Konner Staged Readings Festival
November 6-10, 2024 at 7 Stages
Tickets are FREE!
With Raife Baker, Tony Brown, Michael Evenden, Daryl Fazio, Adam Fristoe, Wisdom Harris, Jeff Hathcoat, Bob Devin Jones, Ann Cale Kruger, Anya Kone’, Eliana Marianes, Wendy Melkonian, Vinnie Murphy, Ethan Phillips, Alejandra Ruiz, Bob Smith, Widdi Turner, Cole Wadsworth, Jeff Watkins, & Jake West.
(Click on the titles below to go directly to the individual event tickets)
The Incident at Flossenbürg (Wednesday Nov. 6, 7pm)
In 1970, against the background of terrorist violence nearby, a man returns to the concentration camp he was interned in, set to take his own life. Can he be saved by the love of a German woman—the sister and ex-wife of two terrorists and daughter of the policeman pursuing them? In a parallel love story, her brother Josef and African-American college student Annie risk everything to make the world a better place.
Jessica: A Romantic Sequel to The Merchant of Venice (Thursday Nov. 7, 7pm)
Jessica’s marriage fails and as “Jonathan” she seeks her Jewish roots, even with her broken father. Doña Gracia, doyenne of Jewish Italy, vets silly suitors. “Jonathan” begs her to save Shylock. Gracia’s daughter, in love with “Jonathan,” follows “him” until they meet eventfully. Jessica, arrested by the Inquisition, refuses to shun Judaism; Gracia saves her. She takes her father to Brazil where there are Jews and a suitor for Jessica. But the Inquisition is not done with the Jews, even in the New World. A semifinalist in the O’Neill Center’s Play Competition.
Fatsoff: Being the Very Tragical Comical History of the Life of the Real Falstaff as Told by the Fake One (Friday Nov. 8, 7pm)
Shakespeare’s Falstaff—lusty, proudly cowardly, and plump—narrates and mocks the slim knight he was based on, Sir John (“Jack”) Fastolfe, arch-foe of Joan of Arc. Touting his own exploitation of women, Falstaff derides Fastolfe’s warrior adventurism, and is delighted to see him humiliated by Joan on the battlefield, falling in love with her ghost, and pathetically defending his lost honor. Joan rules over both in the afterlife.
Catalysis (Saturday Nov. 9, 2pm)
Waitman Crowner, a psychiatrist in an old city, is also a cat burglar. He loves scaling roofs and evading capture, but is bored with his buried objets. He falls for a patient, Parker Langley, an obstetrician married to Rowan McAlpine, the detective in the case. Other patients are Deirdre (60s, with designs on Waitman) and problem child Jodi (17), both rich, both sources of information for his thefts. Rowan can’t see he’s losing Parker, who does not suspect Waitman, even after seeing and revealing a key clue. In the end his mistake is displaying one statue in his office. The women have their say in a final scene, but Parker has the last word.
Sixteen Springs: The Missing Years of The Winter’s Tale (Sunday Nov. 10, 2pm)
A babe is reluctantly abandoned in a forest by Antigonus, who is attacked by a bear but survives. The babe, Trouvita, and the injured nobleman are rescued by a shepherd family. She grows up very smart and strong as he slowly heals. Meanwhile, back in Sicilia, a slandered queen (also very smart and strong) and her mad king diverge to very different ends. Sad moments ensue, but love triumphs thanks to smart, strong women.
Content/Trigger Warnings for Konner Festival Plays
The Incident at Flossenbürg
This play contains themes of suicidal thought, Holocaust memories at an internment camp, dark humor, domestic (German) terrorism, terrorist and police violence, onstage deaths, and mild violence towards a Jewish man.
Jessica: A Romantic Sequel to The Merchant of Venice
This play is pro-Jewish, but this is Renaissance Italy, and (as in Merchant) antisemitism is pervasive—but in the sequel the anti-Semites lose. The Inquisition,in the play as in history, tortures and kills Jews. Villains use antisemitic slurs: Brianda, a greedy convert to Christianity, denounces other converts. She plots with Fenicio, her antisemitic lawyer, to steal the family fortune from her sister, a forced convert but loyal Jew. Malventio is an Inquisitor who arrests Jews and former Jews. A parody of Shakespeare’s Portia falls into Brianda’s schemes. Malventio sends Felinus to hound Jews in Brazil. Lupomeno, a boastful pickpocket, echoes Felinus’s Jew-hatred while taking his purse. Not villains: Moses, a Jewish courtier with a speech defect from Inquisition tortures; characters with same-sex affections; and an African and a Native American who remind us that Jews as all Europeans came to a New World built on bitter oppression.
Fatsoff: Being the Very Tragical Comical History of the Real Falstaff as told by the Fake One
This play contains mockery and self-mockery of obesity, strongly implied sexual abuse of a boy, implications of war, an onstage murder, and profanity.
Catalysis
This play contains themes of mental illness, a bipolar manic break, profanity, discussions of sex, implied onstage sex, a suicide, self-harm, and a funeral.
Sixteen Springs, or Four Loves: The Missing Years of The Winter’s Tale
This play includes maiming, a violent suicide, wrongful imprisonment, mild violence towards animals, descriptions of civil war and violence, drunkenness, and a cemetery scene.
Very Important People
Artistic Director: Vincent Murphy
Casting Coordinator: Eliana Marianes
Production Manager: Jennifer Kimball
Theater Consultant: Carolyn Cook
Project Manager: Ann Cale Kruger
Selective Dramaturgy: Michael Evenden
Fiscal Agent: Essential Theatre
Venue and Technical Support: 7 Stages
