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PURE @ Piccolo Spoleto |
Underneath the Lintel by Glen Berger Directed by Sharon Graci SYNOPSIS On an inauspicious morning at a Dutch library, a librarian makes an unexpected find in the overnight return box. ...a much mistreated Baedeker's guidebook 123 years overdue. Even without compound interest, this tardiness merits a tidy fine, and in UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL, playwright Glen Berger's latest, our librarian hero determines to track down the miscreant. Berger's monologue, subtitled The Mystery
of the Abandoned Trousers, hardly slacks. Mailing a fine to the long-lived
scofflaw in question proves difficult, as the borrower listed his name
only as `A.’ In an effort to run him to earth, the librarian, who
has never left his native town of Hoofddorp, zips to China, Australia,
Germany, and America. He eats sweets, greases palms, sees Les Miserables in three languages, and fritters away all his accumulated vacation days.
He has the time of his life, or perhaps for the first time actually
has a life.” Alexis Soloski,
The Village Voice CAST Rodney Lee Rogers - The
Librarian BIOS Rodney Lee Rogers (The Librarian)
– is the cofounder of PURE Theatre, and brings over 15 years experience
as a writer/director/actor in film, television, and theater. Highlights
include playing Dr. Kyle Smithton on FOX's Medicine Ball, One Tree Hill,
The Mercy Seat, American Buffalo, and Fully Committed at PURE.
Winner Best Director and Best Actor awards for Steaming Milk at the
1997 Seattle International Film Festival. Best Fest List: L.A. Weekly,
Seattle Times, Seattle P.I., The Stranger. Ones to Watch: Moviemaker,
Filmmaker magazines and Charleston City Paper. Sharon Graci (Director) - is
the artistic director and cofounder of PURE. She studied Glen Berger (Playwright) - Glen
Berger’s Great Men of Science, NOS. 21 & 22 won the 1998 Ovation
Award for Best Play, as well as the A.S.K. Playwriting Award. His Underneath
the Lintel ran Off-Broadway for over 15 months, and the Los Angeles
production won the Ovation Award for Best Play. His O Lovely Glowworm
won the 2005 Portland Drammy Award for Best Script. He was a recipient
of a Children’s Theater Company/New Dramatists “Playground” commission,
as well as a Manhattan Theatre Club/Sloan Foundation Grant, with which
he wrote the musical, On Words and Onwards (work shopped at the 2001
A.S.K. Theater Projects Writers Retreat). Mr. Berger has also written
the book and lyrics to A Night in the Old Marketplace, a musical that
received a National Foundation for Jewish Culture grant and the 2004
Frederick Loewe Award. He was nominated for three Emmys for his work
on the PBS children’s series, Arthur and Postcards from Buster. He
has also written episodes of WGBH’s Time Warp Trio and Peep, and is
the head writer for Fetch, which will debut on PBS in June, 2006. QUOTES: UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL “One of the best performances
Charleston audiences have seen in quite a while. This is what acting
can be…a mind-bending, heart-bursting, beautiful production handled
gracefully by PURE Theatre. It will leave you recognizing the power
of theatre,”
Jennifer Corley, Charleston City Paper “It is the sheer beauty of the language matched by the sheer beauty of this performance that makes this an extraordinary evening in the theater.” Carol Furtwangler Post & Courier “Underneath the Lintel" is required
viewing for every actor, techie, author, director and theater lover
in the city. The state. The world.” Carol Furtwangler Post & Courier “…one of a handful of great plays written in the last five years…it's an astonishingly beautiful piece of writing…” Steve Wiecking, Seattle Weekly “Berger has shown a penchant for men
obsessively investigating truths that blind them to more ordinary pursuits
of happiness. This one-man show is no exception. It's a satisfying mix
of intelligent writing and quirky humor in a package that isn't neatly
wrapped up with pat answers.” Jana
J Monji, Los Angeles Times
“Glen Berger's work feels like what an entire generation of playwrights
have been struggling to write.” AWARDS: UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL Best One Person Play 2005” Charleston City Paper Ovation Award for “Best Play” (2001); Time Out New York’s “Ten Best Plays
of 2001.” PURE was founded in 2003 by Rodney Lee
Rogers and Sharon Graci. In its first three seasons, PURE Theatre
has produced nineteen plays, and two short play festivals including
three world premieres, seven southern premieres and three South
Carolina premieres. We have received audience and critical acclaim
and been named “Best Realized Theatre Concept,” receiving both “Best
Play” and “Best One Person Play” awards from Charleston theatre
reviewers. The company has been featured for our dedication to quality, professional
theatre and has garnered such praise as, “producing contemporary theatre
at its best.” (Charleston Magazine) QUOTES: PURE THEATRE “producing contemporary theatre at
its best.” Charleston
Magazine “Buy tickets early: PURE’s last
three shows have enjoyed mostly sold-out funs packed with return audience
members excited to see what unique new direction the theatre’s taken
this time.” Jennifer
Corley Charleston City Paper “The folks at PURE Theatre seem more interested in serving up themes than in spoonfeeding audiences predictable fare at their intimate Cigar Factory home, and that risk is admirable. Combine it all with great talent, and PURE has a winning formula in its hands.” Jennifer Corley Charleston City Paper “After less than three years of existence,
PURE Theatre has swiftly become Charleston’s go-to spot for avant-garde,
challenging productions.” Nick
Smith Charleston City Paper “no slick editing or special effects, just great acting…We feel privileged t be there for this transient, remarkable moment…If you missed it…you missed a hell of an evening.” Patrick Sharbaugh Charleston City Paper “known for staging plays with shocking
situations that precipitate disagreements among patrons on how a show’s
subject can be interpreted.” Dottie
Ashley Post and Courier “smart, stimulating theatre.” Nick Smith Charleston City Paper “From two-person casts in talking-head
plays, to racial dramas, to avant-garde pieces and movement theatre,
PURE Theatre presents the most diverse slate of offerings in town.” Jennifer Courley Charleston City Paper AUDIENCE AND CRITICS AWARDS: PURE THEATRE Best Realized Theatre Concept Best Play Best Actor/Actress Best Theatrical Diversity Best One-Person Play ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Sharon Graci Artistic Director 843.723.4444
PURE Theatre Presents A Number
by Caryl Churchill SYNOPSIS Part psychological
thriller, part topical scientific speculation, and part analysis of
the relationship between fathers and their sons, it combines elegant
structural simplicity with an astonishing intellectual and emotional
depth... A Number
is a brilliantly conceived play that explores the issue of human cloning
through the relationships between a father and his three sons. It is
also a philosophical investigation into free will and the question of
whether we are genetically or environmentally determined. The
play asks the questions “What sort of a person are you if you have
the same genetic identity as someone else? What sort of a person are
you anyway?” CAST Mark Landis - Salter David Mandel – Bernard (B1) &
Bernard (B2), Michael Black R.W. Smith (Director) is finishing
his second year as an ensemble
member, excited to be directing his first full-length production at
PURE Theatre. His previous directing experience includes a ten-minute Mark Landis* (Salter) has been
a member of Actors' Equity Association
since 1978, and his work in the professional theatre has taken him to
a number of different parts of the United States where he has worked
as an actor, a director, and a stage manager, and has done both radio
and television commercials. He holds an M.F.A. in Directing from
Western Illinois University, and in 2000 he directed a production of Aristophanes' The Birds with a cast that included both American and
Greek performers at the ancient amphitheatre at Oeniades in Greece.
He is currently a Professor of Theatre at the College of Charleston, where he teaches
acting and other theatre courses. He recently
directed Man From Nebraska for PURE. Caryl Churchill (Playwright) Playwright Caryl Churchill was born on 3 September
1938 in London and grew up in the Lake District and in Montreal. She
was educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she read English.
Downstairs, her first play, was written while she was still at university,
was first staged in 1958 and won an award at the Sunday Times
National Union of Students Drama Festival. She wrote a number of plays
for BBC radio including The Ants (1962), Lovesick (1967)
and Abortive (1971). The Judge's Wife was televised by
the BBC in 1972 and Owners, her first professional stage production,
premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in the same year.
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