B. Someday Productions Presents CRIMINAL GENIUS at Walking Fish Theatre, Now thru 3/30

By: Mar. 06, 2013
Get Access To Every Broadway Story

Unlock access to every one of the hundreds of articles published daily on BroadwayWorld by logging in with one click.




Existing user? Just click login.

B. Someday Productions' presents the second show of its 2012-13 season of "Comedies about things that aren't funny" with CRIMINAL GENIUS by Canadian playwright, George F Walker. CRIMINAL GENIUS is part of the SUBURBAN MOTEL series by Walker, six plays all taking place in the same seedy motel room. Dates for the production run tonight, March 6-30, 2013.

Ticket prices are $20.00. Walking Fish Theatre is located at 2509 Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia, Penn. Tickets can be purchased online at www.walkingfishtheatre.com at no extra charge for the purchaser, or at the door. Members of the Press are invited to the Press Opening on Wednesday, March 13 @ 8:00 pm at Walking Fish Theatre, 2509 Frankford Avenue.

B. Someday Productions brings the entire cycle of SUBURBAN MOTEL to its theatre home, Walking Fish Theatre, over the course of three seasons. It began in June 2012 with the two plays FEATURING LORETTA and THE END OF CIVILIZATION, both directed by B. Someday Co-Artistic Director, Stan Heleva, and starring Co-Artistic Director, Michelle Pauls. The series continued with PROBLEM CHILD in November 2012.

There are four pay-what-you-can Preview Performances for CRIMINAL GENIUS on Wednesday-Saturday, March 6-9 at 8:00pm at Walking Fish Theatre, 2509 Frankford Avenue, Phila, PA 19125. Opening Night is Wednesday, March 13 @ 8:00pm. Tickets are $20, ticket specials available. Every Wednesday show is Pay-what-you-can. The show schedule is Wednesday through Saturday, all shows at 8:00pm, there is one Sunday matinee on March 24 @ 4:00pm.

Shirley hires father/son petty crook team Rolly and Stevie to torch a restaurant, but instead they kidnap Amanda, the chef, whose father Mike hired Shirley to torch the restaurant. Amanda escapes with the help of Stevie, who then helps her torch Mike's restaurant. Meanwhile, Rolly feels kind of bad about not torching the restaurant, so he goes back and does it, burning himself half-up in the process. Now Mike is really mad. Can anybody get out of Room 5 alive? Actors: Gina Martino, Peter Zielinski, Sarah Robinson, Lou Seitchik, and Aru Nagarajan.

George F Walker, inducted into the Order of Canada, is a playwright. He was a taxi driver when he heard that Factory Theatre in Toronto was looking for new authors. He sent them his first play, THE PRINCE OF NAPLES and the company performed it in 1972. Since then, the Factory has performed most of his plays, including remounts. These plays speak to something in the pulse of Kensington and Philadelphia. There is nothing pretentious about these characters-they exist to make the best of their lives with the hand they were dealt- an experience that is strikingly similar to that of Kensington inhabitants today. This profound relationship between the themes in Suburban Motel and the realities of living in the community where the play is being produced provides an important opportunity for B. Someday Productions to advance understanding for the struggles and opportunities of life in one of Philadelphia's most challenging neighborhoods.

This is the fourth of six forays for B. Someday and director Stan Heleva into George F. Walker's connected-by-location Suburban Motel series. In the skewed world of Suburban Motel, where the room itself is a character, unlikely suspects drag their broken lives into the dim light for us to gawk at for a moment, before sliding out under the door. The plays themselves, which have no prescribed order, are fiercely actor-driven, providing unique opportunities to go beyond all the way. Some of the characters appear in several plays, so the actors are challenged to portray the same characters in different circumstances and at different times of their lives.

When the actors make a connection with the audience, it creates an organic through line that will breathe life into the room for the audience. Like when you sleep in an Appalachian Trail bivouac, and you read the log books of all those who came through this year and the carvings in the floor and walls from all those who came through last year and the year before. It's like that when you sleep in a motel room, but we ignore or deny the connection. Maybe things have happened here we don't want to be connected to. But when you pull the Gideons' Bible from the nightstand, and you finger the pages you're mingling your DNA with all the others who have thumbed through it before. You can feel the energy, the desperation, fear, longing, etc. clinging to the greasy pages. We will bring that home to the audience. It will cling to them when they leave. It will mingle with their DNA, and they will be connected. Know it--or like it-- or not.

B. Someday Productions, a 501.c.(3) non-profit theatre-arts corporation, is a small independent producing and presenting theatre company, producing mainstage shows and cabaret productions, educational outreach programs, co-producing comedy, community and family theatre programs. B. Someday was honored with its first Barrymore Award for its outreach program, Of Mythic Proportions in 2010.

Established in 2007, Walking Fish Theatre, home to B. Someday Productions, is located in Kensington, on the Frankford Avenue Corridor of the Arts in Philadelphia. B. Someday is committed, within its community and beyond, to bringing and creating art on the Frankford Avenue Arts Corridor.

B. Someday Productions uses theatre, literature and myth to bring together artists and the community through the magic of live theatre. To that end, B. Someday celebrates tradition while renewing the creative process through producing theatre--original, adaptation and in existence--providing educational programs and operating the Walking Fish Theatre.



Videos