TWTP Opens New Season With TRYING at Looby Theatre

The time is November, 1967, and a young woman has just been hired as a secretary for Judge Francis Biddle, Attorney General to Franklin Roosevelt, and famous as the former Chief Judge of the American Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Now 81 and in failing health, Judge Biddle is still a Main Line Philadelphia aristocrat. Sarah Schorr, the latest in a string of secretaries, is a plain-spoken 25 year old from the Canadian prairie town of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

That's the premise of Trying, by Joanna McClelland Glass, the 2011-12 season opener for Tennessee Women's Theater Project. The play is autobiographical, based on the playwright's own experience as secretary to Judge Biddle.

In an introduction to the script, Glass writes, "We spent our months together 'trying' to negotiate and span our enormous differences of youth and age, of class and culture."

According to TWTP founder and artistic director Maryanna Clarke, she chose Trying after scouring the catalogs of the major theatrical publishers, and reading dozens and dozens of published and unpublished scripts.

"A playwright asked me lately, what I look for in a script - am I attracted to a good dialog, a particular setting, or historical period," says Clarke. "What I look for is the relationships between the characters. To me, a play is worth a second look if it's not predictable, and if it makes me laugh or cry - preferably both! - I know a script is worth serious consideration if, as I read it, I can see it in my head, it comes alive in my mind's eye."

"Instead of settling for a cliché - the feisty young secretary versus the crabby old boss," Clarke, explains. "Trying offers two characters with real humanity. We can appreciate the humor in their back-and-forth, but we also sense their growing respect for one another."

Sarah is played by Keri Pisapia, returning for her third TWTP production. Keri played a series of characters in the company's 2008 presentation of Almost, Maine, and was memorable in 2007's Defying Gravity as Elizabeth, the daughter of Challenger astronaut Krista McAuliffe. That role was a particular challenge, because the actor portrays Elizabeth as a five-year-old and as an adult remembering her mother, who launched into space and never returned. Veggie Tales fans might recognize Keri: she's

the voice of Princess Poppyseed, among other characters, in the just-released The Princess and the Popstar.

Fred Mullen will make his Tennessee Women's Theater Project debut, playing Judge Biddle. Fred appeared as Lazar Wolf in the 2010 Boiler Room Theatre production of Fiddler on the Roof, and has worked frequently with Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theater, in roles ranging from Norman in On Golden Pond, to Santa Claus in Sarah and the Secret of Christmas.

For a complete schedule of 2011-2012 performance dates and times, reservations and information, call (615) 681-7220, or visit www.twtp.org.

Performance dates for Trying are September 30, October 1, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14 and 15, with a 7:30 p.m. curtain; 10:30 a.m. matinees are set for October 4 and 11; and 2:30 p.m. matinees will be staged October 2, 9 and 16, at The Z. Alexander Looby Theater, 2301 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard in Nashville. Tickets are $15 for adults; $12 for students/seniors (60+); all seats are $10 on Thursday nights.

For information and reservations, call (615) 681-7220.

Pictured: Keri Pisapia as Sarah, and Fred Mullen as Judge Francis Biddle, in the Tennessee Women's Theater Project production of Trying