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Bill Cosgriff, Artistic Director
American Renaissance Theatre Company
Deb Armelino, Actor, Singer
We are pleased to announce that there will be a new reading of .22 Caliber Mouth Tuesday February 23rd at the National Comedy Theater, 347 West 36th Street (between 8th and 9th Avenues) at 2:00 PM.
Directed by Steven Petrillo
Music Directed by Mark Fifer
Featuring Lauren Robert, Timothy Warmen, Rita Rehn, T. Oliver Reid and Kevin Loreque
Admission is free and open to the public. Limited seating.
Recently the director of The Fountain of Youth, Laughter on the 23rd Floor and the Off-Broadway premier of Sessions at Playwrights Horizons, Steven Petrillo has chosen to develop Lauren Robert’s .22 Caliber Mouth for a high profile New York Production.
Please see more about Steven at his site: StevenPetrillo.com.
We look forward to bringing you more information soon.
After careful consideration of numerous submissions, ACT 1 SCENE 6, from .22 Caliber Mouth, featuring the song DON’T KISS ME, was chosen by The American Renaissance Theater Company for inclusion in their annual Spring Reading Series.
Auditions were recently held at Roy Arias studios in the city for the role of “Colin” to perform with writer, Lauren Robert who will be playing the role of “Deanne“.
The response to the Breakdown posting was enormous, and from that original response 15 extremely talented actors were asked to come in and read.
Rehearsals for the June 1st performance begin this coming week.
Musical accompaniment to Don’t Kiss Me in the scene will be provided by brilliant jazz guitar great, Ed Cherry formerly of Dizzy Gillespie’s Band. Lauren and Ed have shared the stage in the past as headliners for the Sedona-Jazz On the Rocks Music Festival and the Cotton Club.
See details for The ARTC 2009 Spring Reading Series Announcement
For Reservations call 212-560-2377 or email: rsvpartc@gmail.com
I don’t believe there is any age limit on searching for or finding answers for a way to make some bearable peace with our stay on this earth.
I am not a cheerful spirit. I am young and old. I am emotionally hobbled and I am far far wiser than my years. As are the five flailing characters of my play. Yes, though people experience me as fun, funny and loving (at times) my view of life is that it can be the cruelest teaching device, beyond brilliant in its hellish challenges. I believe the elusive spirits of fun and love show up whenever the hell they want despite our prompts or beseeching and likewise do the demons.
That is why Tim Warmen’s contributions to this project have been such a blessing to me. He understands everything, but his beliefs are intact.
We met when he was called back to play the role of Colin in the Ohio Theater workshop. His audition was stunning and he had the sensibilities to back it up. His passion for my work translated into brilliant suggestions and advice. His questions brought needed light and depth to many scenes and many songs. “Where is the humor between these two? Where is her tenderness? Isn’t it really family they all yearn for?” Like many collaborators, our fights were renown, but we believe in each other.
As many writers will tell you, this play wrote itself. I was the conduit, yes. I have always been an actor and singer and it is from this perspective that I began to write. .22 Caliber Mouth is my most recent play with music and the one that cut closest to the bone.
The lead character, Deanne chose an innocuous day, without any dramatic explosions (for a change) as the right time to begin to express her difficult story to me. Though we have certain similarities, this play is not about me. It did not happen to me quite this way. I believe that most cogent, intelligent self-examining females will understand certain aspects of Deanne and her sister Ronnie. Though they are quite different, each shares traits that resonate in all of us who have hungered for love.
In my life, like so many, I have gone to the greatest self–sacrificing lengths to avoid the existential, to outrun the dark menace of loneliness that loiters just outside the apartment door after “he” leaves. God Bless those who have embraced solitude with poise and brave pursuit, in silent self-commune, in a ballet of thought, deed and grace, of life with vitality undeterred by broken heart.
I, on the other hand, battered by betrayal, the sting and stun of a fresh divorce, acute bouts of lovesickness and so many walks on the wild side that I should be dead… well, I’m scarred for life. What scars I didn’t get from this world I inherited through the zeitgeist of both the blood and the word.
So I write from this place, this conundrum. I do have hope and a passionate desire for love and a longing for life to come out right. Perhaps this is why these characters chose me.
I love them.
Because they try so hard.
Lauren
