Cast Announced For World Premiere ON PINE KNOLL STREET

The American Association of Community Theatre and The Sauk, Hillsdale County's Community Theatre, are pleased to announce the cast of the AACT NewPlayFest winning play, On Pine Knoll Street by Mark Cornell. The world premiere will open February 7 and run through February 16, 2020. Tickets are available at thesauk.org or by calling the box office at 517-849-9100.

In On Pine Knoll Street, Thelma, a colorful and quick-witted 87-year old woman, is battling with her memory. Her devoted daughter, Marilyn, with whom she now lives, is trying to make the best of the situation. Curtis, her neighbor, is a writer and stay-at-home father of a special-needs child. His wife, Kristie, struggles to balance family and work. When Marilyn asks Curtis to care for her mother and her beloved cats while she is at the beach, a friendship is set into motion that tethers two families. Set in a small town in North Carolina, On Pine Knoll Street is an intimate look at the joy and fragility of life, the meaning of home, and the things we do for love.

The cast is composed of Trinity Bird as Curtis, Anne Conners as Thelma, MJ Dulmage as Marilyn, Keegan Oxley as Mitchell and Andrea Ortell as Kristie. Bird was last seen at The Sauk as the Ghost of Christmas Present in A Christmas Carol. Dulmage most recently directed The Sauk's production of The Sunshine Boys. Oxley most recently portrayed Sam in Lord of the Flies. Ortell was featured in the ensemble of the 2019 production of The Laramie Project. Conners makes her Sauk mainstage debut although she has appeared in Sauk Short and "Plays-in-Development." The cast is unchanged from a two-week workshop reading of On Pine Knoll Street in July 2019.

The production is directed by Bird with stage management by Allison Cleveland. The production team consists of Bruce Crews (set design), Roene Trevisan (costume design), Tracy McCullough (light design), Cyndi Baldermann (set dressing), Travis Blatchley (properties design), Joella Hendrickson (sound design) and Shannon Chen (assistant stage manager).

Performances are at 8 p.m. February 7, 8, 13-15 with 3 p.m. matinees on February 9 and 16. All performances take place at the Sauk Theatre, 240 E. Chicago St. in Jonesville, Mich. Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors (55 and up) and students (with a valid i.d.) and $8 for children (12 and under). Tickets can be purchased at www.thesauk.org or by calling 517-849-9100. A "Pay What You Can" preview will be performed at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 6. Preview tickets are not sold in advance. The February 13 performance is $5 senior night.

AACT NewPlayFest addresses the critical need for new, high-quality plays for community theatre audiences around the globe. This AACT playwriting competition is unique with the guarantee that an established theatre will produce each play as a world premiere, and that Dramatic Publishing Company will publish the script in an anthology of winning plays. Dramatic Publishing, one of the major licensers of plays and musicals in the United States and beyond, includes the winning plays in their catalog and licenses the performance rights.

The AACT NewPlayFest world premiere production of On Pine Knoll Street by Mark Cornell at The Sauk is made possible in part by a grant from the Jack K. Ayre and Frank Ayre Lee Theatre Foundation, created by the children of Frank Ayre Lee as a tribute to their father, and a legacy for the creative endeavors of his cousin Jack, who participated in theatre productions at Drew University in New Jersey and at a community theatre in Connecticut in his younger years. Mr. Lee was also an avid aficionado of theatre and had dabbled in playwriting. The family is pleased to honor both men through a lasting legacy promoting new works for theatre through AACT NewPlayFest.