Nursery Crimes by Greg Klein, Last Act Theatre Company at Dougherty Arts Center, November 8 - 24, 2013

by Michael Meigs

Sara Cormier, David Boss (photo: Will Hollis Snider)

David Boss with his resonant baritone and weary dead-pan styling makes a fine Philip Marlowe, or, in acknowledgment of the film noir inspiration for playwright Greg Klein and the company, a good Bogey. 

Klein's play is an homage to that very distinctive style, so much so that the first half of the Kickstarter promo video was a 1940s-style dramatization with first-person narration, video-recorded in stark black and white by director Will Hollis Snider.

You could write a straight film noir play script and make it work; you could even do a parody version that could amuse both film buffs and the casual public. 

Klein's choice is different. He's soberly respectful of the genre as he mines his Mother Goose for characters. The protagonist sleuth is Jack Horner, and he's certainly sitting in his corner while his good-natured seen-it-all secretary Donna (presumably Mother) Hubbard (Peggy Schott) laboriously types his reports and answers his phone.


Sara Cormier is the attractive bad news that comes his way, asking for help. She's Bo Peep, and her sheep have disappeared. Her father's the farmer Old MacDonald (Travs Bedard). We run across some baddies, Jack (D. Heath Thompson) and Jill (Elena Weinberg), who use the cheerful dolt Humphrey aka Humpty (Bobby DiPasquale) for some of their bad business. Peggy Schott checks in also as Marjorie Daw; Bedard as the gruff avuncular cop Guy Blue; DiPasquale as Peter Piper; and Mary quite contrary (Weinberg) is hopelessly dependent upon her drug dealer boyfriend King Cole (Thompson). While the sleuth's nosing around through the underworld he runs across the three blind mice (DiPasquale, Thompson and Bedard). Double crosses, bad temper, murder, the big shadowy metropolis. You know. The city that never sleeps and kept hick middle-class America on the edge of its cinema seats.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

NURSERY CRIMES by Greg Klein, Last Act Theatre Company at the Dougherty Arts Center, November 8 - 24, 2013

presents

Nursery Crimes

Sara Cormier, David Boss (poster photo: Will Hollis Snider)

Written by Greg Klein

Directed by Will Hollis Snider

November 8 - 24

Thursdays - Saturdays at 8:00 p.m, Sundays at 2:00 p.m.

*Saturday, Nov. 9 and Friday, Nov. 15 are artist benefit nights. All ticket and concession sales go to the cast, crew and other artists who made this show possible.
*Thursday, Nov. 14 and Sunday, Nov. 17 are “pay what you can” shows.

Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Road, Austin, TX 78704

Tickets are $15. Student tickets are $12 with valid student ID. Tickets can be purchased online at https://secure.buyplaytix.com/lastacttheatre/reserve/nursery_crimes.html and at the door. Attendees can also reserve seats online and still pay at the door. Last Act Theatre Company accepts all major credit cards, cash and 

 checks.

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep and she doesn’t know where to find them. So, she turns to private eye Jack Horner to crack the case. But will it turn out to be more than he bargained for?

Quick dialogue moves this story full of childhood characters from what seems to be a humble beginning through a series of twists and turns, in a grown-up tale of murder, deceit and mystery.

Cast
David Boss - Jack Horner
Sara Cormier - Bo Peep
Peggy Schott - Donna Hubbard and Marjorie Daw
Elena Weinberg - Jill and Mary Contrary
Travis Bedard - Thomas McDonald, Guy Blue and Blind Mouse
Heath Thompson – Jack, Cole Kingsley and Blind Mouse
Bobby DiPasquale - Humpty Dumpty, Peter Piper and Blind Mouse

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Funding Appeal: Nursery Crimes by Greg Klein, Last Act Theatre Company

Kickstarter funding appeal for $5000 to help fund






production of
Nursery Crimes
by Greg Klein

via





[click Kickstarter logo to go to info/donations page]

Last Act Theatre Company is a local Austin theatre company that aims to produce works promoting local and independent artists. Nursery Crimes, written by Greg Klein, will mark the final play of our third full season, and will be directed by the talented and handsome Will Hollis Snider. Last Act has continued to grow with each production, and Nursery Crimes will be no different, taking place at the Dougherty Arts Center, November 7–24.

Nursery Crimes is a stylized crime noir parody using nursery rhyme characters. Bo Peep has lost her sheep, and it's up to Private Eye Jack Horner to find them. Quick dialogue moves the story from what seems a humble and straightforward beginning to a series of twists and turns, as these childhood characters are all grown up in this tale of deceit, murder, and mystery.

Auditions for Nursery Crimes by Greg Klein, Last Act Theatre Company, June 1 and 3 2013

Last Act Theatre Co. is seeking multiple actors of all ages and races for the premiere of their stylized crime noir, Nursery Crimes, and holding auditions over two days on Saturday, June 1, 10am – 2pm at the Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Rd (click for map )and on June 3, 6pm – 8:30pm at the Carver Library, 1165 Angelina (click for map ). Two audition times are available for actors that may have conflicts on either days. Callbacks will take place the following week, on June 8 and 10, same respective times.


Bo Peep has lost her sheep, and it’s up to Jack Horner to find them. While not his usual fare, Private Eye Jack Horner is a sucker for a damsel in distress. What seems like an open and shut case about a few missing sheep spirals into a world of deceit, murder, and mystery. Nursery Crimes features the gritty, underbelly versions of characters like Jack Horner, Bo Peep, and Humpty Dumpty that have no idea they are the subject of children’s poems.

Actors should bring a headshot and resume and come prepared with a one minute monologue.


Please email lastacttheatre@gmail.com to reserve an audition slot.


Rehearsals will begin in late September. Nursery Crimes is a brand new play, so the script will be workshopped between now and September. Actors will have the chance to help define their characters as well as help refine the pacing and dialogue of the script. Actors should ideally be available for one rehearsal a week between now and September.


Nursery Crimes runs November 7th - 24th at the Dougherty Arts Center, and is written by Greg Klein and will be directed by Will Hollis Snider. Compensation may be provided. Details to be determined.

Click to read a list of characters & descriptions at AustinLiveTheatre.com

Upon A Midnight Dreary, Last Act Theatre Company, July 14 - 23

Edgar Allan Poe is a deceptively attractive figure for theatre makers. We've all read with a delicious shiver his best-known short stories. His themes of death, madness and mystery are so very elemental that they have never gone out of style. The elaborate early 19th century style of his poetry may be a challenge, but the simple sardonics of his short stories, often in first person, appeal to our desire for intensity.

As long as you're doing your own adaptation or interpretation, you don't have any royalties to pay, either, since the dissolute Mr. Poe collapsed on the streets of Baltimore in 1849 and died shortly thereafter.

The newly established Last Act Theatre Company has a genesis typical of ambitious young theatre groups in Austin. Five of the six members of the board are theatre graduates of Texas A&M Corpus Christi. They got started in Austin last October with Theatre de Grand Guignol at the Hideout Theatre and they have announced three more works for 2011-2012: a modern adaptation of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and original scripts by Gary Jaffe and by Bretton B. Holmes.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .