Up Next at JAN McART's: New Play Readings Series at Lynn University

In the hallowed halls of Lynn University's Wold Performing Arts Center, where the New York-bound "Daniel's Husband" began, they're buzzing about another new play - "A KING ! A PLOT! A GUN! A SHOT! And All That Followed (Quite a Lot!)," by Tony Finstrom.

Finstrom, the Associate Producer of 'Jan McArt's New Play Readings' series at Lynn, put together an early, cold reading of his new dramedy last week. It was one of those "private" affairs, but sources in the South Florida theatre world are mumbling the show is in great shape.

"I began by trying to write a play about the assassination of Sweden's King Gustav III," says Finstrom, "which took place at a masked ball on the stage of the Royal Opera House in Stockholm, back in 1792. But I've wound up writing two plays, it seems. And that's how I've spent my summer vacation!"

In 1859 Giuseppe Verdi wrote an opera that was very, very loosely based on this assassination, called 'A MASKED BALL,' and the Florida Grand Opera will be presenting it this spring in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

"That opera has a completely fictitious libretto, however, concerning a love triangle that never happened and, judging from the characters' names, I'd guess they'll probably be using the version that resets the plot in Colonial America.

"Anyway, I began to feel the play I was writing about, involving that Swedish murder, was perhaps too historical," Finstrom says. "So I decided to have some fun with it, and now it opens on the day after Verdi's opera had its world premiere in Rome. We're in the Italian home of famed American actress Charlotte Cushman (noted for play men's roles) who, with her household, reads through a new version of this story that claims to tell the scandalous, unvarnished truth about that King, that masked ball, that assassination. And Charlotte, naturally, plays the part of the King!"

For this early reading, Finstrom (whose ancestry happens to be Swedish and Italian) put together a cast of South Florida A-listers, most of whom will take part when the play is presented as a fully staged reading on Halloween night,October 31st, including Barbara Bradshaw, Angie Radosh, Patti Gardner, Elizabeth Price and Meredith Bartmon, as well as Iris Acker & Michael McKeever (subbing for cast members Jan McArt and Mike Westrich, who were unable to attend. The director, Wayne Rudisill, and Stage Manager Kristine Madden, were also present for the read-through.

Jan McArt, Florida's First Lady of Theater, and head of theater development at Lynn University, has been guiding her award-winning play reading series to astonighting success for the past four years.

Her mission with this play reading program? To develop new commercially entertaining plays by Florida playwrights.

Each year four new plays are rehearsed and rewritten over a period of six days. Then, on the sixth evening, they get presented, fully staged, at 7:30 PM in the 750-seat Keith C. and Elaine Johnson Wold Performing Arts Center on the Lynn campus, to an ever-growing, enthusiastic audience.

Upcoming plays to be presented in the new season also include 'THE LONG REUNION' by Jack Gilhooey, directed by Peter Pileski, on January 23rd, 2017; 'LOVE AND OTHER UNNATURAL ACTS' by Don Webster, directed byWayne Rudisill, on February 13th, 2017; and 'THE CAMP' by Michael McKeever, directed by Margaret M. Ledford, on March 6th, 2017.

Tickets to these four new staged readings are now on sale at the Four-Play Series Discounted Price of $36 (individual tickets for each play are also on sale at the cost of $10 each), and may be purchased at the Lynn University box office, online at http://events.lynn.edu/upcoming/live-at-lynn/new-play-readings, or by calling 561-237-9000.