(June 30, 2016) Opening next month at the Ella Fitzgerald Performing Arts Center at UMES, Michael O’Leary’s “Breathing Under Dirt will bring a handful of actors from the “Guiding Light” soap opera, which ended a 57-year run on television in 2009, and local actor Robert Forester to the stage.
O’Leary, recognizable to Guiding Light fans as the longest-serving incarnation of Rick Bauer, said the play, to be staged on Aug. 13-14, is a study of forgiveness and reconciliation set in Macon, Georgia during the 1950s.
“The underlying theme is alcoholism and its effects on a family. The dad is dead, but his legacy — or lack thereof — informs the relationship of the daughter and mother,” he said.
Portraying the father is Forester.
“He has a lot of issues — he went away to war and came back damaged. The only way he communicates with his daughter is by a poem she keeps close,” he said.
It was at Forester’s suggestion that O’Leary brought the play to the lower shore.
Playing the daughter is Cynthia Watros, perhaps best known for her role as “Libby,” love interest of Hugo “Hurley” Reyes on the ABC series “Lost.” Watros also appeared on The Young and the Restless and Guiding Light, for which she won a Daytime Emmy award in 1998.
Tina Sloan, who originated the role of Lillian Raines on Guiding Light in 1983 and stayed until the final broadcast in 2009, is cast as the mother.
Grant Aleksander, known to Guiding Light fans as Phillip Spaulding, will both act in and direct the play.
“The play is about a middle-aged woman trying to slay her demons. It evokes ‘The Glass Menagerie’ with a bit of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’” he said. “There are elements of a ‘memory play,’ and the journey is to find out what is real and what is imagined along the way.”
O’Leary said there were elements of “A Beautiful Mind,” the 2001 biopic of John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in economics, within Breathing Under Dirt.
Kathryn Redden, of the Lower Shore Performing Arts Company, hopes bringing this play, and potentially others, into the area will be a net positive.
“People are so on fire for it,” she said. “There’s a fair amount of community theater here, but I want to create a venue for new playwrights and give them the opportunity to present their work.”
The venue she wants to create isn’t a physical space, but a sensibility.
“We’ll go wherever the arts are. If that’s the new Snow Hill High School, or Salisbury University at the Guerrieri Center — or if we have the option of another place we’ll go there. We’re not locked into a place,” she said.
The performing arts company only recently formed, but is made up of community theater veterans from the lower shore.
Tickets are on sale now for the shows. There are two shows scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 13, a matinee at 2 p.m. and a 7 p.m. show. On Sunday, Aug. 14, a 2 p.m. matinee is scheduled. Tickets are $40 for general admission, and $75 premium seats are also available. Premium tickets include an after show meet and greet with the stars, who will be available for autographs.
Also on Sunday, Aug. 14, Michael O’Leary is offering an actors’ workshop from 10:30 a.m. to noon at $75 per ticket.
Tickets are available through www.lowershorepac.org.
O’Leary, recognizable to Guiding Light fans as the longest-serving incarnation of Rick Bauer, said the play, to be staged on Aug. 13-14, is a study of forgiveness and reconciliation set in Macon, Georgia during the 1950s.
“The underlying theme is alcoholism and its effects on a family. The dad is dead, but his legacy — or lack thereof — informs the relationship of the daughter and mother,” he said.
Portraying the father is Forester.
“He has a lot of issues — he went away to war and came back damaged. The only way he communicates with his daughter is by a poem she keeps close,” he said.
It was at Forester’s suggestion that O’Leary brought the play to the lower shore.
Playing the daughter is Cynthia Watros, perhaps best known for her role as “Libby,” love interest of Hugo “Hurley” Reyes on the ABC series “Lost.” Watros also appeared on The Young and the Restless and Guiding Light, for which she won a Daytime Emmy award in 1998.
Tina Sloan, who originated the role of Lillian Raines on Guiding Light in 1983 and stayed until the final broadcast in 2009, is cast as the mother.
Grant Aleksander, known to Guiding Light fans as Phillip Spaulding, will both act in and direct the play.
“The play is about a middle-aged woman trying to slay her demons. It evokes ‘The Glass Menagerie’ with a bit of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’” he said. “There are elements of a ‘memory play,’ and the journey is to find out what is real and what is imagined along the way.”
O’Leary said there were elements of “A Beautiful Mind,” the 2001 biopic of John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in economics, within Breathing Under Dirt.
Kathryn Redden, of the Lower Shore Performing Arts Company, hopes bringing this play, and potentially others, into the area will be a net positive.
“People are so on fire for it,” she said. “There’s a fair amount of community theater here, but I want to create a venue for new playwrights and give them the opportunity to present their work.”
The venue she wants to create isn’t a physical space, but a sensibility.
“We’ll go wherever the arts are. If that’s the new Snow Hill High School, or Salisbury University at the Guerrieri Center — or if we have the option of another place we’ll go there. We’re not locked into a place,” she said.
The performing arts company only recently formed, but is made up of community theater veterans from the lower shore.
Tickets are on sale now for the shows. There are two shows scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 13, a matinee at 2 p.m. and a 7 p.m. show. On Sunday, Aug. 14, a 2 p.m. matinee is scheduled. Tickets are $40 for general admission, and $75 premium seats are also available. Premium tickets include an after show meet and greet with the stars, who will be available for autographs.
Also on Sunday, Aug. 14, Michael O’Leary is offering an actors’ workshop from 10:30 a.m. to noon at $75 per ticket.
Tickets are available through www.lowershorepac.org.