What’s Next: 7 plays, 10 actors, barely an hour

Red Earth Theatre brings live theatre to the Patio de las Campanas at Tlaquepaque on Thursday, June 16, at 7 p.m. with an evening of seven short plays by seven different playwrights from Sedona to New York to LA read by 10 actors in barely an hour. The readers include recently graduated high school students as well as long-time Red Earth favorites with a 6 decade+ age spread between them!

Three Northern Arizona playwrights are included in this line up. The evening opens with Sedona resident Mary Heyborne’s play Selma and Louise Visit The Manor. Previously presented online this live performance is read by Terra Shelman, Sandi Schenholm, Joan Westmoreland and Lisa Schatz-Glinsky. Humor and frustration take over when sixty-somethings, Selma and Louise, visit their dear older friend in the memory wing.

From Prescott, playwright Micki Shelton brings Lunch At McDonald’s, featuring Cathy Ransom, Abigail Heydorn, Zayne Hirsch and Gerard Maguire. Something cosmic must have drawn these two vegetarians into the McDonald’s restaurant (a place they NEVER go) lost in the Arizona desert. As Mars explores the alien menu, her daughter becomes more and more agitated.

Tiffany Antone (originally from Prescott) is the creator/producer of the Little Black Dress series in which Red Earth has participated for many years. We present one of her five-minute plays from her collection Plays on Parade written specifically for production during COVID restrictions. Joan Westmoreland and Terra Shelman are two long time neighbors who finally break down under the duress of the pandemic and truly talk to each other, albeit with a squirt guns, in Like Good Neighbors.

Lilac Ticket, by New York-based C.J. Ehrlich, makes its 3rd Red Earth appearance read by Gerard Maguire and Lisa Schatz-Glinsky. In this romantic comedy - a perennial favorite - Sam and Barb confront two secrets that threaten their 50-year marriage while at a doctor’s visit.

From the other coast, Los Angeles-based Allie Costa brings us Boxes Are Magic. A comedy about resilience, resistance, and the forces of nature, a woman (Cathy Ransom) tries to change the mind of the most stubborn member of her household -- her cat (Kate Hawkes).

Two male playwrights are included in the evening. Sandi Schenholm and Malia Romero read DMV Tyrant by Christopher Durang. Although written in 1988 we can all identify with the scenario: A woman goes to a clerk at the Division of Motor Vehicles and tries to get her license renewed with infuriating results.

The other male playwright is also a theatre favorite. David Ives’ Sure Thing (also written in 1988) is read by Abigail Heydorn and Zayne Hirsch. Two characters who meet by chance have their conversation constantly interrupted and reset by a bell that rings every time one of them responds in a way that hinders the relationship from growing.

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Join Red Earth Theatre for a whirlwind of seven comedic adventures in barely an hour at 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 16, outdoors in the Patio de las Campanas at Tlaquepaque. (Suggested donation: $10 at the door)

Information provided by RET.