2017-18 Season

Announcing our 2017-18 Theatrical Season! Here’s to 10 Years!

Beth Marshall Presents 

2017-18 Theatrical Season Announcement

Beth Marshall Presents celebrates our 10th theatrical season in 2017-18 with a strong focus on world premieres, developing new works, touring shows and celebrating the past, present and future of our nomadic indie theatre company.

BMP TOP TEENS SHOWCASE & NEW WORKS SERIES

Co-Produced with Florida Theatrical Association 

An evening of monologs, songs, scenes, techinal presentations and short play readings written, directed and performed by BMP’s top up and coming theatre artists giving them the opportunity to get feedback from industry professionals. Open to public. Proceeds benefit The Beth Marshall Presents Theatrical Scholarship Fund. 

Featuring:

Harrison Baxley, Alexia Correa, Chase Davis, Jordan Anthony Gago, Rose Helsinger, Nakary Hurtado, Sarah Isola, Jordan Laica, Clark Levi, Alyssa Mason, Caroline Mueller, Bennet Preuss, Vanessa Frances Poulson, Ashley Sox, Forrest Stringfellow, Winona Wiley, John Zamborsky

July 22nd, 2017

Class Act Studios

SAVE ME, DOLLY PARTON

By Megan Gogerty

Directed by Beth Marshall

Starring Theresa Smith-Levin

*Regional Premiere

One woman’s witty story of politics, pop-culture and parenting and how Dolly Parton saved the day.

FUN FACT: Actor Theresa Smith-Levin will be 8-9 months pregnant when we debut this play in August 2017, when remounted in May 2018 her baby will likely make a cameo.

Indy Fringe August 2017 

Orlando Fringe May 2018

(Touring Show)

PLAY-IN-A-DAY ORLANDO

10 writers, 10 directors, over 100 artists work for 24 hours to present 10 different short plays all with the same mystery theme unknown to anyone until the day of.

Proceeds benefit the BMP District 3 Thespian Scholarship Fund.

FUN FACT: The winner of this year’s Critic’s Choice will have a chance to remount the play in our New Works Series in March 2018.

June 9th 2018

Lake Howell Theatre

THE MOST FABULOUS STORY EVER TOLD

By Paul Rudnick

Directed by Tommy Wooten

A biblical and modern day tale of the relationships of Adam & Steve and Jane & Mabel as directed by the character of a stage manager. Act One covers the Garden of Eden, an ark, a visit with a highly rambunctious Pharaoh and finally even the Nativity. Along the way, Mabel and Adam invent God, but Jane and Steve are skeptical. Act Two is Christmas Eve in Adam & Steve’s fabulously decorated NYC apartment where a marriage is officiated by a Jewish lesbian Rabi in a wheelchair from a cable access tv network. Surprises are revealed and heartfelt holiday warm fuzzies happen.

“Funny it is…consistently, rapaciously, deliriously…easily the funniest play in town.”-Variety

FUN FACT: Director Tommy Wooten and Co-Producer/Actor, Beth Marshall did this play together at The Footlight Theatre in 2001. It was among the first published plays produced at The Footlight Theatre. Tommy played Adam. Beth Played Jane.

Beth will now play the character of the Stage Manager.

Dec 1st-30th

Footlight Theatre

THE LIEUTENANT of INISHMORE

By Martin McDonagh

Directed by Mark Routhier

*Central Florida Premiere

The Lieutenant of Inishmore is a feared Irish terrorist who has no qualms of torturing, mutilating and murdering his enemies. The one life he does value is that of his beloved black cat, Wee Thomas. After Wee Thomas is found with a crushed skull, a heartbroken Mad Padraic becomes hell-bent on finding the person responsible and the vividly gruesome violence and carnage that ensues makes for an extremely dark, yet hilarious comedy that explores the absurdity of political violence.

“Inishmore” is a cheerfully bizarre play, funny as only the Irish can be, and not for the faint of heart.”-Hollywood Reporter

*Note-NO animals will be harmed in the making of this play.

FUN FACT: Beth Marshall’s cat Onxy is working on her audition of the gender-bending role of Wee Thomas. No casting promises have been made.

Also cool to note, this will be director Mark Routhier’s first play to direct back in O-Town since his time as Director of PlayFest at Orlando Shakes.

Feb. 2nd-25th

Garden Theatre 

NEW WORKS SERIES

The first annual New Works Series features workshop playreadings from the winners of our playwriting contest, along with the playwriting winners from TOP TEENS 2017 and PIAD 2018. We had 173 submissions this season. A panel of 20 readers selected our winning plays.

*WORLD PREMIERES:

WILDS

By Lisa VillaMil

Director: Tara Kromer

Nationalism is on the rise, but tigers have been saved from extinction through domestication. Refugees are pouring in, but the Prime Minister is promising a crackdown at the border. He’s not lacking support.

Amidst it all, Phoebe is turning invisible.  Again.  And she has no idea why.  The fact that she’s pregnant only complicates matters. Meanwhile, Dinah is turning into a beast, becoming a ferocious manifestation of herself in pursuit of her lost son.  Refugees seeking asylum, they were separated when rushing the border to the City.

Marginalized, victimized and villainized, both women find that they have two choices in this world ruled by Men: to be tame, or to be wild.  And frankly, it’s not clear which is the better option.  Especially when Dinah takes her wildness to the streets, and begins attacking civilians.

Wilds is a surrealist play about intolerance, whose plot draws from social and political events of the past year, including Brexit, the United States’ election, Poland’s attempted total-ban on abortion, and the Syrian refugee crisis, particularly in relation to Hungary.  It is told in a series of short interwoven scenes of various plotlines.

STUCK

By Paris Crayton lll

Director: Beth Marshall

From the writer of BMP’s HOODIES and Trayvon Martin Project’s: Worthless, comes Stuck. The story of thirty-something, Jacob who is struggling with the acceptance of his homosexuality later in life while at the same time discovering his girlfriend is pregnant. He seeks counsel from his therapist who is battling her own demons. When faced with what to do, Jacob’s life and mind are a whirlwind of poetry and overwhelm. How will he move forward?

Dates: Saturday June 23rd 3pm and 7pm

Venue: ClassAct Studios

11561 Lake Underhill Road

Orlando, FL.  32825

BMP 10 YEAR RETRO VARIETY SHOW

ONE NITE ONLY

Live performance, music, dance featuring BMP veterans and emerging artists, retro slide show, surprise guest artists, behind the scenes stories, a party and more celebrating the past, the present and the future of all things BMP.

April 2nd, 2018

The Abbey

Friday Night In America

By Melanie Bishop

Director-TBA

Starring Beth Marshall

*World Premiere

The story an inter-racial relationship between a man from Kenya and a white woman raised in the American South. Spanning the years 1992 to 1996, Bill Clinton’s first term, the monologue explores love against the backdrop of that slice of American history, while focusing more closely on the personal challenges of bridging a deep cultural chasm, including sexual taboos, gender roles, inter-cultural communication, superstition, and racism.

FUN FACT: Writer Melanie Bishop and Actor/Producer- Beth Marshall met during their residences at Djerassi Artist Residency in Woodside Ca. last year.

About the writer:

Melanie Bishop has taught writing or mentored writing retreats in Arizona’s Sierra Ancha Wilderness, At Paolo Soleri’s Arcosanti (www.arcosanti.org), in Prescott, Arizona, in the Cycladic Islands of Greece, and in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

Bishop’s young adult novel, My So-Called Ruined Life (Torrey House Press, 2014) was a top-five finalist in 2015 for both the John Gardner Award in Fiction and CLMP’s Firecracker Awards, and a top-ten finalist for the Lascaux Prize in Fiction. Bishop has published fiction and nonfiction in Glimmer Train, Georgetown Review, Greensboro Review, Florida Review, Valley Guide, Hospice Magazine, Puerto del Sol, The American, Potomac Review, Vela, and Family Circle. She received a screenwriting fellowship from the Chesterfield Film Project, co-sponsored by Universal Studios and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment. For 22 years, she taught creative writing at Prescott College in Arizona, where she was Founding Editor, and Fiction/Nonfiction Editor of Alligator Juniper, a national literary magazine, three-time winner of the AWP Directors’ Prize. Bishop is marketing a short story cycle, Home for Wayward Girls, which has been a finalist in seven book contests.

Currently Bishop offers retreats, instruction, editing, and coaching through Lexi Services, and reviews books for Carmel Magazine, New York Journal of Books, and Huffington Post.

Orlando Fringe May 2018

(Touring Show)

 

Tickets will go on sale for all BMP shows by June 1st, 2017.