Simply Theatre! Hosts Play Readings By The Armonk Players, Meet Norman Barasch

Please join us for a reading of a new play, Family Secrets, and meet with the playwright Norman Barasch. Mr. Barasch is a three-time Emmy nominated television comedy writer and the author of two Broadway shows, Make a Million and Send Me No Flowers, which later became a hit movie starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day. His newly published memoir, The Joy of Laughter: My Life as a Comedy Writer, takes readers on his personal journey from the impoverished depths of the Great Depression to the top of his profession. He helped produce laugh lines and sketches for numerous comedy stars, from gagster Henny Youngman, Fred Allen, Herb Shriner during the heyday of radio to Danny Kaye, Carol Burnett, Dom DeLuise, Alan King, Nathan Lane, Valerie Harper, for the Benson and Rhoda television series, and countless others stars of variety shows and sitcoms. His book provides a close-up, behind-the-scenes look at professional and personal shenanigans of the show business community from Broadway to Beverly Hills.

Synopsis: A playwright decides to write a play about the death of his daughter, emotionally unable to deal with his grief in any other way. When in the course of directing the play the vulnerable playwright is lured into an affair with an aggressive young actress, life suddenly parallels art.

Please join us for a reception and book-signing following the play reading and questions and answers with Mr. Barasch. This promises to be a wonderful and entertaining evening. Hope to see you there!

Joanne Hudson (director) is a Fulbright Fellow in Creative Writing to Iceland for her play UNBIDDEN now archived in the Literature of the Westmann Islands at the Vestmannaeyjar Iceland Library. She has directed much of her own work on stages in NYC and regionally as well as Suzan Lori Parks 365 PLAYS IN 365 DAYS at Barnard College and the upcoming MISS JULIE by August Strindberg at Saltbox Theatre's Salty Women Festival where she is now Producing Director.She holds an MFA in Theatre from Columbia University.
Danielle Di Vecchio has an extensive television and theatrical background which includes appearing as Tony's "other" sister, Barbara, on HBO's The Sopranos; on Fox's Prison Break and Ugly Betty; The Brave One; All My Children: One Life to Live; Another World, and The Guiding Light. She has performed at various theatres throughout NYC and regionally including, Second Stage, Playwrights Horizons, The Lark, H.E.R.E., Studio Arena Theater, Stamford Theatre Works, At Hand Theatre and has performed live at Town Hall, NYC with Garrison Keillor on NPR's A Prairie Home Companion. Danielle has also appeared in several indies and feature films. She has studied with Seth Barrish at The Barrow Group, E. Katherine Kerr and Morris Carnovsky. She is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she received a B.A. in Theater in English. Aside from acting, her other passion is baking biscotti. Visit www.biscottidivecchio.com to check it out! She lives in New York City.

Nick Maccarone just completed his six-week run at The Flea Theater as a young company member (The Bats) in 'The Great Recession.' He had the wonderful privilege of working with Adam Rapp in his original piece entitled, Classic Kitchen Timer, as well as Thomas Bradshaw's piece, 'New York Living.' He is thrilled to be working with Joanne Hudson. Nick holds an M.F.A. in theater from Columbia University's School of the Arts.
Reyna de Courcy -Recent theatre includes Monstrosity (13P), Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom (32nd Annual Humana Festival, and SPF 2008). The Secret Agenda of Trees (Push Productions). 12th Night of the Living Dead (Impetuous Theater Group). Other projects: The Bounty Hunter (Columbia Pictures), Bored to Death (HBO), Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar Games), Asbury Park (dir Eileen Myers), Law & Order: SVU. As a producer: Bell Book & Candy (Gravity & Glass Productions) and Boom: Love at the End of the World (Drove Theater Co).

Ralph Elias has acted on regional theatre stages, Off-Broadway, and as a guest artist for university theatre programs, as well as having directed 32 professional productions. In 2008 he played three roles in the world premiere of Rocket City at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and won critical plaudits in San Diego for his performance in A Shayna Maidel at North Coast Repertory Theatre. Regional credits include Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? at the San Diego Repertory Theatre, the Old Globe Theatre's American premiere of Alan Ayckbourn's Mr. A's Amazing Maze Plays, The Chosen at North Coast Rep and a season at Washington's Arena Stage, performing opposite Dianne Wiest in The Dybbuk and with Robert Prosky in Death of a Salesman. He has performed with Trinity Rep, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Maryland Shakespeare Festival, and San Diego's Blackfriars Theatre; in New York he performed with The Open Space Theatre and at Equity Library Theatre. Mr. Elias has been a guest director for the internationally acclaimed Maxim Gorky Theatre of Vladivostok, Russia since 1994, staging Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke, Harold Pinter's Betrayal, and Romeo and Juliet (2005). From 1988 to 1995 he was artistic director of Blackfriars Theatre. In 1993 his unique staging of Beth Henley's Abundance became the first American production ever to tour Far-Eastern Russia. Other acclaimed productions include innovative stagings of Sam Shepard's The Unseen Hand and I. B. Singer's Teibele And Her Demon, the west coast premiere of The Puppetmaster of Lodz, John Patrick Shanley's Danny and the Deep Blue Sea and Donald Margulies' Sight Unseen, as well as The Glass Menagerie and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Simply Theatre!
Play Readings By The Armonk Players
Family Secrets
by Norman Barasch
directed by Joanne Hudson
with Reyna de Courcy, Danielle Di Vecchio, Ralph Elias and Nick Maccarone
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 8pm
Whippoorwill Hall of the North Castle Public Library
19 Whippoorwill Road East, Armonk, NY 10504 (the entrance is on Kent Place)
Admission: Free (voluntary donations cheerfully accepted)

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