“Your Better Self,” July 8 through 16

Friday, July 8, through Saturday, July 16

The Mockingbird on Main, 320 North Main Street, Davenport IA

A world-premiere drama based on an influential yet rarely produced work from more than 100 years ago serves as the latest presentation at the Mockingbird on Main, with the Davenport venue, from July 8 through 16, treating audiences to the latest stage piece by frequent Quad Cities writer, actor, director, and designer Alexander Richardson: Your Better Self.

As the play opens, Zenola Goodrich has married for wealth and lives comfortably – the only thing missing in her life is love. Antoinette Caldwell, meanwhile, married for love yet lives in poverty. After a chance encounter, these two old friends catch up and realize they're each living the life the other wants. But when a photo shoot scheduled as a favor turns out to upend both of their lives, it sends Zenola and Antoinette in search of their better selves. Funny and thought-provoking, Richardson's debuting Your Better Self revitalizes an old classic and invites audiences to ask themselves: Who is the best version of you?

With his previous original scripts including Their Town and (a work in progress), both of which were staged at Moline's Playcrafters Barn Theatre, Your Better Self finds author Richardson adapting a little-known stage entertainment from more than a century ago. “I’m constantly reading older plays and novels in search of the forgotten," he states. "Many classic plays live long lives – Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, and Chekov all continue to draw artists and audience alike. But many plays, many stories, fall through the cracks of history. Alice Gerstenberg’s Overtones, originally written in 1915, is one of these stories.

“In the early 20th century," Richardson continued, "there was an explosion of theatre as regional and community theaters sprung up across America – what’s fascinating is that in a time where women still did not have the right to vote, community theaters were run largely by and for women, and Overtones is one of the relics of this movement. At a time when this was a radical concept, Gerstenberg wrote a play showing women having interior lives and thoughts. More than being a hostess, mother, or wife, women were people first.”

Richardson added, "“The way she illustrated this point was by having two sets of women on stage, portraying only two characters and while it’s now relatively common to have one actor playing multiple roles, I can’t recall any shows, other than Overtones, that required multiple actors to play one role. When I finished reading it the first time. I said, 'Where’s the rest of it? This is really fun, there should be more of it.’ And unprompted, the rest of the play came to me in the span of a weekend."

The Mockingbird's co-founder Tristan Tapscott, who is producing and designing Your Better Self alongside venue co-founder Savannah Strandin, added, "I’m always searching for things that hit me on the first read, and Alex has really knocked it out of the park with this. It’s like Inside Out meets Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? And it’s more than that, of course, but I knew I wanted to showcase this to the area right away; it’s his best work to date.”

Directing Your Better Self for the Mockingbird is Cynthia Taylor, whose previous stage offerings for the area have included Playcrafters' productions of The Boxcar Children and The Wolves. And an octet of local talents compose the show's cast: Sydney Dexter (the Mockingbird's Around the World in 80 Days) as Zenola; Jo Vasquez (the venue's "Pants" Labyrinth) as Nolie; Emmalee Hillburn (the Black Box Theatre's Assassins) as Antoinette; Shyan Devoss (Playcrafters' A Murder Is Announced) as Toni; Alisha Hanes (the Mockingbird's An Enemy of the People) as Miranda; Inna Gomez (Playcrafters' The Wolves) as Chloe; Adam Cerny (Playcrafters' Rabbit Hole) as John; and Eric Teeter (the Spotlight Theatre's Tuck Everlasting) as Charles.

Your Better Self's Davenport staging will take place from July 8 through 16, with performances on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., and admission is “Pay What You Can” at the door or via Venmo. For more information, visit TheMockingbirdOnMain.com.