HELLO, HELLO!! TO ALL OUR FRIENDS, AUDIENCES, AND FUTURE FOLKS IN THOSE CATEGORIES!!!

SO Sorry it’s been SUCH a long time!!! WE HOPE You and Yours have been safe AND healthy, over these VERY trying times!!

BESIDES THAT OBVIOUS we’ve all been living through, this One Year+, here’s an update on our Plays and Productions!!!

In 2018, we had two sets of Productions!!! The first was in June, when we produced Katz v. United States, The Play, at the Watermelon One-Act Festival (WOAF, for short!), at St. Mary’s College of Maryland!! The play can be found on YouTube, and we’ll be adding a link to that SOON!!!! A Google search will bring it up, TOO!!

IN FACT, Try a C&P on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2RckXUEfiw

It’s about a warrantless (and ILLEGAL & UNCONSTITUTIONAL BUGGING OPERATION by the FBI, in 1967 on Three Phone Booths On Sunset Boulevard.) That’s the sub-title or alternative title of the Play. . .

Later in 2018, at Page-to-Stage at the Kennedy Center over Labor Day Weekend, we produced Cohen v. California, the case WE ALL learned to call “The F*** the Draft Case.” My Constitutional Law professor, during my first Law degree, LOVED to. .. rather. . um. . . well. . take advantage of that moniker, when we were doing the First Amendment Freedom of Speech. . . Good, Ol’ Professor Ed Steinman!!

Then, in 2019, we produced two plays at Page-to-Stage, one of ours, Professor Ruth’s Trumpet: Frontiero v. Richardson, The Play, and a play written by a colleague of ours, Kimberley Lynne, entitled The Last Battle of the American Revolution, about the Final Vote, in Tennessee, that FINALLY gave US Women, The Vote!!! This play was done, in conjunction with another Project we had set up, called Project 2020, to celebrate Women’s Suffrage, with a Festival in and around D.C., Maryland, and anywhere else that would host us!

All of our plays over 2016-2019 had GREAT audiences of between 50-100, EACH TIME, for EACH Performance!!! WONDERFUL TURNOUTS!!! THANKS TO ALL, WHO ATTENDED!!! WE LOVE YOU!!! HOPE to see you ALL AGAIN, at future Productions!!

Unfortunately, as we all know, COVID showed up, DISRUPTING ALL OF OUR LIVES & KILLING MANY people (A HUGE MOMENT OF SILENCE, Please), and Project 2020, which we’d planned to have at, a minimum of two venues, in Bethesda and Kensington, Md. and were working on others in D.C., during weeks in 2020, leading up to the 100th Anniversary in August 2020, became YET-ANOTHER casualty of the Pandemic. . . A few moments of silence, please. . . That Festival would have also had presentations about the Women’s Suffrage Movement, key players in it from 1870-1920, and other, educational activities. . . More Moments of Silence, Please. . .

BUT we soldier-&-sailor on!!! We’ve been informed, by none other than Ms. Deborah Rutter, a good acquaintance of ours and the President of the Kennedy Center, that Page-to-Stage WILL return in 2022!!!! Also, since The REACH opened (that’s the NEW addition to the KC), OTHER OPPORTUNITIES for new plays are happening. We PLAN to pursue those!!!

As well, we take this opportunity, to Thank The Wonderful Folks AT THE Kennedy Center, for all their help, over previous years and Festivals, AND we look FORWARD to working with them, in coming years!!! You’ve ALL been GREAT!!!

THAT’S ALL FOR NOW!!! And We hope to be MUCH more prolific, in DAYS to come!!

IMPORTANT ADDITION—- We’re working on a Podcast in coming months!!! Watch for it!!!

VOIR DIRE: the true crime opera

This is a guest post from one of our friends Jason Zencka, co-creator of VOIR Dire: The True Crime Opera.   Composed by Matthew Peterson, Voir Dire is a “true crime” chamber opera based on and adapted from librettist Jason Zencka’s real-life experiences as crime reporter for the Stevens Point Journal (Wisconsin):

 

 Hello theater lovers! I wanted to let you know about an opera that premiered last spring in Fort Worth, Texas, last spring. I wrote and revised the libretto to Voir Dire over a period of years while I worked the "cops and courts" beat at a daily newspaper in Wisconsin, and then as a criminal defense investigator in Washington, D.C. The plot of this chamber opera channel surfs through the events of a single day in a small-town Wisconsin courtroom. The Wall Street Journal called it "startlingly immediate and journalistic, as gripping as a great feature story" and Texas Classical Music described it as "nothing short of brilliant...complete with vividly drawn characters and a hauntingly eclectic score." Right now, composer Matthew Peterson and I are hustling on Kickstarter to fund an album version of this opera.

Check out the trailer for the opera here (VOIR DIRE Trailer). Donations, which will go to pay for production costs and union-rate compensation for Minnesota instrumentalists, can be made at: 

VOIR DIRE KickStarter.com Campaign

Matt and I are so proud of this opera, and we'd love the chance to make this portrait of our legal system visible to more people.