Local actors performed in The Sauk’s short plays in March.
Courtesy | Trinity Bird
The American Association of Community Theatre chose The Sauk as one of six community theaters in the country to workshop and produce an original work, “Criminal Mischief.”
After its run, the play will be published by Dramatic Publishing, listing The Sauk’s cast members as the original cast. Representatives from AACT will be at the February premiere to watch and present The Sauk with a grant to cover the cost of the production.
The Sauk will be doing a public reading of the play it chose, “Criminal Mischief,” on Friday at 7:30 p.m. Following the reading, the audience will join playwright William “Bill” Cameron for a discussion with feedback and questions.
“It’s brand new and it’s coming off the press of working a week with Bill, the playwright himself, which I think is so cool,” said Savannah Bruton, who plays the character Angie.
Cameron is a retired professor of theater and communication arts at Washington & Jefferson College in Pennsylvania. He taught for 31 years before retiring and deciding to focus on playwriting. He is the author of six full-length plays that have been awarded and performed across the country.
“I’ve done a lot of different things, but really in the past five years, I’ve focused more on my plays, trying to get my work done,” Cameron said. “Just trying to be the best I can. And, fortunately, there are people in the world like Trinity Bird.”
Bird is the executive director at Sauk Theatre.
Cameron’s visit to Jonesville runs from Nov. 6 to 11. After the public reading, the cast will resume rehearsals after that on Dec. 11 before the official opening night on Feb. 2.
“I’m honored and I’m delighted,” Cameron said. “There’s a lot of people out there writing plays. I have a lot of friends who are writing plays and who are writing some very good stuff and finding it difficult to get them produced and published. So I’m over the moon with my current situation, having this play being produced by this venerable community theater.”
“Criminal Mischief” is a combination of a who-dun-it mystery and a comedy that follows two half brothers, Spencer, played by Jacob Weldon, and Freddy, played by Josh Lightener. The action starts after Spencer shoots Freddy in the shoulder. The remainder of the play is told through the eyes of Alice, who is the cop investigating what happened.
The first act bounces between interrogation rooms and a hospital room. Act two takes place in a completely new setting: Spencer’s house. Eventually, the question of who is at fault gets muddier as more information and characters are introduced.
“I think comedies are really special,” Bruton said. “I feel like laughter is the best medicine and anytime you go to the theater, you’re going to experience something magical and something that makes you forget about your outside troubles for a while. Anytime I’ve gone to see a comedy, it’s like ‘I can take on this whole month now.’”
Bird said he believes a key reason behind their selection as one of the six theaters is the annual “Plays in Development” workshop in which The Sauk picks scripts that aren’t finished yet, fly the playwrights to Michigan to work on the play in action, and, at the end of the week, do readings of all the plays that were chosen.
“One year we got 700 scripts submitted for it,” Bird said. “I’d say we average about 350 submissions a year. And we usually pick four.”
Bird said one of the most rewarding parts is the audience’s lack of expectation.
“We just did ‘The Sound of Music,’ and, no matter what we do with it, when that title song starts, every person ever in the history of the world pictures Julie Andrews in the field spinning whether they know the whole movie or not,” Bird said. “No one has any expectation of anything in this play, because it’s never existed before. And I think that’s so cool. And it gives the actors, me as director, the designers, and everybody free rein to play because there is no expectation.”