Articles Tagged With: Baltimore Playwrights Festival

John Covaleskie (left) and Michael P. Sullivan (right) in The Monroe Doctrine ???? Rand Black

The Monroe Doctrine at Baltimore Theatre Project

Reviews August 18, 2024 Chris Pence

author: Chris Pence

What defines success? The American Dream? Career goals? Personal satisfaction? Baltimore playwright Mark Scharf examines these queries and more in The Monroe Doctrine, a new play making its world premiere at The Baltimore Theatre Project. The play centers around the Monroe Family, a typical American family hoping to celebrate Memorial Day 2014 with the Traditional Monroe Family Memorial Day Picnic on Hog Island, Maryland. Through family arguments and personal reflections,

What Was Done at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews July 20, 2023 Amanda N. Gunther

It’s never an easy task to tackle a difficult subject, particularly when attempting to speak about a narrative that isn’t necessarily your own. What Was Done, a world-premiere play by Jack L. B. Bohn currently being produced for the Baltimore Playwrights Festival by Miriam Bazensky and Directed by Barry Feinstein as a co-production with Spotlighters Theatre, is a play that leaves the audience with more questions and awkward comments than anything else.

Hellbent at Laurel Mill Playhouse

Reviews October 20, 2022 Mike Zellhofer

Nine. The number of positions to be fielded in baseball. Nine. The ball that kept hitting the poor mouse as we learned multiplication from School House Rock. Nine. The levels of Dante’s hell. Nine. The number of actors needed for Jeff Dunne’s Hellbent at Laurel Mill Playhouse.

The Director, and Playwright of Hellbent has really out Dunne himself. Having read several of Dunne’s plays through the Baltimore Playwrights Festival,

Captain Hook, My Story or How I Clawed My Way To The Top at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews August 16, 2022 Joshua Bermont

In the program for Captain Hook: My Story, Or How I Clawed My Way To The Top – currently playing at Spotlighters Theatre, in partnership with the Baltimore Playwrights Festival – Writer Peter Boyer tells us that he penned this script based on his curiosity and fascination with the backstory of the legendary storybook villain and his antagonistic relationship with his ever-youthful nemesis. He sifted through the tidbits of Hook’s history mentioned here and there in the source material,

Crusade at Rapid Lemon Productions

Reviews August 14, 2019 Amanda N. Gunther

Recon— they don’t speculate. They observe and report. Sort
of like theatre critics. We don’t speculate— we observe and report. Observing
now: Crusade the only full-length production of the Baltimore
Playwrights Festival in the 2019 calendar year. Crusade, written by Bruce
Bonafede, is a world premiere making its debut in association with the BPF
through Rapid Lemon Productions at the Baltimore Theatre Project. (BPF, RLP,
BTP, over and out!) Directed by Timoth David Copney,

Unlucky Soldiers at Theatrical Mining Company

Reviews September 8, 2018 Amanda N. Gunther

War does horrific things to people. A reality that our country is still struggling to come to grips with; we send young boys off to fight battles, to lose their humanity when they kill other human beings. They return home with PTSD, survivor’s guilt, strung-out and self-medicating, often taking their own lives. Robert Garcia’s Unlucky Soldiers is an semi-autobiographical experience of returning home from the Vietnam War and the war within himself that rages on long past the combat “in the Nam” has ceased.

Review: Verb (A Play on Words) at Stillpointe Theatre

Reviews August 26, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Fuck.

It’s a verb. It’s a noun. It’s an expletive. But is it offensive? And is it that the word itself is offensive or is it the context in which it is used that offends? Will Stillpointe Theatre offend anyone if they perform the area premiere of Seth Freeman’s new work Verb (A Play on Words)? Only one way to find out. Directed by Ryan Haase, this evocative play on words begs the question of where do we— as individuals,

Vivisection: A Dissection of Playwright Mark Scharf’s Brain Over Newly Adapted Work

Interviews October 17, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Everything in existence takes its color from the hue of our surroundings. When the hue of your surroundings is shrouded in mystery and tingling chills the resulting artwork can be quite chilling this time of year. Debuting as a world premiere at The Twin Beach Players, The Island of Doctor Moreau as written and adapted by Baltimore-based playwright Mark Scharf arrives just in time for the spooky shades of autumn. In a TheatreBloom exclusive interview we sit down with Mark to discuss the inner musings of his new work.

Review: Commander at Vagabond Players

Reviews July 12, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

America is a promise. A promise of hopes and dreams and live theatre at your fingertips. The Vagabond Players are all American, not only because they’re approaching their 100th anniversary season, but because they’re participating in the 2015 Baltimore Playwrights Festival with an area premier of a political zinger. And as the play says— politics is theatre, all that matters is that you say “here I am! Look at me!” Mario Correa’s Commander takes hold of the stage giving local stage manager Chelsea Dove her full-length Directorial Debut in this poignant dramedy of sexuality in politics.

Politics of the Stage: An Interview with the Cast and Director of BPF production Commander

Interviews July 8, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

“The nature of marriage is that, through its enduring bond, two persons together can find other freedoms, such as expression, intimacy, and spirituality. This is true for all persons, whatever their sexual orientation.” ~Justice Anthony Kennedy, SCOTUS ruling 6/26/15. The nation has finally legally recognized gay marriage in all fifty states, but is the country ready for its first openly gay president? In a sit-down TheatreBloom exclusive interview with the cast and creative team of Commander,

The Revelation of a Playwright: An Interview with Rich Espey

Interviews March 21, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

An inconvenient truth always beats a pretty lie in the long run. The central conceit— and cleverly coined phrase— of Baltimore playwright Rich Espey’s new work The Revelation of Bobby Pritchard. Making its world premier at Iron Crow Theatre, this engaging and compelling drama reveals a great many truths which are in need of being told. In a TheatreBloom exclusive, we sit down with the playwright to talk about the inspiration behind the story and just how it all came to fruition.

Review: Under The Poplar Trees

Reviews August 14, 2014 Amanda N. Gunther

Children are history moving forward. History is but words on a page. A brilliant and poignant message layered into the finely honed theatrical drama written by Baltimore area playwright Rosemary Frisino Toohey, Under the Poplar Trees makes its Baltimore debut as a part of the Baltimore Playwrights’ Festival 2014 at the Fells Point Corner Theatre. An intensely compelling and evocative tale of life focused through the lens of struggling to survive in Dachau— the first Nazi concentration camp— this play is a startling gem;