I still think of as Connecticut Heritage Productions as being Middletown-based but this vital, decades-old company has brought a whole bunch of shows to New Haven over the years. CHP’s Peter Loffredo has taught and directed at the Educational Center for the Arts magnet high school in New Haven since the ‘90s. The ECA Arts Hall is where, this Sunday afternoon, you can hear a mammoth triple feature of scripts which won CHP’s second annual Connecticut Stories on Stage playwriting competition.
The April 17 show, which starts at 2 p.m., features staged readings of the judges’ top choices from the three Stories on Stage categories: Full-length play, One-Act Play and Ten-Minute Play.
The full-length, Rosary Peas by Michael Burgan of West Haven, is set in South Glastonbury and according to a press release “focuses on the intergenerational relationships in a family in the midst of changes and on the difficulties a family experiences living with a grandparent suffering from dementia.” CHP happens to have a history of doing theater events which draw attention to problems associated with mental, including ongoing collaborations with the Free at Last Players, so this seems like an ideal match of script and producer. The cast includes Bunni Barresi, Henry Ayres-Brown, James Luse (another ECA instructor, and a former lecturer at Yale Theater Studies), Carolyn Kirsch, Carolyn Ladd and Ingrid Schaeffer (head of the ECA theater department).
The one-act is by a guy I’ve known for years—Stratford playwright Bill McGovern, who used to be part of a playreading gang I ran which met weekly at Rudy’s Bar & Grill for most of the 1990s. Bill’s play Sunset is billed as being “about an impulse unique to aging: the need to validate one’s existence. The play focuses on the unlikely alliance of Margaret, a professional and Angie, a pushy rover and the strategies they invent to camouflage their isolation.” Sunset’s “set in various locations in contemporary southern Connecticut.” The cast includes the aforementioned Barresi, Kirsch and Luse.
Playwright Elizabeth Appel writes that her 10-minute drama Drugs, War and Nine, which concludes the marathon, was “inspired by photos of May Day 1970 by John Hill and Tom Strong (and being there).” The CHP press release elucidates that Drugs, War and Nine is set “in a facility in New Haven. When the staff tries to help a resident confront the truth about his participation in the Viet Nam War and other events, a debate erupts about the 1970 May Day Rally and the “New Haven Nine.” CHP honcho Peter Loffredo is part of the cast for this one, alongside Javis Arnold and Carolyn Ladd.
Do I have to spell out how cool it is that a small theater company is not just furthering the creation and presentation of new works, but new local works, about local issues? For reservations, call (860) 347-7771. Tix are $10 for adults, $5 students and seniors. The ECA Arts Hall is at 55 Audubon Street (the entrance is on Orange Street end of the building), New Haven.