In March, Sarasota, Florida's sole summers-only theater company staged a "Banyan Becoming" series of new play readings that may indeed become a regular "in season" offering. Founder and executive director Jerry Finn has announced he will present each reading in 2010 for two evenings instead of one.
Motives for starting the series of three biographical plays were to involve audiences in development of works by local playwrights while making Banyan Theater Company known to snowbirds and tourists as well as year-round Suncoast residents.
A sell-out box office before the first reading meant many mail orders had to be returned. Ticket-seekers at the Cook Theater in the FSU Center for the Performing Arts, where readings took place and Banyan performs in summer, were regretfully turned away.
E.G.O.: The Passions of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill, Jo Morello's dramatization of the interrelationships between the playwright, his wives Agnes Boulton and Carlotta Monterey, and his dramatic career, led the series on Monday, March 9, 2009. Christopher Swann essayed the title role with Agnes lookalike Leah Page and Carolyn Michel as O'Neill's wives. Gabriel V. Ortiz first read as Jamie O'Neill, Eugene's brother; later, as a reporter. Letters interspersed throughout the play are taken from actual correspondence.
Jolene Goldenthal's The Other Sonja presents an imaginary meeting between Leo Tolstoy and his much younger wife-to-be (Sonitchka, read on March 16 by Kathryn Ohrenstein), followed by scenes from their marriage and final parting. Ann Morrison assumed the role of the more mature Sonja, the writer's wife, opposite David S. Howard as Tolstoy.
Outspoken abolitionist Angelina Emily Grimke Weld is both subject and actor of Susan Jones Mannino's Angelina. The author appeared as her heroine on March 23. Her work is based on research into the work of the social and religious rebel, born in 1805 into a wealthy Charleston, South Carolina, family which owned slaves.
Manino's basic narrative, albeit in a dramatic setting, includes excerpts from an anti-slavery treatise and a speech, first by a woman to the Massachusetts Legislature.
Comments from audiences after each reading were reinforced with a survey of opinions about the plays. According to Carole Kleinberg, artistic director of the Banyan, they are meant to guide the playwrights in finalizing their scripts for production. Kleinberg directed the readings, gave stage directions at each performance, and conducted audience discussions with the playwrights and actors. There is a possibility that Banyan will further promote a full production of one of the plays presented.
Carole Kleinberg
