ActorsNET Presents Free Online Offering of DEAR BRUTUS

ActorsNET celebrates the holidays by premiering a free online video presentation of Dear Brutus - a fantasy drama for grownups by J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan.

The play's title comes from a line from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves..." Almost all the characters are at crossroads in their lives. "Who hasn't wondered how his or her life might be different if they had made different choices along the way?" asked ActorsNET Artistic Director Cheryl Doyle. "Who hasn't wondered how their careers or love lives might benefit from a second chance? Who hasn't pondered what might have been?"

Available starting December 23, 2020 on the ActorsNET YouTube page youtube.com/TheActorsNET, Dear Brutus was adapted by Board President Maryalice Rubins-Topoleski and Charlotte Kirkby. Actors and crew observed all precautions necessary during the pandemic. The first and third acts were recorded via Zoom and the second act was shot outdoors at Ridgeview Woods in Princeton, NJ.

Dear Brutus is the fanciful tale of an eccentric British horticulturalist named Lob, who invites five women and three of their spouses for a stay at his mansion, culminating on Midsummer's Eve. The guests don't know why they've been invited, and get no useful information from Lob's evasive butler, Matey. As night falls, their impish host challenges them to walk outside into his garden where, just beyond, a woodland magically appears. Uncertain but curious, the guests enter the wood, where each is shown how "a second chance" could change the course of their lives. Upon return to Lob's drawing room, each confronts the possibility of change.

The ensemble cast consists of (alphabetically) Ken Ammerman, Cheryl and Joe Doyle, Matt Duchnowski, Mary Kierst, Charlotte Kirkby, Michael Krahel, Nyiema Lunsford, Cat Miller, Nicholas Pecht, and Maryalice Rubins-Topoleski.