Pamela Parker's IMAGINE THIS Performed As A Staged Reading At Center For Performing Arts Bonita Springs

Coinciding with March as National Women's History Month and International Women's Day (March 8), Center for the Arts Bonita Springs (CFABS) will present Pamela Parker's poignant and hilarious IMAGINE THIS for a one-night only Staged Reading performance on Friday, March 16 at 6:30 PM.

IMAGINE THIS tells the story of The Traveler, an All-American Everywoman who feels her life as a displaced housewife needs professional redesign. She makes the radical decision to seek her truth on a Greyhound bus from the Deep South to Bedford, New York, her stopovers and her fellow passengers weave an American quilt of women's stories, sharing many of the same struggles and triumphs.

A variety of characters include a homeless schizophrenic, a para-Olympiad and a wild-eyed Christian tele-aerobics instructor/life coach. All will be revealed in Penn Station at the Gates of the Big Apple: It is never the destination, but the journey.

This third and final performance in CFABS's series of Staged Readings where audience have an opportunity to meet, greet and communicate with the playwright, director and cast.

Pamela is currently busy with the motion picture version of her award-winning Southern comedy Second Samuel, currently filming in Alabama and the Keys. She has put the Bonita Springs staged reading on her schedule and will fly in from Atlanta and will be on hand to meet the public.

Ms. Parker was born in a small mill town in Georgia and raised by grandparents who told stories about life in the rural South in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Despite having no educational background of any sort, Parker began writing plays in the late 1980s; the first three were one-act plays and all have been produced in New York and other cities. Second Samuel was her first full-length play. Dan Hulbert of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution named it the Best Original Play 1991-92. In 1995, Parker won the Southern Playwrights Competition at the Center for Southern Studies at Jacksonville State University in Alabama with A Higher Place in Heaven. In 1997, Pat Conroy invited Parker to the Southern Voices conference, Hoover, Alabama, to read from The Second Samueltonian-a collection of Parker's short stories. In 2010, Parker became an international playwright when Second Samuel was produced in Perth, Australia. Her other plays include Grass Widows, Why I Live at the P.O., Home for Christmas, and Tallulah and Hattie: Dead at the Pearly Gates Café. She resides in Atlanta, Georgia with her spouse, three dogs, and welcomes turtles and pigs whenever possible.

IMAGINE THIS is directed by Dr. Catalina Monterrosa an Emmy Award winner with many commercials and documentaries to her credit. She has directed a wide range of plays in American repertory theaters, off- and off-off- Broadway, as well as community theaters.

IMAGINE THIS will play Friday, March 16 at 6:30 pm at the Center for Performing Arts, 10150 Bonita Beach Road, Bonita Springs. Tickets are available by calling 239.495.8989.

Or at the website http://www.artcenterbonita.org/performances/stageread.html

Website: www.artcenterbonita.org

Tickets $15, 6:30 pm, Friday, March 16
Center for the Performing Arts Bonita Springs
10150 Bonita Beach Road