Friday, February 1, and Saturday, February 2, 7:30 p.m.
QC Theatre Workshop, 1730 Wilkes Avenue, Davenport IA
After receiving dozens of national and local entries for its third-annual contest, Davenport's QC Theatre Workshop will present the winners and finalists in the company's 2019 Susan Glaspell Playwriting Festival on February 2 and 3, with readings of four 10- to 15-minute plays performed by area actors both new to the company and boasting previous Workshop credits.
Named after Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Davenport native Glaspell, whose 1921 drama Inheritors was adapted by the Workshop's Artistic Director Aaron Randolph III and staged in 2016, this year's festival boasts readings of the competition's “Local Adult Award Winner,” “National Award Winner,” and “National Award Finalists.” Written by Willow Schuchmann, “Local Adult Award” recipient The Earth Is Indeed Flat is a comedic take on shady science, Internet-conspiracy theories, and the mystery surrounding Tupac Shakur's passing, and will be performed by three Workshop veterans: Michael Byrne (Reefer Madness), Abbie Carpenter (Dead Man's Cell Phone), and Max Moline (Peter & the Starcatcher). The Stand, written by Caity-Shea Violette, received the “National Award” prize, and its dramatic exploration of impossible choices created in the wake of domestic violence is being enacted by Amelia Fischer and Jessica Taylor, the former from the Workshop's Almost, Maine, and the latter from Venus in Fur and Inheritors.
The festival's weekend readings will be rounded out by the two “National Award Finalists”: Tony Pasqualini's Life Still Is and Karly Thomas' Women of Williams County. In the futuristic tale Life Still Is, an elderly woman tries to justify her life to an enignatic government doctor, with the play performed by Workshop veteran Susan Perrin-Sallak (Tribes, True West) and company newcomer Doug Kutzli (Scrooge in Countryside Community Theatre's recent A Christmas Carol.) Women of Williams County, meanwhile, imagines a world in which playwright Tennessee Williams' most famous female characters are united – a gathering that includes Blanche DuBois, Stella Kowalski, and women from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Glass Menagerie – and featured in director Aaron Randolph's cast are Rossann Baker-Priestly, Abby Bastian, Jennifer Beall, Megan Cox, Sara Kutzli, Ellie Larson, and Jo Vasquez.
The 2018 Susan Glaspell Playwriting Festival readings on February 1 and 2 begin at 7:30 p.m., admission is “Pay What It's Worth” pricing, and more information and reservations are available by calling (563)823-8893 or visiting QCTheatreWorkshop.org.
