WHAT IS ART?, COLE PORTER AND FRIENDS and More Set for American Stage's 'After Hours' Series, Nov 2013

American Stage Theatre Company's "After Hours" Series continue with five events, Hawk and Wayne's It's a Living!, What is Art?, The Vagina Monologues, Cole Porter & Friends, and Longtime Companion in November. We have everything from cabaret music to a benefit series for a S.A.T.P fundraiser!

SUNDAY COMEDY SERIES:
Hawk and Wayne's It's a Living!
An Improv Comedy Show Based on Work Experiences
Sunday, November 3 @ 6pm
(NEW TIME & NEW SHOW for the 13-14 SEASON)

Inspired by an audience member's suggestion of their place of employment, Hawk and Wayne will take you through an unscripted, hilarious, improvised stream of consciousness complete with bizarre employees, workplace politics and corporate shenanigans with wit, surrealism and non-stop laughs! First Sunday of every month running through August 2014.

ABOUT HAWK AND WAYNE:

GAVIN HAWK is a native of the Los Angeles area. He trained in improvisation and sketch comedy at The Second City and The Annoyance Theatre in Chicago. In addition to improvisation, he currently serves as Artistic Director of A Simple Theatre in St. Petersburg. Acting credits include Barefoot in the Park and The Foreigner (American Stage), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (freeFall Theatre), Hate Mail (Studio@620), Cider House Rules: Parts I & II (California Repertory Company), Gross Indecency (Huntington Theatre) and Over the Tavern II: King O' The Moon (Studio Arena/Pittsburgh Public). He is the Associate Professor of Theatre at Eckerd College and a graduate of The Juilliard School. Gavin is a proud member of Actors' Equity Association.

Ricky Wayne trained in sketch comedy and improvisation at the famed Groundlings in Los Angeles. Local theatre credits include Opus with (American Stage), Congratulations, Joe! (A Simple Theatre), and Speed-the-Plow (Tampa Bay Players). Some film credits include Real Steel, The Chaos Experiment, SWAT: Firefight, Free Ride, Love and Honor, and Who is Delsin? Television credits include Revolution, Army Wives, The Glades, Charlie's Angels, Treme, Burn Notice, and the new ABC series, Reckless. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA and Actors' Equity Association and currently is on the Board of Directors for the Gasparilla International Film Festival. He was raised in the San Francisco East Bay.

Together, HAWK AND WAYNE, combine a unique mixture of the Chicago and West Coast long-form improvisation styles through Hawk's training at Second City Chicago and Wayne's training at Los Angeles' Groundlings. They are currently in their fifth year in residence at Tampa Bay's largest Equity theatre company, American Stage in St. Petersburg, where they have done year long runs of their critically acclaimed shows: The Dumb Show, 321, The Memory, and News of the Weird: Live. They have performed at numerous festivals, Comedy Clubs and theaters throughout the Southeast. Like them out on Facebook at www.facebook.com/hawkandwayne. They both founded and are directors/educators of American Stage Education's Intensive Improvisation Program.

Tickets: $10 ticket purchase. Performed in our lobby cabaret, where of course, there will be full cash bar service for all our patrons.

THE EMERGING MASTERS PLAYREADING SERIES: (NEW)
What is Art?
By Bill Leavengood
A New Playreading Series by One Selected American Playwright
Monday, November 4 @ 7pm

Art is a lovable Casanova with no other talent than the ability to lie and pass himself off as someone else to the beautiful women he falls for. But he bites off more than he can chew when he impersonates a controversial abstract artist in order to woo a French art devotee. For the artist (hence, Art) has been marked for death by the leader of a fanatic Eastern religious sect offended by his perverse, though abstract, image in the artist's work. Complications mount as a scheming art manager, a ruthless dictator, an uptight sister, a shy super, a manic-depressive sculptor, a fanatic assassin, an NEA official, and Art's dotty, fun-loving mother are thrown into the mix. Will Art find his true calling and love, or become a martyr for his cause? WHAT IS ART? premiered as part of the Reflections Festival of New Plays at the GeVa Theater in Rochester, NY and the at the Court Theater in Los Angeles starring Beverly Hills 91210 star, Ian Ziering.

Tickets: "Pay-What-You-Can" $15 advance ticket purchase (Suggested donation $10-$20 at the door.) Performed in our lobby cabaret.

CABARET DRAMA SERIES:
The Vagina Monologues
by Eve Ensler
A Smash Hit Returns with New Cast Members this Month
Saturday, November 9 @ 8 pm
Featuring American Stage's Volunteer All-Stars

Obie Award-winner Eve Ensler's whirlwind tour of a forbidden zone: The Vagina Monologues introduces a wildly divergent gathering of female voices, including a six-year-old girl, a septuagenarian New Yorker, a vagina workshop participant, a woman who witnesses the birth of her granddaughter, and a feminist happy to have found a man who "liked to look at it."

Tickets: "Pay-What-You-Can" $15 advance ticket purchase (Suggested donation $10-$20 at the door.) Performed in our lobby cabaret, where of course, there will be full cash bar service for all our patrons.

CABARET MUSIC SERIES: (NEW)
Cole Porter and Friends
Be Transported and Experience the Magical Sounds of the 20s
Friday & Saturday, November 15 and 16 at 8pm
Sunday, November 17 at 6pm
Featuring: Paul Wilborn on piano and vocals, Eugenie Bondurant on vocals, and Frank Bowman on woodwinds

You're invited to an intimate Parisian party with Cole and his musical friends. Sitting down at the piano will be songwriters who visited and encouraged Cole during the 1920s in Paris. You'll hear songs by Noel Coward, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Richard Rodgers. Plus lots of great Cole Porter tunes.

Tickets: "Pay-What-You-Can" $15 advance ticket purchase (Suggested donation $10-$20 at the door.) Performed in our lobby cabaret, where of course, there will be full cash bar service for all our patrons.

BENEFIT SERIES: S.A.T.P FUNDRAISER (NEW-ONE NIGHT ONLY)
Presents Prelude to World AIDS Day: Longtime Companion
By Craig Lucas
Understanding the Past in Order to Live a Better Future
Monday, November 25 at 7:30pm

The emergence and devastation of the AIDS epidemic is chronicled in the lives of several gay men living during the 1980s and deals with the subject of AIDS, the screenplay takes its title from the words The New York Times used to describe the surviving same-sex partner of someone who had died of AIDS during the 1980s.

In 1990 AIDS was seen as a mysterious and deadly scourge, replete with rumors, lies, and panic. This staged reading places the disease in an historical context, dramatizing the impact of the disease through time in a series of vignettes involving seven gay men. AIDS first made its presence felt surreptitiously, as an article in The New York Times reported on a rare cancer attacking gay men called Karposi's syndrome. Then the Village Voice began a series of in-depth articles concerning a "gay plague" which later became known as AIDS. The film follows the AIDS crisis through the lives of the seven main characters so that they are only aware of AIDS in the historical framework of each episode.

Willie, a personal trainer and his friend John are spending time with affluent gay couple David and Sean at their beach house on Fire Island for the 4th Of July. Sean is a screenwriter for the popular daytime soap opera, Other People and David comes from a blue blood background and has a large trust fund. Back in the city, Howard is preparing to audition for Sean's soap. His boyfriend is Paul a business executive and their next-door neighbor is Lisa, whose brother Fuzzy is a lawyer who represents Howard.

That morning, The New York Times publishes its first article about the rise of a new "gay cancer" The news spreads as friends call each other. Some are immediately concerned, others dismissive.

This performance will benefit PWA (People with AIDS) programs at Metropolitan Charities of Pinellas.

Suncoast AIDS Theatre Project is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization whose mission is to raise awareness, provide assistance, and perpetuate a life of dignity for those affected and infected by HIV and AIDS.

To learn more about The Suncoast AIDS Theatre Project contact Garry Allan Breul, Artistic Director at (941) 758-6399 or garallan@msn.com.

Tickets: "Pay-What-You-Can" $15 advance ticket purchase (Suggested donation $10-$20 at the door.) Performed on our Mainstage, where of course, there will be full cash bar service for all our patrons.

Please call the American Stage Box Office at (727) 823-PLAY (7529) or go to www.americanstage.org for more information and to purchase tickets. American Stage Theatre Company is located at the Raymond James Theatre, 163 3rd Street North in the heart of downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. "After Hours" Event Series sponsor is ABC Bicycles.

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