Red Fern's Fourth Developmental Week of Plays

In Spring 2016, Red Fern hosted readings of new plays at the 14th Street Y.

ENDANGERED SPECIES
By Nilan Johnson
Directed by Nathaniel P. Claridad
Featuring Jelani Alladin*, Phillip Burke*, Cherrye Davis, Brad Fraizer*, Eulone Gooding, Nicole Kang, and Beethoven Oda
Tuesday, March 1 @ 7:30pm

Endangered Species" is described as "a hilariously scathing new play about racial identity, 'Endangered Species' explores what happens when Black culture is abandoned for the safety of the normative.  What remains when history, context, and culture disappears?"

NO HOME FOR BEES
By Emily Dendinger
Directed by Nancy Robillard+
Featuring Zoe Berger, Joey Brenneman, Jenny Vallancourt*, Craig Waletzko*, and Jacob Ware*
Wednesday, March 2 @ 7:30pm

Sixteen-year-old Suz is trying to get reacquainted with her father after he is released from a five-year prison stint. However, when she discovers why he was incarcerated, she is forced to ask herself what constitutes an unforgivable act. In an exploration of sex and deviance, No Home For Bees investigates the repercussions of the desires we struggle to control.

A workshop performance with live music to benefit the Fund for a Safer Columbia, in conjunction with Good Dog/Bad Dog Productions

SKIN
By Hope Singsen
Songs by Hope Singsen, Dillon Kondor and Bob Parins
Andrew Miramonti on guitar
Directed by Jessi D. Hill+

Thursday, March 3 @ 7:30pm
Talkback and reception to follow

Two things threaten Marais’ dissertation on Virginia Woolf: her hot new girlfriend and her own dark past. When confronted by echoes of sexual trauma in Woolf’s work, Marais races to write her own way into a happier future. She’d give body and soul to claim a love greater than any she's known before. But after you learn to guard against life, can you open again?

FIRST, DO NO HARM
By J. Thalia Cunningham, MD
Directed by Katrin Hilbe+
Featuring C. K. Allen, Mia Y. Anderson, Magaly Colimon*, Ian Gould*, Verina Kranak and Kate Siepert*
Friday, March 4 @ 7:30pm

Set in the inner realm of hospitals, FIRST, DO NO HARM tells the story of the parallel journeys of two women from very different worlds but both African American. Elissa Kerry, a surgeon with a terminally ill son, and Mattie Clester, whose grandson dies on Elissa's operating table. FIRST, DO NO HARM explores today’s ubiquitous themes of medical ethics, medical error and racial profiling. 

CHALK
By Walt McGough
Directed by Dominic D’Andrea+
Featuring Catherine Curtin* and Anna O'Donoghue*
Saturday, March 5 @ 5pm

Maggie survived the end of the world, and has enough supplies to last. But now her daughter has come home, and something’s wrong about her. The two women square off, kept apart only by their pasts and a protective chalk circle, hastily drawn on to the floor.

STRANDED ON EARTH
By Eric Coble
Directed by Dominic D’Andrea+
Featuring Tasha Lawrence*
Saturday, March 5 @ 8pm

The mysterious tale of Alexa, a brilliant artist torn between the mundane chaos and poetic heights of her job, children, husband, and parents. As she climbs out of personal tragedy, she must answer the question of all questions: Can Art save a life?

LOS SAMARITANOS
By Sandra A. Daley-Sharif
Directed by Norma Medina
Featuring Juan Luis Acevedo*, Raquel Almazan, Cynthia Bastidas*, Randy Holden*, Jose Joaquin Perez*, Mario Tineo, and John Austin Wiggins*
Sunday, March 6 @ 6pm

It`s the heat of the immigration crisis. Denver, a Mexican American man manages a gas station in an Arizona town, near the Mexico border. He dreams of changing his luck, heading out to California, and starting a new life with his pregnant wife, Rosa. As Mexicans seek the American dream on foot and bicycle, and good Samaritans risk their lives crossing illegals along the border of Sasabe, tensions rise high, questioning the high price we pay for our dream.