The Actors’ Gang in Culver City is presenting two options for those who enjoy a One Act Festival. And each choice, The Classic and The Original, run through April 20th.
The first, The Classic, offers up Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit. Sartre won the Nobel Prize for No Exit, which was originally performed in Paris during the Nazi-occupation. The cast includes Pierre Adeli, Paulette Zubata, Cihan Sahin and Hannah Chodos in this story of three sinners whose expectations of hell are upended when they merely find themselves in a room. Brian T. Finney directs.
Also part of The Classic is Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett. It is a virtuoso role for a single male actor who plays a man on his 69th birthday. As he has on every birthday, he records his memories of the past year. When he listens to an tape from thirty years prior, he doesn’t recognize the optimism in his own voice. Steve M. Porter plays Krapp. Cynthia Ettinger directs.
The Classic runs 2 hours and 15 minutes with a 10-minute intermission.
If you are looking for something more modern, The Original might appeal to you. These are three pieces that were part of last year’s Angels, Devils and Other Things, but have continued to be developed. Each of the three pieces was written by members of The Actors’ Gang Ensemble.
Tradition was written by James Bane. Based on his own experiences as a soldier, it looks at the choices a soldier makes from enlisting in the Marines through to his return to civilian life. What makes this particular piece intriguing is that this version of Tradition features an all-female cast: Quonta Beasley, Kaili Holliser, Guberi VanOver and Andrea Monte Warren. Tess Vidal directs.
A Perfect World, written by Lynde Houck, depicts a couple who have chosen to live in a fictional world where the games of their own imagination become their ritual. Danielle Powell directs. Lee Margaret Hanson and Jeremie Loncka star.
Finally the last part of The Original is Bob Turton’s Clean Slate. When a woman is offered the promise of freedom, but it has to be a solitary existence, will she opt to be alone? Or will solitude provide ever-deafening silence? Zoë Hall directs Mary Eileen O’Donnell and Tom Szymanski.
The Original runs 2 hours 20 minutes with a 10-minute intermission.
For tickets for The Classic, please go here.
For tickets for The Original, please go here.
Main image: Lee Margaret Hanson and Jeremie Loncka in “A Perfect World.” (Photo by Ashley Randall)