This Thursday, Dec. 1, at 7 pm, a group of local playwrights will present six one--act plays as a readers' theatre at the Rowan County Arts Center, also called the old courthouse, on Main Street in Morehead. The event is free and open to the public and refreshment will be served.
Playwrights include Fannie and Alvin Madden-Grider, Carol Mauriello, Gary Eldridge, Bob Grueninger, and Katrina Kearfott. The plays will be presented as a readers' theatre, featuring local talent including Bev Tadlock, Joe an Nancy Sartor, Carol Laferty, Stephen McBrayer, Leigh Ann McBrayer and Pam Hammonds.
The plays include dramas and comedy and one features fiddle music.
"The Last Breakfast," by Fannie Madden-Grider, is a sad story about a 14-year-old girl in Pike County Kentucky in 1932 during the Great Depression who is forced to choose between leaving her little brother and sister and staying with an abusive step-mother who has pushed her to the verge of killing her. Pensive fiddle music is played live during times when the little girl, now a 92 year old lady, narrates the tale.
Alvin Madden-Grider's play, also set in Appalachia, is a reselling from Homer's "The Oddessy," and features a mountaintop coal mine operator and a woman, a healer, who helps him to return to his true nature. A comedy with a very serious story, "A Mountaintop Tale" will have you laughing yourself out of your seat.
Katrina Kearfott's "In the Margins" is a drama exploring the relationship between a grown brother and sister who both want an inspirational book left behind by their deceased mother. As they read entries she wrote in the margins, they learn things about her and their own past.
Bob Grueninger's "Old Man Grouch Is Dead," is a morality play set at a children's summer camp.
Carol Mauriello's "Rare Books and Other Things" is about two people at a book sale who want the same book.
Gary Eldridge's "The Pictures" is a drama about tow me in their 40's talking on a park bench.
Eldridge and Mauriello led the playwriting group as part of a Fuse the Muse grant workshop which was funded by the Lucille Caudill Little Foundation.
