About Last Night - A Magical Evening of New Theatre & Unique Visual Art with Chad Henderson & Nate Puza

L to R: Jon Tuttle - PRS director, Chad Henderson - playwright, Marybeth Gorman Craig - director, Kayla Machado - very pregnant actor, Libby Campbell - actor & Jasper Project board member, G. Scott Wild - actor

Last night was a wonderful night for the Jasper Project as we were privileged to celebrate two artists from two different disciplines at Harbison Theatre for a double dose of Jasper goodness. We opened the evening with a reception for our featured visual artist in the Harbison Theatre Gallery, Nate Puza and ended it with the premier staged reading performance of the 2024 Play Right Series winning play, Let It Grow by Chad Henderson.

Visual Artist Nate Puza offers and artist talk at the opening reception for hi exhibition at the Jasper Project’s Harbison Theatre Gallery

Nate Puza is a South Carolina based artist, designer, and illustrator with over a decade of experience working with some of the biggest bands and brands in the world including Jason Isbell, the Avett Brothers, Chris Stapleton, Phish, and more. Internationally known for his meticulous attention to detail and high level of craftmanship, Puza created the new design for the Columbia, SC flag. When not creating art for your favorite band Nate can be found playing music with friends, being outside, wrenching on his motorcycle, mowing the lawn, or drinking a beer on the back porch.

Chad Henderson is a professional theatre artist from South Carolina. He is known for directing contemporary plays, musicals and original works that mix music, movement, imagination and invention to create unforgettable works for the stage. Henderson served as the Artistic Director of Trustus Theatre (2015-2021) in Columbia, SC, and is the current Marketing Director for the South Carolina Philharmonic, where he most recently produced Home for the Holidays at Koger Center for the Arts. Selected Trustus Theatre credits include: The Brother/Sister Plays, Green Day’s American Idiot, Evil Dead, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Last 5 Years, Assassins, The Great Gatsby, Next to Normal, and The Restoration’s Constance - an original musical for which Henderson also authored the book.

Libby Campbell and David Britt on the stage for Let It Grow!

L to R: Libby Campbell, David Britt, G. Scott Wild, Kayla Machado

Jasper expresses our sincerest appreciation to Kristin Cobb, executive director of Harbison Theatre at MTC and her team for welcoming us into their home and supporting our mission. Check out all the exciting performances coming up at Harbison theatre here and support this state-of-the-art performance space the way they support the SC Midlands performing artists!

Kristin Cobb, executive director - Harbison Theatre at MTC welcomes the crowd.

Announcing the Cast & Crew of Chad Henderson's Let It Grow -- Jasper's 2024 Play Right Series Winning Play

SAVE THE DATE

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 14, 2024

The Jasper Project is delighted to announce the cast for the premier staged reading of our 2024 Play Right Series winning play, Let It Grow, by Chad Henderson.

The performance will take place on Saturday, September 14th at 7:30 at Harbison Theatre. The evening will also feature the launch of the book, Let It Grow, by Chad Henderson, the 4th original play for the Play Right Series, and the third manuscript we’ve published and registered with the US Library of Congress. (It’s important to Jasper that we preserve for posterity as much of the art coming out of South Carolina as possible. )

Now, onto our cast.

LIBBY CAMPBELL-TURNER

We couldn’t be more excited to announce that Libby Campbell-Turner will lead the performance in the role of gardening talk show creator and host, Mary Lily.

Libby Campbell-Turner has worked in theatre (regional, professional, and community) for a number of years. She is currently a litigation paralegal with a law firm here in Columbia. (She was forced to seek out "normal" employment once she aged out of ingenue and district attorney roles.) She has also worked in television and film. In fact, she just received a royalty check for her work in Robbie Benson's  1990 rom-com film, Modern Love, and says “That 3 cents will go a long way toward paying off my credit card debt.” (Libby also loves shoes.) Libby works with the Jasper Project as its Theatre Editor for Jasper Magazine and is a member of our board of directors. She was most recently seen on stage in Death of a Salesman.

G. SCOTT WILD

G. Scott Wild will be playing the part of Christophe, a celebrated author, and a new panelist on Let It Grow.

A graduate of the Stella Adler Studio of acting, Scott has been around the Columbia theatre scene for many years now. He was last seen on stage in the Trustus production of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize winning Fairview. 

DAVID BRITT

David Britt will be playing the part of Jeb, a long-time panelist on the show.

Britt is in his18th year in the UofSC Dept. of Theatre and Dance. Directing credits at UofSC include Spinning into ButterProofBecky ShawA Piece of My Heart and Of Mice and Men. At Workshop Theatre here in Columbia he has directed Brighton Beach MemoirsBiloxi BluesBroadway Bound and Jakes Women. He also performed in Workshop's production of Barefoot in the Park… see a pattern? David appeared on stage at Theatre South Carolina in Measure for MeasureA View from the BridgeBus StopDancing at Lughnasa, Legend of Georgia McBride and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is from Raleigh, NC, where he appeared in more than 30 roles. He has trained at the New Actors Workshop in New York City and at the world-renowned Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, MA, and also completed the Second City Comedy Improvisation Boot Camp. David is a member of SAG/AFTRA. 

KAYLA CAHILL MACHADO

Kayla Cahill Machado will be playing the part of Charlotte, a panelist and co-producer of Let It Grow.

Machado is a Jersey-born writer and actor who lives in Columbia with her husband, Daniel; two-year-old son, Ben; and soon-to-be daughter, Harriet (and cat, Tate). She is a part of the Trustus Theatre company as well as The Mothers, most recently directing the group’s spring sketch comedy show. Acting credits include The Thanksgiving Play (Logan), Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Rachel), Silence! The Musical (Clarice), Rock of Ages (Regina), The Rocky Horror Show (Columbia), Godspell (Ana Maria), and The House of Blue Leaves (Corinna). She is excited for this chance to bring new work to life. 

MARYBETH GORMAN CRAIG

And Marybeth Gorman Craig will be captaining the ship as the director.

Marybeth Gorman Craig is an actor, director, intimacy choreographer, and text/dialect coach currently on faculty at the University of South Carolina in the Department of Theatre and Dance. A member of Actors' Equity Association, Marybeth has performed on local stages such as Trustus Theatre and UofSC, as well as at theatres across the country such as Arden Theatre Company, Walnut Street Theatre, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, The Hippodrome, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Lantern Theatre, Theatre Horizon, and 11th Hour. She is an advocate for consent and inclusion through her work as intimacy coordinator/director in professional and educational film and theatre projects, most recently this summer with Local Cinema Studios and the Texas Shakespeare Festival. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of South Carolina, and Bachelor of Arts from Temple University. Marybeth is thrilled to be a part of Jasper's Play Right project and is grateful to Jasper for all they do to support the arts in our community.

It’s not too late to support this new and original theatrical art by becoming a Play Right Series Community Producer or Sponsor. All the info you need is here!

Mark your calendars for Saturday September 14th at Harbison Theatre for the premier staged reading of Let It Grow, by Chad Henderson. Tickets will be available via Harbison Theatre and should be on sale soon!

Jon Tuttle Interviews Chad Henderson Whose Original Play, Let It Grow, is the Winner of the 2024 Play Right Series -- Read On to Learn How YOU Can Help Birth This New Piece of SC Theatrical Art

Let it Grow … a quite perfectly-realized dramatic gem.

-Jon Tuttle

Everyone sit up please: you are reading this just in time to save your place for the fourth installment of Jasper Project’s Play Right Series--the launching of a brand-new play by a South Carolina author. Jasper regulars will recognize the PRS as the birthplace of Randall David Cook’s Sharks and Other Lovers (2017), Colby Quick’s Moonswallower (2022) and Lonetta Thompson’s Therapy (2023). Each of these plays, following its showcase staged reading event at the end of the PRS cycle, has been published by Muddy Ford Press and gone (or soon will go) on to full productions around the state. 

This year’s winner is Let it Grow, by Columbia theatre veteran Chad Henderson, a name likely familiar to anyone even peripherally connected to the Midlands’ arts scene. Chad was for six years the producing Artistic Director at Trustus Theatre, in which capacity he directed dozens of plays and musicals and developed, as writer or collaborator, several more, including (with Daniel Machado) 2018’s The Restoration’s Constance, a sprawling, gorgeous, Bernstein-esque epic-with-music that tells a generational tale of Lexington and environs. He has also brought projects to other theaters in Columbia, like Workshop and the Columbia Children’s Theatre, as well as to theatres in Charleston, Spartanburg, and Key West. In 2017, his short film Overture won the Audience Award in Jasper’s Second Act Film Festival. He is now the Marketing Director for the South Carolina Philharmonic. So yes: it’s that Chad Henderson.  

The play’s language, by the way, is magnificent.

His play Let it Grow is a gentle comedy about later-life love blooming on the set of a public television gardening show. The PRS judges (I was one) found that, besides checking all our boxes pertaining to cast size, length, and venue-suitability, Let it Grow was a quite perfectly-realized dramatic gem. It is at once highly original but still demonstrates a throughgoing mastery of the traditional conventions of stagecraft. It’s also deliciously funny and arrives at a denouement at once surprising and inevitable.  

The dramatis personae in the play include Mary Lily (played by Libby Campbell), the host of our favorite gardening show, also a widow and the play’s moral center of gravity, into whose studio strolls Christoph, a new panelist, and the author of the bestselling Fifty Shades of Stamens. Christoph is also, as it happens, a widower, and you might see where this is going. Trying to keep the show right with sponsors and donors is producer Charlotte, who begins the play as the uptight voice of fiscal necessity but who emerges as someone entirely more sympathetic to the humanities.  Finally there’s hot-blooded but kind-hearted Jeb, an expert on sustainable humanure who gets “madder than a one-legged diabetic at a cake-walk” at critics who should sooner “shit in their momma’s best frying pan than to mess with me, cause I’d fold ‘em up like a fourth-grade love letter.”  The play’s language, by the way, is magnificent.

This year’s PRS cycle begins with its first meeting on the afternoon of July 21, at the 1013 Co-Op off North Main in Columbia. On that day you can meet Chad, the play’s director Marybeth Gorman Craig, the cast and, if you choose to be one, the other Community Producers (more about that below). In anticipation of that first meeting, I tracked Chad down for a quick Q and A.  


JT:  How do you know so much about horticulture? And where did you get the idea for Let It Grow? 

CH:  The impetus for this play was my desire to...well, write a play. I have been researching the punk music scenes in Belfast, New York City and London for a spell with the intention of writing a trilogy of plays with music. It'd been years since I wrote the book for The Restoration's Constance (a process that felt like being in a fever-dream), so I wanted to ‘dust the cobwebs off’ of my writing. I wanted to write a play as an exercise, I wanted to write it for me, and I wanted to write something simple and human. In short, I wanted to write something that was the opposite of the kind of theatre I gravitate towards as a producer/director. 

Around that time, I was finally becoming a fan of SC ETV'S Making It Grow. I kept watching the show as my late-30s interest in plants grew, and I also felt the show was a great source for comedy—though completely unintentional. It seems to teem with innuendo and winks, and I can never be sure if the panelists are aware of it. So, I decided to tell a story about a public broadcasting program where the fun, pleasant, scandal-avoidant day-to-day rigor is upset by their being confronted with a conflict. 

So then I wondered...what conflict could I confront them with? I may or may not have injected some of my personal experiences along with the workplace experiences of friends into the plot and come out with Let it Grow. In the end, the play turned out to be an investigation of humanity in the workplace. It examines vulnerability, discomfort, and plants.  


JT:  So this play was, in fact, inspired by ETV's Making it Grow. 

CH: Yes, it was the steppingstone into the rest of the play. I recently met Amanda McNulty, "Making It Grow’s" host, at a local Publix. She was lovely. I did not tell her I wrote a play based on her show. But I have had a lot of hilarious conversations in recent months with other folks who work with her and know her, and apparently my "Mary Lily" character--the play’s protagonist--is not nearly as colorful or daring as the real-life source.  


JT: The play is stiff with botanical erotica. Comment?  

CH:  Honestly, the "botanical erotica" (my new memoir title, thank you!) came into play because the actual SC ETV show feels stacked with unintentional innuendo. So I wanted the characters to examine certain horticultural topics that might open me up to intentionally creating innuendo for the audience. Plus, the growing conflict in the play is directly related to this kind of dialogue being an issue on air, so it felt necessary. 


JT:  Anyone reading the above would assume that this play is bawdy. It most certainly is not. It is a gently witty exploration of later-life-romance that uses botany as its love language. Here's the question: this play, like every play, is a journey. From what, to what? Where do you want the audience to land? Or what do you want them to know or take away.

CH: I'm hoping that this play asks us to think about each other’s complexities and make an intentional effort to stop viewing each other as black or white, right or wrong--as dualities versus dichotomies. I'll be candid and say that while I am offering this idea in the play, it is a practice I fail at constantly.  


JT:  On which note, I notice there are no antagonists in the play, at least not by the end. Even Charlotte, the producer, who is the Voice of Business Sense, becomes sympathetic. Was that a discovery you made in the writing? Was she ever, to you, an antagonist?  

CH: I think it's easy to dislike Charlotte because she really needs to lighten-the-fuck-up. She's the type of person whose company I have never enjoyed, but is she the antagonist? No. The villains in this story are the faceless attorneys and sponsors who orbit the characters throughout the play. They view their staff as cogs in a wheel and sensationalize their humanity - making them liabilities versus assets.  


JT: Mary Lily is a remarkable character--gracious and wise, and clearly the conscience of the play. Whence came Mary? Anybody you know? 

CH: Mary is the confluence of a lot of the smarter and more genuine people I've met in my life. There's quite a lot of my own heart in her as well. I suppose that happens quite a bit when you're creating a character you intend audiences to love. You pull together all the best parts of yourself and others, and boom: you get a Mary Lily.  


JT: This is obviously not your first foray into playwriting, and your career in the arts has led you many places. Where does writing--plays or otherwise--fit into your conception of yourself?  

CH: This is a bit of a doozy to answer. Trying to be brief, I'll say that writing new work is putting my money (or time) where my mouth is. I have long championed new work, and I have long envied how the larger cities are creating new work that infiltrates our regional and community theatres over time. So while I continue to expect SC audiences to favor the familiar, I think we are capable of having our own creative "new works" scene. So, instead of waiting on local audiences and granting organizations to call for new work, I feel we must just create. new. work.  

My "self-conception" keeps changing, but I confidently call myself a storyteller. I think I've been a storyteller for most of my life. I recognize that the little kid who made stop-motion movies with his action figures is still alive and well in this 39-year-old with a greying beard. So playwriting seems like a sensible avenue to telling new stories (read: creating new work), and I had quite a fun time working on Let It Grow.  


Your curiosity having been piqued, you’ll be glad to know that you too can have a fun time working on Let It Grow, because there is still time—through July 21--to join the PRS cycle as a Community Producer. For a $250 (or larger) buy-in, you can participate in the development process and learn more about the many elements that go into creating, writing, rehearsing, producing, and marketing a new play. There are also opportunities to be a developmental sponsor for those who would like to support Henderson’s play but are not interested in or available to serve as a Community Producer.  

The PRS group meets about every two weeks through August into September, when, on the 14th, we will open some bubbly, pick up our just-published copies and enjoy a staged-reading, with talk-back, at Harbison Theatre. For more information about the project or becoming a Community Producer or sponsor, please click here, and then join us on July 21st for a read-through and lively chat.

 

--Jon Tuttle

 

 

 

 

 

REVIEW: Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune

Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune

Trustus Side Door Theatre

April 11 – 20, 2024

The play opens on a darkened apartment, with a couple making love. After working together for several weeks Frankie, a waitress has agreed to a date with Johnny, a short-order cook, and the two have ended up in Frankie’s one-room walk-up apartment. Johnny (played by Jason Stokes) has fallen madly, absurdly, head-over-heels in love with Frankie (Marybeth Gorman Craig). Frankie thinks this is an absurd notion. She’s had a lovely evening but would be happiest if Johnny would just get dressed and leave so she could get in her pj’s and eat ice cream and watch television. 

The evening unfurls as our two world-weary, battered souls talk and listen and question and argue about love and the notion of love, and whether any of us are really and truly prepared to meet the love of our lives, that one soul without whom we cannot live. A late-night classical music radio station provides the score, complete with a velvet-voiced deejay. 

Johnny is persistent and obnoxious and relentless and meddling and romantic, and he NEVER SHUTS UP in his quest to convince Frankie that she is in fact his soulmate. There were several times when I wanted her to push him out the window or split his head open with an axe. He’s just adorable. This may be the best work I’ve seen from Stokes, and I’ve seen him in any number of roles. His shading, his timing, his nuance, his unending enthusiasm is all spot on. 

I’m not sure how Marybeth Gorman Craig is able to pull off world-weary and luminous at the same time, but she does it beautifully. Her Frankie has been burned and disappointed by men over and over. Her skepticism is as relentless as Johnny’s enthusiasm. She would like to believe him, but her experiences won’t let her. Yet.           

When I first heard this was being produced in the Side Door, I was  concerned that it would be too “cozy” for this show. In fact it’s the perfect space. We feel as claustrophobic as Frankie. Jayce Tromsness’ scene design and Erin Wilson’s set dressing is true to tiny NYC apartments. There’s a working kitchen! I love a working kitchen on stage; Frankie’s need for a late-night nosh (cold meatloaf sandwiches – delish) resulted in real meatloaf sandwiches ON TOAST. (I went home and made toast after the show.)  There’s a later scene where Johnny whips up a western omelet; there is a soupçon of menace to his chopping skill. 

For any of you who might hesitate to see this show because you’ve heard that there would be  NAKED PEOPLE onstage, relax. There are no naked people onstage in this production, and it didn’t affect the story one iota.

 We’ve all had those all-nighters, where we argued and made up and loved and snacked and made discoveries about ourselves and each other and made love again until the sun rose. Hopefully, we’ve sometimes even had “the most beautiful music ever written” as a soundtrack. Erin Wilson has given us a lovely, lovely show. Frankie and Johnny are tired and resigned and hopeful and hopeless. You don’t necessarily get a “happy ending,” but you don’t get a sad one, either. I was sad and hopeful and wanted a cigarette at the end of the evening.

Sadly, you only have 4 more chances to see this production: April 17 – April 20 at 8:00 p.m. There is limited seating in the Side Door Theatre so make your reservations now. Tickets may be purchased online or by calling the theatre at 803-254-9732. Beer and wine are available for purchase in the lobby.

 

           

 

Lindsay Rae Taylor Directs Futuristic SYZYGY Play VISITATION by Nicola Waldron

On Aug. 17, the Jasper Project will debut six plays in honor of the much-anticipated total solar eclipse that will grace Columbia skies. One play in particular, Visitation by Nicola Waldron, will transport the audience to future times and provide social commentary on the ongoing struggles of today and tomorrow.

 

The director of Visitation, Lindsay Rae Taylor, is a New York University alumna and current second-year MFA Directing Candidate in the Theatre Department at the University of South Carolina.

 

“I believe that Nicola has written an incredibly important and thought-provoking play. I am inspired with what she created from the idea of the eclipse—a happening that is rarely witnessed,” Taylor says. “I love how she uses the eclipse to note the passage of time and the change that is possible in our world before, after, and during such a unique event.”

 

Taylor describes Visitation as a timely piece that is set in South Carolina during May 2078. The play centers on the story of a mother fighting for a better life for her daughter—away from a misogynistic regime.

 

“The characters witness a solar eclipse and reveal to us what has happened in our world since our 2017 eclipse,” Taylor says. “It addresses the state of our nation and the possible repercussions should we continue on our current trajectory—specifically the effect it could have on women in our society.”

 

Visitation is set to feature some familiar faces from the pool of theatrical talent in SC. Marybeth Gorman Craig holds an MFA in Acting from the University of South Carolina and continues to act regionally while also teaching, directing, and performing at USC. She plays Mother in Visitation.

 

Kelsie Hensley recently graduated from USC’s Theatre Department where she was a featured actor in last year’s season. She plays Grace.

 

Dr. Andrea Coldwell is an Associate Professor of English from Coker College as well a veteran actor of Coker’s main stage productions. She plays The Custodian.

           

“We have a real powerhouse group of ladies in our rehearsal room, and it has been invigorating watching Nicola’s words come to life,” Taylor says. “When I had my initial meeting with Nicola, I felt we were kindred spirits, and I feel that energy among all of the women involved.”

 

Taylor says she loves that Syzygy marries art with science and encourages audience members to find perspective in thinking of one’s own place in the universe. Although she looks forward to the performance, Taylor anticipates speaking with individuals afterwards to learn how the play’s various messages and interpretations resonate.

 

“The piece has an ambiguity that I find thrilling. Nicola’s idea is frightening and relevant, and the poetry of her language is served from the extraordinary voices of this cast,” Taylor says. “It has been an enlightening journey and we are so excited to share this story with an audience.”

By Bria Barton

Tickets are at -- https://www.tappsartscenter.com/event/syzygy-the-solar-eclipse-plays/

Tickets are at -- https://www.tappsartscenter.com/event/syzygy-the-solar-eclipse-plays/