Darker Side of Paradise
I directed a reading of Franco D’Alessandro’s Darker Side of Paradise for A Star is Bored podcast in July. This was a night of four plays to celebrate pride month, and donations were sent to benefit homeless LGBTQ youth.
I was privileged to direct this play in direct conversation with playwright Franco D’Alessandro, an Edward Albee adherent whose work is widely recognized. He has had eight productions off-Broadway.
This is Our Youth - A Star is Bored Podcast
I directed a reading of This is Our Youth for New York Actor Keith Weiss’s podcast A Star Is Bored. It received notice by an online media company.
2019
Playwrights Take the Stage - Players Club - March
My original one-act THIN SLICING was selected for the Players Club’s evening of four plays, Playwrights Take the Nichole Donje will direct. I will direct another of the four, THE BRIDESMAID by Susan Laubach. These are readings following Equity’s 29-hour guidelines. They will be presented on March 29.
SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD - February
Left to right: Luis Camacho, Aya Hayashi, Catherine Ann, Katt Masterson, Luis Rueda.
I directed Jason Robert Brown’s beloved 1990s song cycle SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD February 22-24 at the Main Street Theatre and Dance Alliance on Roosevelt Island. Aya Hayashi produced. Justin Ramos directed music, and Jenny Watkins choreographed.
2018
THIN SLICING - December
Manhattan Repertory Theatre selected my one-act comedy THIN SLICING for the theater’s Best of 2018 Showcase in December. I remounted the show with a new cast - Serah Bennett and Jeremy Schwartz.
JERRY FINNEGAN’S SISTER - October
I remounted my favorite romantic comedy, Jack Neary’s JERRY FINNEGAN’S SISTER, as part of the Emerging Artists Theatre’s New Works Series at TaDa Theater on 28th Street. The show starred Rosa Procaccino and Aaron Latta-Morissette. The show is show about Brian and Beth, two Irish-Catholic kids growing up next door to each other in a small town outside of Boston.
The synopsis: Brian Dowd has spent the last ten years of his life wrestling with an unrequited "something" for his best friend's sister. But each and every time he's spoken with Beth Finnegan for more than thirty seconds, he's ended up with his foot in his mouth. Now, Beth is about to get married and Brian's time is running out. Will he finally muster the courage to tell her how he feels before it's too late?
Photo and design by Virginia Kluiters Photography - http://virginia-kluiters.com/
THIN SLICING - September - Finals Round of Manhattan Rep’s Fall Competition
Greg and Anne stand outside a bar while their friends, Tovin and Cara, are inside. Anne wants to go home with Greg. Greg has a crush on Cara. Tovin has a crush on Anne. But it's way more complicated than that. A play about vulnerability, desire and how pain from the past stops us from chasing - or knowing - what we really want.
THIN SLICING was developed over two days, based on a conversation between a friend and her acquaintance outside of a bar. This play starred NYC actors Lindsey Sargrera and Hunter Brown. The production was part of Manhattan Rep’s Fall One-Act Play Competition. The show made it to the finals round of the competition!
THINGS CHANGED WHEN WE GOT HERE - August
I developed this play with the guidance of Manhattan Rep’s artistic director Ken Wolf, about how a close friendship breaking up can cause so much pain - far more than a romantic breakup. We are then forced to deal with it quietly and unceremoniously. How do you cope, when it’s someone you thought you’d have forever?
GIRLFRIENDS - June
I wrote a short comedy, GIRLFRIENDS, about two roommates coming out to each other. It played at Manhattan Repertory Theatre in June. I wrote and directed, and Hannah Lanford and Haley Nemeth acted in the show. Haley Nemeth also edited the script.
GRIM REAPER - April
Catherine Ann recently directed Grim Reaper at the Manhattan Repertory Theatre. This is a short comedy by award-winning playwright and Kansas University professor Dean Bevan. This short play showed April 12, 13, and 14 as part of the Manhattan Rep's playwriting competition. More about the theater at www.manhattanrep.com.
Randy Writes a Novel
Catherine Ann house managed the show and ran some of the social media pages for Randy Writes a Novel - a one man show by U.K. and Australia's most beloved puppet comedian, Randy Feltface. The show ran at the Clurman Theatre in Theatre Row 42nd Street from April to June of 2018. Randy was nominated for the Most Unique Theatrical Performance award by the Off Broadway Alliance on his opening night.
Links: Randy's NYC show Facebook, main Facebook page and main Instagram. Producers: www.redspearllc.com
Scroll through for Randy photos in the gallery below:
Amy, 25, Almost Cool - Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2017
Catherine Ann's third show at the Edinburgh Fringe was an original two-woman comedy Amy, 25, Almost Cool, which played at C Venues. It starred Louisiana film actress Dari Lynn Griffin.
See the June interview about the show here.
Jerry Finnegan's Sister - Edinburgh Fringe 2016
In August 2016, Catherine Ann directed the Irish-Catholic Boston comedy Jerry Finnegan’s Sister, which ran for three weeks in Edinburgh with C Venues.
The Derek Awards nominated the show for Best Overseas Performance, Best Comedy, and Best Young Cast. It ranked in the top 5% of 1,588 shows reviewed by their panel of 26 judges.
The show starred New Orleans Shakespeare Festival thespian John Berner and Haley Nemeth of the Louisiana Film Festival 2015 award-winning film Consequence.
“ ***** A feel-good comedy with genuine heart, every member of the audience left with a smile plastered on their face. I’m still smiling now.”
“ **** Brian (John Berner) is sympathetically awkward, honest and hilarious while Beth (Haley Nemeth) is forthcoming and adorably sincere.”
“ **** Girl next door’ story with an excellent cast, blended together to create a sweet, romantic tale.”
“The beauty of simplicity done so well. Humour and yearning, with the minimum of distraction by economy of movement of the actors or the few props. Acted and directed by young people who will accomplish much after this great start. ”
The cast and me on closing day.
Exterior of C Nova Theatre post-Fringe
Rehearsing at Playhouse NOLA before leaving for Scotland.
This is Our Youth - Tulane University, spring 2016
I directed act one of This is Our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan in the spring of my senior year as an independent study. We had plans to do both acts, but the theater space schedule was changed and we found ourselves with half the time. So I chose to do part one.
In three weeks, my cast of three and I rehearsed (and they memorized) an hour of theatre. With the help of the theatre department costume shop and some volunteers, I loosely designed the set and we pulled set pieces from Tulane's theatre storage. We had a fully realized NYC apartment for a student show!
This is Our Youth premiered Off-Broadway in 1996 with Mark Ruffalo, and on Broadway in 2014 with Michael Cera (of the movie Juno). I saw the Broadway revival from the second row after reading it once, and fell in love with the show all over again.
Here is a plot summary, from the Dramatists' Play Service: "In 1982, on Manhattan's Upper West Side, the wealthy, articulate pot-smoking teenagers who were small children in the '60s have emerged as young adults in a country that has just resoundingly rejected everything they were brought up to believe in. The very last wave of New York City's '60s-style Liberalism has come of age—and there's nowhere left to go. In meticulous, hilarious, and agonizing detail, THIS IS OUR YOUTH follows forty-eight hours of three very lost young souls in the big city at the dawn of the Reagan Era: Warren Straub, a dejected nineteen-year-old who steals fifteen thousand dollars from his abusive lingerie-tycoon father; Dennis Ziegler, the charismatic domineering drug-dealing friend who helps him put the money to good use; and Jessica Goldman, the anxiously insightful young woman Warren yearns for. Funny, painful, and compassionate, THIS IS OUR YOUTH is a living snapshot of the moment between adolescence and adulthood when many young people first go out into the world on their own, armed only with the ideas and techniques they developed as teenagers—ideas and techniques far more sophisticated than their parents ever realize, and far less effectual than they themselves can possibly imagine."
I love this play because the dialogue is so natural, and the humor holds up despite being decades old. The power dynamics between Warren and Dennis shift seamlessly, keeping the audience on its toes. Directing this play is a joy because it feels so close to real life that it almost gives you chills.
One audience member left a performance saying it was the best piece of theater he had ever seen. I cherish that moment. It was a compliment to the actors and me, but ultimately it is a testament to Lonergan's wonderful writing, which captivated me in the first place.