Trustus Dedicates All of August to New Works

By: May. 31, 2014
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The entire month of August 2014 will be dedicated to the creation of original works at Trustus Theatre. The month will kick off with the world premiere of the 2013 winner of the Trustus Playwrights' Festival: Deborah Brevoort's The Velvet Weapon. The show will open August 8th at 8:00pm, and run through August 16, 2014. Trustus will host a reading of the winning script from the 2014 Trustus Playwrights' Festival on August 16th at 2:00pm.

The month will close with Jasper Magazine and Trustus Theatre's new local works festival: Premieres. This festival will run August 20th through the 24th, and will bring the southeastern premiere of Terrance Henderson's theatre/dance piece The Black Man...Complex and the world premiere of the concert version of The Restoration's Constance to Trustus. The festival will close on August 24th with FEST 24, a theatre festival where five new 10 minute plays will be written and produced in 24 hours.

ABOUT THE TRUSTUS PLAYWRIGHTS' FESTIVAL:

The Trustus Playwrights' Festival is a national contest culminating in the professional world premier of an original play. Now in its 25th year, its one of America's longest-running play festivals. Since 1988, many of our winners have been published and produced off-Broadway, in Hollywood or at the Actors Theatre of Louisville.

The winning script from 2013 was Deborah Brevoort's The Velvet Weapon which will receive a full production in August of 2014 directed by Trustus Artistic Director Dewey Scott-Wiley. The show will run August 8 - 16, 2014. The winning script of 2014's Trustus Playwrights' Festival will have a public reading at 2:00pm on August 16.

The Velvet Weapon: At the National Theatre of an unnamed country, in an unnamed city, a matinee audience rises up in protest over what is being performed on stage, and demands something new. They begin a performance of their own of "The Velvet Weapon," a play by an unproduced playwright of questionable talent. Inspired by the Velvet Revolution in the former Czechoslovakia, The Velvet Weapon is a humorous exploration of populist democracy told through a battle between high-brow and low-brow art.

About Deborah Brevoort: Deborah Brevoort is a playwright and librettist from Alaska who now lives in the New York City area. She is an alumna of New Dramatists, one of the original company members of Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, Alaska and a co-founder of Theatre Without Borders, a group of individual artists dedicated to international theatre exchange.

She is best known for her play The Women of Lockerbie, which won the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays Award and the silver medal in the Onassis International Playwriting Competition. It was produced in London at the Orange Tree, off-Broadway at the New Group and Women's Project and in Los Angeles at the Actors Gang and Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum. It has been produced all over the US and internationally in Scotland, Japan, Greece, Spain, Poland, Belarus, Australia, and has been translated into seven languages. Published by DPS, the play has had over 350 productions to date.

ABOUT PREMIERES:

Jasper Magazine and Trustus Theatre present a festival of new local works.

THE BLACK MAN...COMPLEX: AUGUST 20 & 22, 2014. 8:00pm

Artist/ Choreographer Terrance Henderson presents the South Carolina premiere of his latest original work, The Black Man...Complex. This evening-length work tackles the complexity of Identity. A conversation between ethnicity, sexuality, and society told through the voices of four distinct characters: "The Brotha", "The Stereotype", "Mandingkandre", and "The Mighty Real".These voices weave an episodic journey of Identity in search of a sacred place. A tapestry of movement, sound, and images with original text and choreography by Henderson including a wide variety of music from artists like Nina Simone, Radiohead, John Legend, T-Pain, and Funkadelic. The Black Man...Complex is intended for mature audiences. Terrance Henderson is the 2013 Jasper Artist of the Year in Dance.

THE RESTORATION'S CONSTANCE: AUGUST 21 & 23, 2014. 8:00pm

"Constance" is a critically acclaimed concept album by local band The Restoration that took the Columbia music scene by storm. Bringing a unique mix of Americana and Folk music to the Capital City, this album tells a southern gothic story in the Faulknerian tradition. Now, Trustus hosts a first-rate concert version of this album conceived and created by Daniel Machado of the Restoration and director Chad Henderson. A full-cast of Columbia's best known musical theatre artists and The Restoration themselves will be bringing this story to the stage.

The Restoration's Constance is a multi-generational cautionary tale, told through historical fiction. Set between the late 1800s and 1930s in Lexington, South Carolina, Constance focuses on the fictional Constance Owen, an unrealized musical prodigy born to poor cotton farmers several years after the American Civil War. Her eventual union with Aaron Vale, a carpenter and musician of mixed race from Chicago, and the birth of their son, Thomas, plants a seed of discriminative hate in the surrounding community, bringing about the bankrupting of her family by the affluent Palmers, the related death of her husband, and the burying of her creative aspirations. Years later, Thomas' nihilistic vengeance against the Palmers sets off a cataclysmic series of violent events, as the South and the rest of the world plunge into the Great Depression.

This performance will be the first step towards turning this album into a full stage production over the next couple of years. Experience it first this August!

Conceived and created by Daniel Machado and Chad Henderson. Directed by Chad Henderson.

FEST 24: AUGUST 24th 8:00pm

FEST 24 is a 24-hour theatre festival where 5 playwrights, 5 directors, and 20 actors will bring five new 10-minute shows from page to stage in twenty-four hours.

Trustus Theatre is located at 520 Lady Street, behind the Gervais St. Publix. Parking is available on Lady St. and on Pulaski St. The Main Stage entrance is located on the Publix side of the building.

For more information or reservations call the box office Tuesdays through Saturdays 1-6 pm at 803-254-9732. Visit www.trustus.org for all show information and season information.



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