The Village Theater Group (Andrew Beregovoy/Managing Director, Daniel J. Condon/Artistic Director) will present an inaugural “Winter One-Act Festival,” a powerful evening of live theatre featuring one original one-act play and two classic one-acts reimagined by today’s rising voices. The program will begin with Interview by Jean Claude Van Itallie, followed by A Most Theatrical Kidnapping of Jeremy Strong by Courtney Taylor, and The Groves of Acadame by Mark Stein.

The evening will include:

INTERVIEW by Jean-Claude Van Itallie
Directed by Richie Byrne
The topic under examination is an employment interview treated in a satirical, imaginatively stylized, darkly humorous way. Four interviewers interview a scrubwoman, a house painter, a banker and a lady’s maid, While commonplace enough, suddenly the most innocent state- ments are foreboding, revealing absurd bureaucracy and dehumanization. The interviewers are trying to destroy the dignity of the four clients, and the latter fight to hold their self-respect. We, the audience, are thrust into awareness.

A MOST THEATRICAL KIDNAPPING OF JEREMY STRONG by Courtney Taylor
Directed by TBA
Two unhinged theatremakers kidnap Jeremy Strong on opening night of their new play, “A Centaur Comes At Night.” A dark comedy about what we’d do to make our art transcend.

THE GROVES OF ACADEME by Mark Stein
Directed by Sean Hoagland
In the cramped office of Professor Bill Groves, is visited by Paul Morris, a rather quirky undergrad who asks to be admitted to an honors seminar on comedy. In a series of quick-changing scenes which span the school year, the two discuss Paul’s academic record, the subject of his term paper and, as they become more at ease with each other, their private lives and feelings. Paul’s opinions and behavior are gradually influenced as much by Groves’ individual qualities as by his intellectual attainments. Highly amusing and sharply observant, the play conveys much about the academic “treadmill,” but even more about the special strengths that can be nurtured when student and teacher reach beyond the formal relationship that, so often, is all that exists between them.

The casts will be comprised of members of The Village Theater Group including Sara Abebe, Andrew Beregovoy, Robin Brenner, Matthias Cassar, Daniel J. Condon, Leeann Ortiz, Sandy Singh, Fernando Figueroa Valladares and Kerry Wolf. The production team includes: Ana B Gabriel (Assistant Director), Andy Evan Cohen (Technical Director), Helena Jost (Stage Manager) and Alejandro Jimenez (House Manager).