Festival 2019 Show Descriptions

Performance #1

Paonia Players

The Pink Unicorn by Elise Forier Edie

The Pink Unicorn is an award-winning solo theatre piece written by Elise Forier Edie, which tells the story of a Christian widow from a conservative Texas town whose life is thrown into turmoil when her teenage daughter announces she is gender queer and starting a chapter of the Gay and Straight Alliance at the local high school.  Tony award winner Alice Ripley recently concluded its Off Broadway run with Out of the Box Theatrics.  "Extraordinary...The Pink Unicorn need(s) to be on Broadway, in the West End, touring the world with the powerful message of this brilliantly wise and inspiring work" (NY Theater Now)

Performance #2

Atomic Theatre

Say You'll Stay by Ken Crow

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The operetta is an absorbing riff on the trials and tribulations of a doomed relationship and it suggests a more surreal response than most other theatrical love stories. Say You’ll Stay is notable for a tumultuously intense performance by the play’s two main characters, a young singer named Lila, a wounded creature in dire need of nurturing, and the musician and songwriter with whom she falls in love.

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The two main characters are engaged in a passionate tug of war for affection that soon reveals a much deeper, combative relationship that has all the markings of a toxic marriage. “I can’t go on like this anymore,” the songwriter moans. “I hate you! You and that ghost are strangling me,” Lila screams.

But when the doomed relationship ends and the songwriter vanishes, Lila, who up until this point has presented herself as an independent woman, finds herself struggling, wanting to hear his music, the sound of his voice. For her, as well as the songwriter, it is hard to accept what is.

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Performance #3

Sopris Theatre Company

Amateurs by David Auburn

Politics and ethics collide when a young woman confronts an older politico about an attack ad he ran against her father years earlier that destroyed the father's career in Amateurs by David Auburn.

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Performance #4

Magic Circle Players

Sylvia by A. R. Gurney

Empty nesters, Greg and Kate have moved to Manhattan from the suburbs. Kate is looking forward to re-starting her career and the freedom to enjoy travel without children or pets. Greg is restless, tired of his job in finance and looking for meaning in his life when he finds Sylvia, a stray street-smart dog, in Central Park. As Greg’s life begins to revolve around Sylvia, Kate feels she is in competition for Greg’s attention and affection. A series of touching and hilarious complications put their marriage in jeopardy. It takes a psychologist, a dog-park encounter and a well-meaning friend to help them find their way through. Sylvia is a smart, silly and sophisticated comedy.

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