Introducing the Cast of Jasper's 2025 Play Right Series Winning Play - Busted Open by Ryan Stevens

Ryan Stevens - Jasper’s 2025 Play Right Series Winning Playwright & author of Busted Open

As we move toward July 20th and the first meeting of the Jasper Project’s 2025 Play Right Series Community Producers, we’re excited to announce the cast for Ryan Steven’s brand new original play, Busted Open!

Directed by Jane Turner Peterson, the cast of Busted Open includes the following —

Sunset: Ella Riley

Artemis: Kristin Cobb

Amy Bell: Maggie Baker

Jane Richmond: Allison Allgood

Painkiller: Beth DeHart

Rachel “Victory” Vance: Zanna Mills

Phil Kirkland: Clayton King

Trevor Richmond: Josh Kern

We’re still assembling our 2025 roster of Community Producers and we’d love to have you join us!

On select Sunday afternoons this summer you are invited to join with the cast, crew, and fellow Community Producers for an enlightening and entertaining session that pulls back the curtains of theatre development and illuminates how a stageplay goes from page to stage. Your first session will offer you a private viewing of the first step in a play production, the Table Reading – the first time the cast of the winning play will read their parts together.

Subsequent sessions will focus on essential ingredients in the production of a successful staged reading, such as the stage manager’s job; props, lighting, blocking, and sound; unique insights from the director; how the actors prepare for their parts; playwright perceptions from this year and past projects; and an invitation to the dress rehearsal. In addition to your invitation to gather with the cast and crew every Sunday in July, each session will also feature exciting snacks and beverages. And many more surprises each week!

Finally, you’ll take your reserved, best-in-the-house seats to a ticketed staged reading.

But there’s more.

Your name will be included as a Community Producer on programs, posters, press releases, and other promotional materials as well as in the perfect bound book published by Muddy Ford Press and registered with the Library of Congress, and you will take home your own copies as a souvenir of your experience.

What is expected of Community Producers?

We hope you can make it to every exciting Sunday afternoon meeting, but we understand if you have to miss some. Each session will last from 90 – 120 minutes.

The financial commitment for a Community Producer is a minimum of $250 per person, but other sponsorships are also available and appreciated.

Our hope is that you will be so enlightened and inspired by this experience that you will become a diplomat of live theatre, fresh playwrights, and the Jasper Project and encourage your friends and colleagues to participate in live theatre themselves!

Play Right Series 2025 Community Producer Schedule

SUNDAY, JULY 20: Introducing Ryan Stevens and Busted Open
Meet the 2025 Play Right Series Winning Playwright Ryan Stevens and witness the Inaugural Table Reading of Busted Open

SUNDAY, AUGUST 3: The Art of Stagecraft
The cast & crew of Busted Open explain the process of preparing for a role and tricks of the trade to demystify some of the magic of the theatrical arts   

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17: The Playwright's Craft
Learn about the processes of 4 award-winning playwrights including Ryan Stevens, Chad Henderson, Lonetta Thompson, and Colby Quick with your host Jon Tuttle, author of South Carolina Onstage, The Trustus Collection, and more

SUNDAY, AUGUST  31:  Sneak Peek Week!
Be a fly on the proverbial stage wall among an intimate group of guests to watch a working rehearsal of Busted Open – see how far the cast has come since the first ever Table Reading just six weeks earlier

SUNDAY: SEPT 14: The Big Event – Staged Reading of Busted Open
Take your reserved seat for the Premiere Stage Reading of Busted Open by Ryan Stevens at Columbia Music Festival Association and enjoy a post-show champagne toast to the cast, crew, and creator of Busted Open!

Purpose of the Play Right Series

Empower and enlighten audiences by allowing them insider views of the steps and processes of creating theatre art by

• Offering limited open table and stage readings of theatrical works as well as rehearsals of theatrical works to community members

• Offering Community Producer opportunities to the community members by keeping production costs low and involving community assets already in place. In exchange for an established minimal financial contribution, Community Producers are invited to attend designated open readings and rehearsals, informal presentations by cast and crew, and opening night performances with producer credits. The result: Community Producers learn about the extensive process of producing a play and become invested personally in the production and success of the play and its cast and crew, thereby becoming diplomats of theatre arts.

Increase opportunities for theatre artists to create and participate in new art without the necessity of being attached to an existing theatre organization by

• Offering a space and arts engineering for playwrights to workshop their plays and one-off theatre arts experiences and potentially have them produced

• Putting out calls for new works of theatre art from new and existing playwrights, as well as work opportunities for on-stage and backstage theatre artists.

Provide more affordable and experimental theatre arts experiences for new and emerging theatre artists and their audiences; thereby expanding cultural literacy and theatre arts appreciation in the

Chapin Theatre Company’s Stilt Girl Representing SC at Southeast Theatre Convention Competition

Chapin Theatre Company recently participated in the South Carolina Theatre Association (SCTA) Community Theatre Competition with a production of Act I of Stilt Girl, an original comedy written by Lou Clyde, CTC’s Playwright in Residence. The result? Stilt Girl was selected to represent South Carolina in the Southeast Theatre Convention (SETC) in Baltimore in March 2025!

The SCTC convention is the nation's most comprehensive theatre where theatre practitioners unite to spark creativity and collaboration. Stilt Girl will be competing with eight other community theatre productions from across the Southeast United States.

Jamie Carr Harrington will be directing Stilt Girl, and the cast includes Debra Kiser, Jane Peterson, Zanna Mills, Josh Kern, and Jacob Cordes.

There will be a send-off dress rehearsal fund raising event on March 19 at 7:30 PM at Chapin Theatre Company. Tickets for the event are $20, and include a beverage (soda, wine, or coffee) and can be purchased at Stilt Girl goes to Baltimore Tickets | Chapin Theatre Company. Limited tickets will be available at the door.

Can’t make in to the March 19th event but want to support Chapin Theatre Company as they travel to Baltimore? Donate here!

REVIEW: Stilt Girl Chapin Theatre Company

Izzy's dream is to make it in New York, but ever since an “incident" at an audition, auditions have dried up.  She eeks by on a part-time job at a cleaning company and has just discovered she’s been temporarily evicted from her roommate’s sofa. When she realizes the condo she and her bestie Jonathan (oops, “Stephon”) are cleaning, she comes up with the notion to spend the week in the condo, with the rationale that she'll deep clean the place during her stay. When Tina and Debi and their friend Therese arrive quite unexpectedly from Atlanta to celebrate their five-year survival of breast cancer, hilarity ensues, but so does a delightful evening of friendship, confession, optimism, and charm.

Zanna Mills’ Izzy is delightful to watch. Mills’ timing, and her skill at physical comedy – even when she’s stock still – is excellent. Her “floor work” is hysterical. Josh Kern is fabulous as Jonathan/Stephon. He throws himself into a belly dancing routine which had me truly laughing aloud, and that doesn’t happen too often. Debra Haines Kiser and Jane Turner Peterson play Atlanta bosom buddies Debi and Tina and it’s easy to believe these two have been friends for life. Their timing, their commitment to character, and their ability to toss off delicious throwaway lines is excellent. Jane Turner Peterson is a theatrical gem and it’s good to see her getting back onstage after a long absence. Her face is made of rubber, and she is fearless in her actions and reactions. She completely embraces her inner #ShimmyChick. She is gleeful. Jacob Cordes is Debi’s grandson, Max. His transformation from a concerned, uber-cautious grandson to someone willing to loosen up and “go with the flow” is seamless.

Jami Carr Harrington was certainly gifted with an excellent troupe of actors to bring Lou Clyde’s play to life. Working to put an original piece onstage is no easy task but these artists have succeeded in producing a delightful evening of theatre. Corey Langley’s set is exactly as a generic New York City Airbnb condo would look. The décor is perfectly bland and modern, except for one specific piece of décor which you won’t be able to miss.

There were a few times when volume was an issue. The theatre is small, and the audience seating is almost an extension of the stage so it’s easy to fall into a more conversational volume. I was seated in the middle of the house so I imagine some in the back row might have had difficulty hearing some of the dialogue. There were some scene changes when the music stopped rather abruptly when the lights came back up; a fadeout would have been more effective and less jarring. The Mancini was perfectI must confess I was pleasantly surprised. I fully expected Stilt Girl to be yet another Steel Magnolias knock-off about Southern Women of a certain age. I was dead wrong. There is nothing stereotypical about Lou Clyde’s script nor the characters these actors have so deftly brought to life. I regret that scheduling didn’t allow me to see the show earlier in its run. There are only 3 performances left, and the brevity of this piece is to allow this to be published in time for more readers to see it and made the decision to spend an evening in Chapin this weekend. The house seats 82, and there were only 5 empty chairs last night. The show lasts 2 hours, including a 15-minute intermission.

It is a drive, not gonna lie. Give yourself plenty of time to get there for the 7:30 curtain. There is a lot of construction on I-26 (quelle surprise), there are lots of orange and white barrels, and it’s dark out there! Wine is available for a donation, so do bring a little piece of money. The theatre is also taking donations for the South Carolina Oncology Association, which makes funds available to women who are unable to pay for cancer treatment.

Stilt Girl plays tonight and tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m., and on Sunday afternoon at 3:00 p.m.

REVIEW: Workshop Theatre Welcomes Audiences Back with New Work - The Campaign, written and directed by Crystal Aldamuy

In Shakespeare’s day, Elizabethans went not to see a play, but rather to ‘hear’ a play.  If the mark of a listenable story is its strength of dialogue, Crystal Aldamuy has the gift of gab. She puts words into her characters’ mouths that make us feel as though we are eavesdropping through a tenement wall. This is more than evident in her latest feat of derring do, a two-act relationship drama called The Campaign produced by Workshop Theatre. Not only does Aldamuy exhibit an acumen for how people talk, but she also proves a competent craftsperson in the construction of plot.

The Campaign tells the story of Kyle McMillian, an ambitious thirty-something who embarks on entering a local city council race, and his life with his flamboyant partner, Seth Williams. The two young men grapple with the universal vagaries of keeping their love alive while cohabitating in somewhat claustrophobic quarters. Their relationship is further challenged by Kyle’s meddling mom, Naomi, whose raison d’etre appears early on to be shopping for her son and picking out just the right sofa pillows.  

At the outset, Kyle and Seth present as a familiar trope of ‘gay odd couple.’ Kyle’s reticence is juxtaposed by Seth’s inability to keep anything to himself. When the moment arrives for Kyle to announce that he has thrown his hat in the ring to be a local politician, Seth has become disillusioned by the reality of their relationship. Seth now must compete for Kyle’s attention and must ‘campaign’ for his true loyalty. This conflict reaches a fever pitch when a man named Timothy enters the picture later in the game.   

Aldamuy’s two main characters’ wants and drives become clearer as the play progresses. Though the inclusion of Kyle’s mother, Naomi, appears first as a single-dimensional plot device, her development of personae is enriched by a touching scene wherein she connects for the first time with Seth at the kitchen table. No spoilers here, though.

Josh Kern as the earnest Kyle McMillion, son of the apparently legendary politician, Walter McMillion, is excellent. He moves throughout the play with ease, giving us a protagonist who desires far more than simply being a domestic AC repairman.

Julian Deleon sparkles with quick one-liners and hilarious mood swings. Deleon may well be the audience favorite as he maintains a type-A drama queen personality who is culinarily challenged and suffers panic attacks during failed attempts at assembling Ikea shelves.

Tiffany Dinsmore is delightful as Naomi McMillion, a mother who strives to insert herself into her son’s life and relationship with the best of intentions. Dinsmore is believable and never over-plays her hand in a role that could so easily have become a caricature.

As a playwright, Aldamuy delivers and gives us some firm bones.  

Missing, however, are clear and smooth transitions between scenes that could better convey the passage of time. These moments, when actors enter and exit depositing and retrieving props in half-light, were confusing.

Act One seemed to take a while before any significant conflict gave its characters the impetus for action. It might also have been technically stronger had Aldamuy directed Josh Kern to vocally project more as he was difficult to hear at times, keeping us on the edge of our seats for the wrong reasons. This took nothing away, however, from Kern’s powerful exchange with Deleon at the end of Act II, two scenes back-to-back that were worth the price of admission alone.

The script struggled to present a narrative that is socially relevant in 2021 with scenes about condoms and AIDS prevention (though certainly still a part of world we live in) giving us tired theatrical territory, once an important innovation in the eighties by dramatists such as Larry Kramer and William Hoffman, but by now a trope with which audiences are overly familiar.

Challenges aside, however, The Campaign is well-worth your time. Workshop Theatre has another winner here with local stalwarts Aldamuy, Kern, Deleon, and Dinsmore at the helm. Remaining performances are few. Do not miss this one!

Fri, Oct 8 8 PM, Sat, Oct 9 8 PM, Sun, Oct 10 3 PM

Tickets at Workshoptheatre.com

 

Christofer Cook is an active member of the Dramatists Guild of America. He holds an MFA, an MA, and a BA. An internationally produced and award-winning playwright, his latest work is “Amityville, 1925” which opens at Theatre Mysterium on October 21st.

REVIEW: South Carolina Shakespeare Company's The Liar

“Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies…”

-Fleetwood Mac

 Due to Hurricane Florence, The Liar will end its run tonight!

There are plenty of lies in South Carolina Shakespeare Company’s production of The Liar, previously scheduled to run through Saturday at Columbia Music Festival Association, and not all of them are sweet or little. Actually, there are some absolute whoppers thrown down in this hilarious prevarication-palooza, which playwright David Ives has skillfully translated and peppered with contemporary references, some Shakespeare here and there, and just a hint of sympathy for the eponymous character. Based on the 1644 French comedy, Le Menteur, by Pierre Corneille, the plot is a delightful confection, with a storyline straight out of an episode of Three’s Company. Misunderstandings and mistaken identities abound, lechery is played for laughs, and the bungling anti-hero grows increasingly frantic as his schemes unravel. A somewhat deus ex machina conclusion solves everything by play’s end, and The Liar becomes an honest man…perhaps.

The show opens with a hilarious introduction by Cliton, manservant to Dorante, (who is the titular liar.) As Cliton, Sam Hetler  hits the bull’s-eye with his interpretation of the servant who is much more intelligent than his master. Though this archetype is a stock character in farce, Hetler brings a freshness and sincerity to the role. His is the only character to “break the wall” and address the audience, until Dorante concludes the show with a brief address. Hetler’s opening monologue is part rap, part straight pentameter, and part free-style. Were it not for his period costume (more on that in a minute), one might mistake him for the hands-down winner of an open-mic poetry slam. With his witty delivery and slightly-put-upon demeanor, Hetler masterfully draws the audience into the tale from the very beginning.

Played by SCSC regular, Jeff Driggers, Dorante is an eager young man who abandons his study of  Law to experience all the pleasures and diversions of Paris. (In a delicious twist of irony, Dorante is practically incapable of telling the truth, while Cliton has a comparable inability to tell a lie.) As Dorante, Driggers is a veritable dervish for most of his stage time. Constantly in motion, telling one falsehood after another, with his anxiety growing with every close call, I couldn’t help thinking of The Music Man, and how Driggers is surely destined to play Professor Harold Hill someday. His energy is seemingly boundless, and his delivery and timing are outstanding. My one complaint was that occasionally he spoke so quickly in his con-man patter, I had a difficult time catching each word, but his absolute commitment to the role and slightly over-the-top physicality left no doubt as to his meaning.

Soon enough, he meets two lovely young women, Clarice (Hillary MacArthur), and her friend, Lucrece (Mary Miles). Immediately proving himself a BS artist extraordinaire, he regales the ladies with stories of his battlefield heroism against the German Army. He immediately falls for Clarice, only to misunderstand when Lucrece’s maid, Isabelle, (Brittany Hammock, who turns in a delightful double role) describes her mistress as “the most beautiful one,” and sets his cap to win his inamorata, whom he now thinks is named Lucrece. The three female actors have no difficulty in keeping up with their male castmates, delivering unique, individual, characters who manage to create a cohesive trio (quartet?) without sacrificing or diluting any of their differences. Miles’ Lucrece is appropriately befuddled, without ever resorting to caricature, and uses her facial expressions to communicate just as clearly as her voice. As always, her time onstage is professional and artfully crafted. (After the show, I commented to Miles that if ever I open a playbill and see her name, I know to expect a high-quality performance, and The Liar was no exception.) As Clarice, MacArthur demonstrates not only comedic proficiency, but also an ability to play her unhappy moments with authenticity, while never compromising the overall texture of the silliness surrounding her. Although frequently distressed, MacArthur also provides a sort of calm within the chaos, treating the audience to a layered and complex character. Hammock, with a distinctive half-flowing, half-braided hairdo adding to the illusion, also plays Isabelle’s twin sister, Sabine, who just happens to be Lucrece’s maid. Though played by the same actress, the two roles are somewhat Jekyll-and-Hyde in their differences. Hammock proves that she can play sweet and salty with equal aplomb, and creates two characters with easily-identifiable differences in style and temperament, though I wouldn’t have minded a tiny costume change, such as a hat or scarf, to further punctuate the duality of the roles.

Things get even more turned-around when we meet Alcippe, Dorante’s best friend. Did I mention that Alcippe is engaged to Clarice? The traditional Comedie –Francaise misconceptions and mutually cloudy understandings leave Alcippe constantly vacillating between fury and thick-headed amiability. As played by Josh Kern, Alcippe has the capacity to turn his emotions on a dime (centime?) and clearly revels in playing a hothead and a pleasant fop. Having worked with Kern several times over the last seven or eight years, I have enjoyed watching a kid with a hell of a lot of raw talent grow into a seasoned pro who is quickly mastering his craft.

Also in the melee are Alcippe’s friend, Philiste (Morgan Wood) and Dorante’s father, Geronte (Douglas McConnell), who further complicate matters through relaying inadvertent half-truths and misinformation (Philiste), and arranging for Dorante to marry Clarice, whom Dorante thinks is named Lucrece. While these two roles are somewhat smaller than the rest, both Wood and McConnell make the most of their onstage moments, matching the rest of the cast in skill and commitment to the “reality” of the script.

A story about a midnight boat ride, a hilariously mimed duel, and countless moments of ensuing confusion add to the insanity, with a tidy-if-contrived happy ending for everyone. Director Scott Blanks clearly had a good time creating the frenetic insanity of the piece, yet never allows the chaos to go too far off the rails. Discipline and precision are essential when half the characters are frequently out of control, and Blanks expertly keeps the lunacy tightly blocked and well-rehearsed.

Costume Designer Janet Kile made the interesting choice of dressing each character in a combination of classical and contemporary fashion. (Kern’s plush blue great-coat and Driggers’ ornate vest work particularly well with blue jeans.) While not at all distracting, the costumes helped establish the timelessness of the plot, as does modern scene-change music. (Lady GaGa’s “Bad Romance” was an especially nice touch.) As Cliton, Hetler was the only character to appear in all-period dress, which served his character well, as he not only opens the show by addressing the audience, but comments frequently on the wild events that sweep him along for the ride.

The Liar is a perfect show for those who love classic farce, but it never shies away from its moments of modernity. Playwright David Ives not only translated, but also re-wrote parts of the script, adding multiple modern-day terms and expressions. As with Kile’s costumes and the 21st century music, the dialogue occasionally reinforces the message that similar shenanigans go on in 2018 as went on in 1645.

-FLT3

Frank Thompson is proud to serve as JASPER’s Theatre Editor, and can be reached via email at FLT31230@Yahoo.com