Cole McFarren, Mark Garden, and Michael Hernandez in “12 Angry Jurors" at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre -- November 4 through 13. (photo by Jesse Mohr)
Friday, November 4, through Sunday, November 13
Playcrafters Barn Theatre, 4950 35th Avenue, Moline IL
A 1957 film classic currently ranked by Internet Movie Database voters as the fifth-greatest movie of all time, Sidney Lumet's riveting 12 Angry Men will be given a fresh spin at Moline's Playcrafters Barn Theatre from November 4 through 13, with 12 Angry Jurors delivering a gender-blended take on a work described by the New York Times as a "taut, absorbing, and compelling drama that reaches far beyond the close confines of its jury-room setting."
In author Sherman L. Sergel's stage adaptation of Reginald Rose's Oscar-nominated film script, with the setting a humid Manhattan courthouse in the summer of 1972, the trial of a 19-year-old man for the fatal stabbing of his father has just concluded. It looks like an open-and-shut case – until, that is, one of the jurors takes a look at the facts in a new way. Evidence is consequently re-examined, tempers get short, and arguments grow heated as issues become personal, with each juror inevitably revealing his or her own character. As the various testimonies are re-examined in 12 Angry Jurors, the murder is re-enacted and a new threat of violence breaks out, all in the pursuit of finding the truth and determining the right thing to do.
Directing his first production for Playcrafters is Reader employee Mike Schulz, whose other directorial credits include the Black Box Theatre's Waiting for Godot and the QC Theatre Workshop's Venus in Fur, and whose recent stage performances include playing Black Stache in the Spotlight Theatre's Peter & the Starcatcher and Mark Rothko in the Mississippi Bend Players' Red. Portraying 12 Angry Jurors' upstanding Juror Eight – a role famously enacted by Henry Fonda in 1957 and Jack Lemmon in 1997 – is 18-year-old Charles Thomas Budan, his previous 2022 credits including the Spotlight's Peter & the Starcatcher, the Black Box's My Brother's Gift, and the male title character in Genesius Guild's Romeo & Juliet.
With Noah Stivers portraying the jury-room guard, Budan's fellow jurors are played, in numerically ascending order, by Jane L. Watson, Shyan DeVoss, Mark Garden, Jackie Skiles, Cole McFarren, Michael Hernandez, Mattie Gelaude, Kendall Burnett, Jessica White, Kitty Israel, and Chris White. And with Genesius Guild's executive director Isabel Dawson serving as stage manager, additional members of the play's creative team include producer, lighting designer, and props master Alexander Richardson; costume designer Bradley Jensen; sound designer Aaron Randolph III; and poster designer Katie Newport.
12 Angry Jurors will be presented at Moline's Barn Theatre from November 4 through 13, with performances Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. Admission is $13-15, and more information and tickets are available by calling (309)762-0330 and visiting Playcrafters.com.
