Josh Wreidt, Maesi Geigle, Olivia Hoft, and Eli Dezarn in “Fresh Brewed: Tales from the Coffee Bar" at Scott Community College -- April 21 through 24.
Thursday, April 21, through Sunday, April 24
Scott Community College Student Life Center, 500 Belmont Road, Bettendorf IA
Nearly a dozen arresting vignettes about addiction, desire, and caffeine will be staged in Scott Community College's Student Life Center during the April 24 through 24 run of Fresh Brewed: Tales from the Coffee Bar, a contemporary collection of 11 short plays that finds its student cast of nine assuming numerous roles under the direction of professor and frequent area actor Kevin Babbitt.
Boasting the talents of playwright Henry Meyerson, whose works have been staged at North Coast Repertory Theatre, New York City's Don't tell Mama, Jersey City's Victory Hall, and New York International Fringe Festival, the 11 plays presented in Fresh Brewed: Tales from the Coffee Bar include: No Prune, which asks whether two needy people can find happiness over a cherry Danish; Morning Coffee, in which a man needs to be left alone to read his newspaper and drink his daily beverage; Hierarchy, which explores what happens between friends when one guy is dating the other's wife; Betty, wherein a caffeine junkie needing a fix tells a strange tale; and Him, a work that finds two women rehearsing their break-up, even if only one of them knows it.
A half-dozen other short Meyerson works complete the Fresh Brewed experience: This Has Been Some Day, which reveals how coffee house may not be the perfect place to hold a wake; Class which demonstrates how having class depends on how far a person has to go to get it; Hopeful Alice, an exploration into how not all relationships are meant to last; George & Martha Find a Way, which suggests that while grass may be cooler than caffeine, kinky sex is really the best; Happy Birthday, which shows how sharing a weekly coffee can strain even a 20-year friendship; and I Feel Swell, with audiences invited to learn what might have fueled Ethel Merman's boundless energy.
Directing Fresh Brewed: Tales from the Coffee Bar for Scott Community College is SCC theatre instructor Kevin Babbitt, whose previous works for his department have included An Evening of Shorts by David Ives, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, and The Laramie Project, and whose on-stage area-theatre appearances include roles in the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's Outside Mullingar and The 39 Steps and the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's On Golden Pond and Tuesdays with Morrie. SCC student Nicole Stocker is the production's light and sound board operator. And performing Meyerson's 11 plays, some of them undertaking more than one role each, is a gifted ensemble of nine that boasts Eli Dezarn, Christian Gardner, Maesi Geigle, Olivia Hoft, Demario Rankin, Jonathan Shaw, Anna Walraven, Josh Wreidt, and the show's stage manager Justin Ruefer.
Fresh Brewed: Tales from the Coffee Bar will be presented in Scott Community College's Student Life Center – room 2300 through door four – from April 21 through 24, with performances on Thursday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Friday and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Admission is free, and more information is available by calling (563)441-4339 or e-mailing director Kevin Babbitt at KDBabbitt@eicc.edu.
