Phoenix Theatre I & II
To our Phoenix Theatre patrons:
Your health and safety are of the utmost importance to the Phoenix Arts Association Theatre. The Phoenix is responding to the coronavirus (COVID-19)
by continuing our programming virtually.
Watch on Youtube through March 31st!
BIRD ON A TREE BRANCH
Youtube Link https://youtu.be/skxdar9_73U
Donations appreciated at our GOFUNDME
Playwright Jan Probst's "Bird On A Tree Branch," is set in a Midwestern town on a Spring day in April 1965. The Civil Rights movement is one of the leading news stories of the time, but on this day Vivian and Doug, a middle-aged white couple, are more concerned to find themselves in the path of the worst tornado on record in the Midwest. As they drive home from church to their tornado shelter, they rescue a black woman stranded at a bus stop and bring her along. Held together by circumstances, the couple and the stranded woman, Hannah, engage in discussion about Dr. Martin Luther King, racism, civil rights, and nonviolence. Gradually, family history and personal stories are revealed as the physical tornado outside, the metaphorical tornado of social change, and the tornados of personal and family struggle all come together in a vital human story, with relationship dynamics that are readily recognizable in the world of today.
"At its heart," Jan tells us. "Bird on a Tree Branch" is a personal story, of three people caught in the raging storm of their moment in history. And so it is for us all," she adds. "How we respond is up to us."
Donations appreciated at our GOFUNDME
Playwright Jan Probst's "Bird On A Tree Branch," is set in a Midwestern town on a Spring day in April 1965. The Civil Rights movement is one of the leading news stories of the time, but on this day Vivian and Doug, a middle-aged white couple, are more concerned to find themselves in the path of the worst tornado on record in the Midwest. As they drive home from church to their tornado shelter, they rescue a black woman stranded at a bus stop and bring her along. Held together by circumstances, the couple and the stranded woman, Hannah, engage in discussion about Dr. Martin Luther King, racism, civil rights, and nonviolence. Gradually, family history and personal stories are revealed as the physical tornado outside, the metaphorical tornado of social change, and the tornados of personal and family struggle all come together in a vital human story, with relationship dynamics that are readily recognizable in the world of today. "At its heart," Jan tells us. "Bird on a Tree Branch" is a personal story, of three people caught in the raging storm of their moment in history. And so it is for us all," she adds. "How we respond is up to us."
Playwright Jan Probst
Jan Probst (playwright) is a writer, actor and filmmaker. Her plays have been on stage at many Bay Area venues, including EXIT Café, SF Fringe, Cutting Ball and B8 Theatre, among others, and can be found online at New Play Exchange. She was formerly an Artist in Residence at Z Space, and guest artist for the ATHE Annual Conference. A longtime member of the improv film company Barewitness Films, she is also an active member of Honor Roll!, an advocacy group of women+ playwrights over 40. Bird on a Tree Branch was presented at the Valdez Theatre Conference Play Lab in 2019 and is published by Next Stage Press.
The performance features Kerry Gudjohnsen as Vivian Smiley, Richard Aiello as Doug Smiley, Desiree Rogers as Hannah Jackson, Madison Worthington as the young Vivian Smiley and Sam Cohen as Al Smiley.
Kerry Gudjohnsen has worked as an actor with CalShakes, Butterfield 8/B8 Theatre Company, Ripe Theater, Unscripted, Berkeley Actors Ensemble, among others, and recently directed an all-female production of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross. A member of the award-winning improvisation film collective, Barewitness Films (www.barewitness.com) Kerry is proud to be the voice of Mama Carson in the Netflix animated series, Go! Go! Cory Carson.
Richard Aiello has worked with many of the Bay area's leading companies including Center Rep, and Anton's Well. With Phoenix Arts Association artistic director, Linda Ayres-Frederick, he starred in Custom Made Theatre's celebrated production of Albee's, "The Play About The Baby" which won Critics Circle Awards for Best Ensemble and Best Play.
Desiree Rogers is known to audiences of the African American Shakespeare Festival, the New Conservatory Theater Center, TheatreFIRST, and Berkeley's "new play theatre," Central Works. She has also been an actor with the famed Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.
Samuel Aaron Cohen is an actor, musician, artist, full-time responsible-adult-professional, native San Franciscan who received his BA in Theater Arts at UC Santa Cruz. Sam graduated SF Clown Conservatory in San Francisco studying under Jeff Raz, and next studied the Meisner technique. He lives in Oakland, CA with partner, artist Ryan Elisabeth Reid, and a menagerie of two cats, three chickens and 2,000 worms.
Madison Worthingon is a theater artist and educator motivated by the importance of empowering youth and energized by the transformative power of art in community. The Bay Area companies she enjoyed working with include Phoenix Theatre, The Marsh, Altarena Playhouse, CounterPulse, Left Coast Theatre Co., Shelton Theater and Bow & Arrow Circus Theater Collective that she co-founded. Now in Maine since 2019, Madison works in Portland Stage Company's Education Department and is soon transitioning into outdoor education as she works toward her Registered Maine Guide License following her love of nature. Madison holds a BA in Theater from UCLA.
This production is directed by Julie Dimas-Lockfeld, a founding member of the Phoenix Arts Association Theatre whose directing work has also been seen at Opera Unlimited, Piano Fight, and the Shelton Theater.Copies of the play are now available from Next Stage Press. www.nextstagepress.net/bird-on-a-tree-branch/
************************************Sunday April 23th @ 8pm
WORTHY ENOUGH
By Susan Jackson and Diana Brown
Co-produced by Susan Jackson and Diana Brown
Directed by Wes Cayabyab
2016--December: Thanks to the election, Lorena (Diana Brown) and her wife have been banned from the family Thanksgiving Dinner. Desperate to keep her sanity and marriage in tact, she visits Sophia (Susan Jackson), a renowned, if distant, PTSD therapist. Fast forward: December 2020. Lorena and Sophia meet at a Denver Whole Foods, culminating in a food fight in the organic produce section.
