Beware of associates who convey dogs as presents.
That could possibly be one of many messages in Brenda Withers’ new comedian drama “Westminster,” which has its world premiere at Urbanite Theatre, the place it took first prize on the 2023 Modern Works Festival playwriting contest.
The play brings collectively two {couples} on a Saturday afternoon. Krysten and her associate, Beau, convey an sudden reward of a canine to her longtime good friend Pia and her associate Tim. The canine “may or may not be a vicious breed,” stated director Summer Wallace, the theater’s producing inventive director.
Krysten and Pia are old associates from childhood and consider they know each other fairly properly. But nobody expects the form of response that develops from the arrival of the canine on all kinds of points.
“This gift reveals the social prejudices that one has against certain types of dogs in general,” Wallace stated. “There are people who have specific types of dogs, and there are social prejudices against different occupations, ways of thinking, ways of being. The play gets into class and social acceptance and non acceptance. Everyone has a very specific point of view and they think their point of view is the right one and everyone should think the same way.”
Withers was beforehand represented at Urbanite with the hit drama 2018 “Northside Hollow,” a play about trapped miners that she wrote together with her associate Jonathan Fielding, who performs Tim on this manufacturing. Fielding and Withers are among the many co-founders of the Harbor Stage Company in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, the place Withers has developed a lot of her performs.
Friends diverge on many points
Fielding describes Tim as somebody who “says exactly what he’s thinking in the moment, without any sort of filter, for better or worse. I think he’s a pretty positive guy with a decent outlook on life.”
Tim is fascinated by getting a canine, although he and Pia have particular concepts about what sort of dogs they want.
“It’s like getting anything new. Imagine buying a new car and you wonder, ‘Is it a good fit for me?’” he stated. Another concern for Tim is “I have really expensive floors,” which audiences will see as they step into the theater and see the set created by Jeff Weber.
Fielding is partnered with Dekyi Rongé as Pia. Ronge beforehand appeared at Urbanite in “Birds of North America” in 2022. She describes Pia as an organized planner. “I’ve got the five- or 10-year plan. I wrote it down and lived by that plan and repeated the benefits of that plan.” She says Pia has an older sister form of relationship with Krysten, and thinks her good friend “could do better for herself, could have a plan or life path.”
Krysten is performed by Alex Pelletier, who stated her character’s friendship with Pia has continued past the divergent paths of their lives.
“Once you go to college, your circumstances and friend groups keep you together, but what happens after that?” she stated. “If you have very different ideas of what a path is, take the bull by the horns. Pia makes her path, and I very much wander and get lost amongst the woods. There’s a bit of recklessness and she doesn’t necessarily land on her feet.”
Arts Newsletter: Sign up to receive the latest news on the Sarasota area arts scene every Monday.
‘Impact’ exhibition: Sarasota Art Museum hosts group present with Hermitage Artist Retreat fellows
Pelletier is partnered with Gregg Weiner, who was seen at Asolo Repertory Theatre in “The Great Leap,” “Our Town” and “Murder on the Orient Express.” He describes Beau as a highschool dropout with a GED, who’s ex-military, “not a fan of law and order and resentful of how pigeon-holed adults can be in the world. He bucks that system, lives his own storyline. He’s a real animal lover and believes animals should have as much rights as people.”
Wallace stated audiences finally 12 months’s Modern Works Festival “really responded to the language of the play and all the characters. They’re so different from one another. They all have points of view that are so different from your own person, but there are moments where you share commonality with that character.”
Withers shall be in Sarasota through the last rehearsal interval and the opening.
Wallace stated it’s a testomony to the work being submitted to Urbanite {that a} play might emerge so rapidly from the pageant to a world premiere manufacturing, which is actually simply the subsequent step within the play’s growth. It shall be adopted by one other world premiere, “OAK” by Terry Guest, whose “At the Wake of a Dead Drag Queen” was an enormous hit for the theater in 2021.
‘Westminster’
By Brenda Withers. Directed by Summer Wallace. Runs March 22-April 28 at Urbanite Theatre, 1487 Second St., Sarasota. Tickets are $42, $28 for below 40, $5 college students. 941-321-1397; urbanitetheatre.com
Follow Jay Handelman on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Contact him at [email protected]. And please assist native journalism by subscribing to the Herald-Tribune.
