Press Releases

January 14, 2002
"Mere Mortals" Kicks Off a Winter of One-Acts at Southampton College

Contact:
Darren Johnson (PR@southampton.liu.edu)
(631) 287 8313
Fax: (631) 283 4081

A construction worker perched on a beam 50 stories up decides he was Marie Antoinette in a past life. Three guys named Chuck juggle three dates at once at a mini-golf course. Then, an American tourist runs to the doctor to escape a Caribbean souvenir vendor.

These and many more zany premises make up David Ives' "Mere Mortals," a collection of six intertwined one-act plays, this Friday and Saturday, January 18-19, at 7 p.m., as performed by The Southampton Players in Southampton College's Avram Theater.

"Mere Mortals" kicks off four weekends of quirky and fun one-act plays in repertory this winter by The Players, the acclaimed theater troupe at the College that pairs seasoned local actors and top student talent.

The one-act plays in "Mere Mortals" are full of surprises. In "Foreplay," three versions of Chuck (longtime Players favorites Tom Rosante, Jeff Schaeffer and Bobby Schortle) find themselves juggling three dates at a mini-golf course. The cast ends up in a dating-dance routine to the rhythm of golf terms and sexual innuendo.

In the next one-act, Rosante, Schaeffer and Shortle are now construction workers who decide that, in past lives, they were the Lindberg baby, Czar Nicholas and Marie Antoinette.

From the construction site to the pond, as "Time Flies" follows the lives of two may flies (Brian Lang and Allison Rose DeTemple) who, after mating, realize that their lives are only 24 hours long. Other one-acts include "Dr. Fritz," titled after a Caribbean doctor whose office is visited by an American tourist escaping a souvenir seller; "Degas C'est Moi" finds a man (Ken McGuire) in midlife crisis, waking up and deciding he's painter Edgar Degas; and "Speed the Play," a hilarious summation of four of playwright David Mamet's work, done in just seven minutes.

The next weekend, the Players return with their sixth-annual "InterAct" series of locally written plays that feature over 60 different roles, subtitled "Two by Four," to be staged January 25-26 and February 8-9. Sandwiched in between, "Mere Mortals" will be staged again February 1-2. All shows are at 7 p.m.

This is the third-straight year that the plays in "InterAct" are all home-brewed, most of them coming out of Southampton College's esteemed MFA in Writing workshops with famed cartoonist and humor writer Jules Feiffer, award-winning playwright Robert Reeves, and Time magazine essayist Roger Rosenblatt.

Tickets are $8 general admissions. For further information, contact the Southampton Players box office at 631-287-8480.