2020 Virtual Season
BLM Volume 2
Featuring 3 one-act plays that speak to the Black Lives Matter movement. Two years ago, SkyPilot Theatre Company presented a One Act Festival that featured new plays based on Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and March for Our Lives. At the time, there were too many great submissions to perform them all. Now, we have taken the opportunity to present three more of the plays we received for Black Lives Matter that we really enjoyed with the goal of highlighting artists of color and continuing the discussion.
Watch above or on our YouTube channel here
Check out SkyPilotTheatreCompany on YouTube to see our past readings.
Please also visit BlackLivesMatter.com and donate to the cause.
The plays are:
"The Ethel Party" by Lolly Ward
Directed by Marc Antonio Pritchett
Featuring Veronica Roy, Michael James Nuells, Ayla Rose Barreau, and Arden Haywood Smalls
"Way Home" by Leah Halper
Directed by June Carryl
Featuring Rosemary Thomas, Frederick Irvin, and Arden Haywood Smalls
"Road Trip" by Starina Johnson
Directed by Reena Dutt
Featuring Katie Page, Norm Johnson, and Arden Haywood Smalls
Lolly Ward's plays include 72 OBJECTS (semifinalist, O’Neill NPC), GONE (Inkwell's Lerner Fellowship; finalist, Portland Civic Theatre Guild), MATE (Eric Tucker at The Actors' Gang; CalTech), DO YOU TAKE THIS WOMAN? (Smith and Kraus, Best Ten Minute Plays 2019), BLACK PRESS IN THE WHITE HOUSE (Smith & Kraus), and THE ETHEL PARTY (Silk Road Review). She was a member of the LA-based Playwrights Union before moving to Oregon, where she joined the board of PATA and co-founded LineStorm Playwrights. She received her BA and MA from Stanford University in English and Creative Writing. Read her work on the New Play Exchange. Member: Actors' Equity, Dramatists Guild, SAG-AFTRA
Leah Halper is an award-winning California writer with historical hindsight and a quirky global perspective. Her plays have been widely produced. Her ten-minute Ready was a Heideman Award finalist, and she has been a member of PlayGround, the Bay Area’s new play incubator, a long-time Dramatist Guild member and an Arts Council Silicon Valley Playwriting Fellow. The Pear Theatre in Mountain View is her home base for exploring social justice and environmental responsibility in her work.
Starina Johnson is a multidisciplinary artist who can be seen in award-winning films such as “West Hollywood Motel” and “Casserole Club”. Theatre projects include Piñata, directed by Stan Zimmerman, and complex[ion] woman, directed by Ebony Gilbert. Starina’s play Border Towns won SLAM Boston's Diverse Voices in Theatre competition, and her short plays have been produced across the country. StarinaJohnson.com
SkyPilot TheatreCompany presents:
A Virtual Reading of Murder, She Skyped
The further adventures of
Dick Piston, Hotel Detective
in
MURDER SHE SKYPED!
a serial comedy from Jeff Goode
with gratuitous sex and violence
and a cliffhanger ending every 10 minutes.
Directed by Ian Nemser
The cast includes:
Omar Amir, Karen Brundage, Ed Dyer, Albert Garnica, Alyssa Klein, Ian Nemser, Regina Niles, Kelsey Risher, Morry Schorr, and Arden Haywood Smalls.
Jeff Goode is an award winning playwright and Emmy-nominated screenwriter, best known for the cult hit stage play "THE EIGHT: Reindeer Monologues" and as the creator of Disney's "American Dragon: Jake Long". For SkyPilot, he has written "Yes, Svetlana, There is a Grandfather Frost", "The Emancipation of Alabaster McGill" and "Christmas 2: It's a Wonderful Nativity" and contributed to SkyPilot anthology shows, such as "Rewind", "Plane Talk" and "Aesop Refabled" (to name exactly three). The 'further adventures' of Dick Piston, Hotel Detective (and erotic novelist) are a collection of murder mystery serial comedies with gratuitous sex and violence and a cliffhanger ending every 10-minutes.
SkyPilot Theatre Company presents:
A Virtual Reading of Cloud in My Coffee
Cloud In My Coffee by Robert O'Connell
Directed by John Barbarotta
The play follows the struggling love lives of Ben and Louisa and the results of Siri and Google becoming invested in their budding relationship. Even with the goal to make Ben and Louisa pursue a romantic bond, shenanigans ensue as Siri and Google as well as Ben's mother and Louisa's friend, Dexter try again and again to keep the dating duet on track. The play begs the question, "Without modern technological help or the assistance from others, will tentative individuals summon the courage to give life a try again?"
Cast
Isaiah Alexander | Ayla Rose Barreau | Aviva Brandes | Amberlee Clark
Catherine Cox | Nick Freedson | Luc Rosenthal
About the Playwright
Robert O’Connell is a career educator and the author of five books - www.flashmobthenovel.com. His novels, Flash Mob, Cruise Mob, and Campus Mob, are comedy-romance mysteries. He has also published two anthologies of essays and short plays from his blog - www.thesmartestguyiknow.wordpress.com , The Day I Dressed Better Than My Wife, and The Death of Comedy. He has three children and lives with his wife in North Carolina.