Berkshire Playwrights Lab announces a staged reading workshop
GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. – Berkshire Playwrights Lab announces that its Co-Artistic Director Jim Frangione will direct a staged reading workshop production of As Is - No Warranty by Jaene Leonard on Wednesday, August 12, 2009, 8pm at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center (14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, Mass.).Admission is free. To reserve tickets, call the Berkshire Playwrights Lab office at 413.528.2544 or the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center box office at 413.528.0100.
As Is - No Warranty concerns a character named Mac, who is a used car manager at Bristol Buick. The playwright describes Mac as “a ‘car dog’ through and through, a man who always gets what he wants. Right about now, he's sittin' pretty—with a strong sales team, excellent numbers, and a real shot at getting his own dealership. He's also got Heather: a honey who sells as good as she... looks.” The play poses the question: Can Mac, who loves the thrill ride, keep it together long enough to get what's coming to him?
Jaene Leonard trained in acting at Atlantic Theater and with original Group Theater member Bobby Lewis. In addition to As Is - No Warranty, Leonard wrote Chic Band, chronicling the trials and tribulations of an all-girl band, and Burned, a trailer trash love story. The first of her Arizona Plays Trilogy, about the effects of 9/11 and the Afghanistan/Iraq Wars on a teenage boy and his family, was a semi-finalist for the ’09 O’Neill Playwrights Conference. Leonard’s screenplay Yoga Bitches is currently under consideration at several different places.
Jim Frangione just returned from the American Repertory Theater, where he directed Seriously Funny, a collection of short plays by David Mamet, Shel Silverstein, and Harold Pinter. He also recently directed Mamet's play, Romance, at the Wellfleet Harbor Actor's Theater. He has performed in the New York premiere, as well as the national tour, of several Mamet plays, including The Old Neighborhood and Oleanna, and most recently, Romance, at New York’s Atlantic Theater Company and subsequently in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum. Other acting credits include Mamet’s American Buffalo opposite Chris Noth at Berkshire Theatre Festival and numerous productions at the Atlantic, as well as appearances at Long Wharf Theatre and Merrimack Repertory Theatre. Frangione was a founder and artistic director of The Stage Company of Boston, where he directed and acted in many plays, by, among others: David Mamet, Athol Fugard, and Harold Pinter. On TV, he has appeared in episodes of Brotherhood, The Unit, Law & Order (original, SVU, & CI), New York Undercover, Another World, and All My Children. His film appearances include Transamerica, Spartan, Heist, State and Main, The Spanish Prisoner, Homicide, Suits, Claire Dolan, Maryam, Frozen Impact, Rubout, Little Kings, and The Last Days of May.
The cast for the reading of As Is - No Warranty includes Bob Jaffe, Amy Van Nostrand, and seven additional actors TBA.
