John Holleman's POKERFACE Opens at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater on July 5 for Two Weekend Run

Cris Cunningham, Andrew Gumm and Henry Gottfried star in John Holleman's Pokerface, running at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater July 5-14. Following the Nashville run, Holleman reports that Pokerface-an adaptation of his 1996 play Fish or Cut Bait-will travel north for a brief Chicago run.

As Fish or Cut Bait, the play was produced at several theaters around the country after its original 1996 production in Nashville that was directed by Robert Kiefer and produced by Darkhorse Theater and Mockingbird Public Theater. Subsequently, the play was performed at several theaters around the country, including college and regional theaters.

For Pokerface, Holleman directs his three-member cast in a new revision of his original work. "This is a script that I've tinkered with for years between writing other scripts," Holleman says.

"The current draft reflects workshop influences from the Sewanee Writers Conference in 2009 under the eye of the late playwright Romulus Linney, as well as readings at the Clarence Brown Theater in Knoxville and the Atlantic Theater Company in Manhattan. Tinkering is fine, and readings have their value, but nothing compares to a production. Actors applying their energy in rehearsal and then in front of an audience is the only genuine test of a script's value."

Holleman's most recent original play was an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning writings of ant biologists, E.O. Wilson and Bert Hölldobler. Written for students at St. Andrew's-Sewanee School, the play was literally a staged nature documentary presented as an amalgam of movement-theater and spoken word performance art.

Cris Cunningham is a film producer and director from Indiana with a strong background in theater. This is his debut stage performance in Nashville. Andrew Gumm is also a filmmaker, though he has extensive experience in improve comedy. University School of Nashville alumus Henry Gottfried is a Nashville native currently enrolled at Yale University. He has performed with the Wishing Chair Productions, the Nashville Public Library's renowned puppet theater.

Tickets for Pokerface are $10, with performances on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings, July 5-7 and July 12-14. Curtain is at 7:30 p.m. each evening. For reservations or additional information, email jholleman@sasweb.org.

Pictured: Cris Cunningham