Take the Leap on 3/27

Please join me on Tuesday, 3/27/12 at 7pm at Plays & Players Theatre in Philadelphia for a reading of my unproduced play UFOs Over Brooklyn, followed by Q&A.

Turning 30 is enough to drive you crazy.

At the intersection of sex and religion a frantic hipster and his goldfish take the ultimate leap of faith.

Please join me on Tuesday, 3/27/12 at 7pm at Plays & Players Theatre in Philadelphia for a reading of my unproduced play UFOs Over Brooklyn presented by the outstanding Drexel Players, Drexel University Westphal College of Media Arts & Design‘s student-run theatre company. The reading of this work-in-progress will be followed by a brief Q&A.

The wall-to-wall Drexel cast includes Dana Marcus, James Haro, Laurel Hostak, Rose  Koven, John Turnbach and Emily Kleimo.  Go Dragons, baby.

This is my 3rd play reading in as many months, and is connected to my residency as  one of 3 current PDC@Plays&Players playwrights-in-residence.

This particular play has had so many near-misses for production in New York and so many stellar actors reading the roles in public presentations  it makes my head spin (Naked Angels tuesdays@nine, Urban Stages, The Collective, the now-defunct Lightning Strikes Theatre Company, et al) Over the past several years  it took on a life of its own as a favorite for developmental readings (aka “development hell” in theatre parlance) , and also at Amherst College where an early draft was presented while I was a Copeland Fellow there in 2001.

This marks the first time the play has been presented in Philadelphia, and I welcome your feedback.  It’s a very dark, very sexy romantic comedy about two couples and a UFO suicide cult.   See you there.

WHAT:  UFOs  Over Brooklyn

WHEN:  Tuesday 3/27/12 @7:00pm

WHERE: Plays & Players, 3rd floor Skinner Studio; 1714 Delancey Place, Philadelphia

COST:  FREE but please RSVP to Dan Student at dstudent@playsandplayers.org .

 

 


Please Silence Your Teletrofono

In connection with my being a 2011-2012 PDC@Plays & Players Playwright-in-Residence, a reading of my unproduced play FISHING WITH TONY AND JOE will be held at Plays & Players Theatre at 1714 Delancey Place (17th Street between Pine and Spruce) in Philadelphia on Tuesday, February 28th at 4pm.The play is a drama with a touch of magic realism about opera stagehand, exiled leftie and “back yard inventor”Antonio Meucci.

 

Antonio Meucci

In connection with my being a 2011-2012 PDC@Plays & Players Playwright-in-Residence, a reading of my unproduced play Fishing With Tony and Joe will be held at Plays & Players Theatre at 1714 Delancey Place (17th Street between Pine and Spruce) in Philadelphia on Tuesday, February 28th at 4pm in the 3rd floor Skinner Studio.  The event is FREE but seating is limited so please RSVP to Dan Student at dstudent@playsandplayers.org .

Meucci's teletrofono.

The play is an historical drama with a touch of magic realism about opera stagehand, exiled leftie and “back yard inventor” Antonio Meucci, an Italian immigrant who invented a working electric telephone at his Staten Island home some 20 years prior to Alexander Graham Bell.

The plot covers a year in the life of Meucci, his firebrand wife Esterre (Esther) and their house crashing friend Giuseppe Garibaldi, the famed Italian revolutionary.  A love triangle, corporate greed and the dawn of telecommunications ensue.

Garibaldi

This unproduced play was originally commissioned by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York, in 2005-06 (this same pairing by a science foundation and an Off-Broadway theatre  produced my hit play Tesla’s Letters in 1999).

The awesome cast includes Paul McElwee, Michelle Eugene, Mark Cairns, Mike Hagan and  Brendan Norton.  The reading will be directed by Josh Hitchens.

There will be a Q&A of this work-in-progress with the audience afterward and I would value your attendance and your input.  The event is FREE but seating is limited so please RSVP to Dan Student at dstudent@playsandplayers.org .

Thanks, see you there,
Jeffrey Stanley
“The history of the telephone will never be fully
written; it is partly hidden away in twenty or
thirty thousand pages of testimony and partly lying
on the hearts and consciences of a few whose lips
are sealed — some in death, and others by a golden
clasp whose grip is even tighter.”
– Elisha Gray, inventor and competitor of Alexander Graham Bell

 

 

 

 


Dang. Sadly No EVP.

Please enjoy my 2nd Rep Radio interview. This one happened on 1/7/12 at midnight on the stage of Plays & Players, and it’s the aforementioned live ouija board session in lieu of a traditional interview, in hopes that interviewer Kristen Scatton and I could contact one of Plays & Players’ 3 resident ghosts, and we did with help from my frequent Philly ghost pal Mala.  Sadly the recording contains no voices from the dead, aka, electronic voice phenomena.  Why does it always work so well on Ghost Hunters?