicated. As he deals with the aftermath of a heist gone wrong, he sees his plans—and his life—fall apart before his eyes. In COME OUT AND SAY IT, forgiveness is not quite as simple as it seems.

Erica Smith has a B.A. in Theater from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her one-act plays about robots, sex, and the end of the world (though not all at the same time) have been performed at the Laurel Mill Playhouse, Greenbelt Arts Center, and the Vagabond Theater in Fells Point. Her short play “Making Your Rage Work for You” (formerly titled “Not One Single Thing”) was selected for the MCTFA competition, and from there went on to the ESTA Regional Festival in Delaware.

* * * * *

The Mobtown Playwrights Group is dedicated to giving playwrights an opportunity and a venue in which to workshop and produce new plays for an audience committed to the process of new play development. Each season, three playwrights receive staged readings of a play they are in the process of developing. Each summer, one play that has received a staged reading will be selected to receive a full production at the Mobtown Theater in Baltimore.

***THREE AUDITION DATES!!***

Want to be part of a ridiculous, hilarious comedy? Want to be cast according to your talent, and not because the character matches your age or even gender?

The Mobtown Players announce auditions for Ben Jonson’s 17th-century comedy, Epicoene: Or the Silent Woman! The show will run September 23 through October 15.
…
Auditions will be held July 6, 7, and 10 from 7:30 to 9:30.

Preparation of a 2 – 5 minute comedic monologue, classical if possible, is preferred but not necessary. Audition sides will be provided. For this play, we are looking for non-traditional casting. Gender and age is a suggestion for most roles, race is not a consideration.

To arrange an audition appointment, please email auditions@mobtownplayers.com. Walk-ins will also be accepted. Auditions will be held at:

The Mobtown Theater
3600 Clipper Mill Road
Ste 114
Baltimore, MD 21211

The Play:

Morose has decided to get married and thus cut his nephew, Dauphine, out of his will. The problem? He can stand NO NOISE and must have a demure – and quiet – bride. Trouble is, he’s having trouble finding one. So Dauphine and his friend Truewit conspire to produce the eponymous Epicoene, just such a silent woman. When the musicians, a gaggle of women, Jack Daw and La Foole (two foolish knights), Cutbeard the barber dressed as a Doctor of Canon Law, and a quarreling Mr. and Mrs. Tom Otter “crash” the nuptials, will anyone survive the wedding day? And if so, will Dauphine get the money? Championed by John Dryden as “the pattern of a perfect play,” Epicoene was penned by Ben Jonson – the second best playwright of the 17th century.

The Characters:

Morose – male, 50s, wealthy merchant, a cantankerous bastard who can stand no noise

Dauphine Eugenie – male, 20s, Morose’s nephew who stands to gain Morose’s fortune if he produces no heir

Clerimont – male (or female), 20′s – Dauphine’s friend

Truewit – male (or female), 20′s – Dauphine’s friend, a clown, a little full of himself, a bit of a libertine, ostentatious, flamboyant, but he is, truly, a wit

Tom Otter – male, 30s-40s, a henpecked husband

Mrs. Otter – female, 30s-40s, the henpecker, very worried about her place in society

Cutbeard – male (or female), 20s-30s – a barber

Sir Amorous La Foole – male, 30s, a pompous knight who supposes himself a lady’s man

Sir John Daw – male, 30s, a pompous knight who supposes himself learned – and a lady’s man

Mistress Haughty – female (or male?), 20s-30s, the leader of the collegiates, a sexpot

Mistress Centaure – female, 20s-30s, another collegiate, hopes to be Haughty

Mistress Trusty – female, 20s-30s, another collegiate, but true