…And We’re Back!

It appears that my play, “Invincible Summer” will have it’s staged production after all.

To recap, “Invincible Summer” has had, to significantly understate the matter, an interesting history. After my very first staged reading, the play helped get me my very own theatrical agent (Earl Graham). In, 2019, the play was accepted for a theatre festival in Brooklyn, New York–but then Covid happened, and the festival never returned.

That was not the worst of it. Earl (and his husband, a short time later) both died of Covid, putting the agency and my status as a client in something of a limbo. Not only was that around the same time my mother passed away, the entire world was in the process of turning upside down. I was heartbroken at Earl’s loss, but we were surrounded by heartache and all of us were, frankly, in something of a limbo.

As things began to open up in 2021, I received a phone call from theatre director Dana Sachs. Dana had read my play, and wanted to stage it as a Zoom reading. I agreed, and Dana went to work casting, rehearsing, and then performing the play on Zoom. Another Zoom reading, with a different director and cast, was done later that summer by the Depot for New Play Readings. I was very happy with both readings, and took steps to improve the play.

In 2022, Dana called to tell me he has arranged to stage the play in a theatre is Cheshire, Connecticut. We had signed a contract, begun rehearsals, when the theatre changed their minds and cancelled the play. We tried again at another community theatre who wanted us to do the play with them. It looked like it was going to happen, but then the director of the organization was stricken with cancer, and no one else in the organization was willing to step forward and share some of her burden. As a result, that show never materialized.

In 2023, things began to look up: I discovered that the new agency that was reorganized following Earl’s death would retain me as a client. Then, another phone call from Dana–the Hole in the Wall Theatre in New Britain, Connecticut would stage “Invincible Summer” in May 2024.

Remarkably, most of the cast from that first Zoom reading–Mark Gilchrist, Christie Maturo, Allan Church, Frank Dicaro and Jack Levine are in the cast for the production. They have been augmented by Lois Church, Jerry Rankin, and Val Solli. Dana is directing, and his wife Cynthia Parisi will be our stage manager.

I don’t really have the words to describe how amazed I am that this group of individuals have stuck with this production through all of its ups and downs over the last three years. I wouldn’t have blamed any of them from walking away (and certainly didn’t for the few that did so). This company, though, has paid me and my work a tremendous honor, and I am grateful for every single one of them. I can’t wait to see them all on stage…finally.

See you in New Britain in May.