Matt Sanford News

Ironweed Productions celebrates its 15th anniversary and launches its 2020 Season with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker's comically off-beat and gently moving play, The Aliens, opening March 5th.

Towards the end of her one woman show, Hidden Treasure: A Georgian Immigrant's Story, Ketevan Kharshiladze Ussery speaks about a workplace conflict. She details her anger and frustration with the given situation, and then, after a realization, about attaining peace. 'This is theatre,' she simply says of the conflict, and indeed, life, and with that new perspective, proceeds on. Though Ms. Ussery's show details her process of moving from Georgia to the states, and eventually El Rito, New Mexico, the way in which she describes her experiences - through the lens of someone who has dedicated their life to the theatre - is simple proof that the human experience transcends national borders.

I am, in general, a huge fan of new works. There just seems to be this sense of vitality and urgency in original plays - the feeling that someone HAD to tell this story; and that kind of passion and need for expression has led to some of my favorite theatrical experiences. As of last night, Just Say It Theater's production of The Big Heartless can be added to that list. This new play, written by local playwright Dale Dunn, was a semi-finalist in the 2016 Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to see it in Santa Fe, cast with local talent and directed by the always excellent Lynn Goodwin.

'Some people's lives, they seem to go easy, don't they? In a straight line, floatin' down a river with the breeze at their backs. Others, like mine, like yours, well, not such a straight line. There's no explaining it or trying to figure it out…It just is. It's big. It's big and it's heartless.'