A stage play with roots in the greater Bradenton-Sarasota community is finding its way to New York. Too Close to the Shore, a dramatic play centering on the relationship between a father and son, in this case, Philip Hamilton and his father Alexander (yes, that Alexander Hamilton, whose portrait appears on the ten-dollar bill), is scheduled to be read in front of New York theater producers in late March.
The playwright is Bradenton resident Bernard Yanelli, also the reigning Theatre Odyssey Best Play author for A Little Help! in 2013. His full length play, Undaunted, largely about the elder Hamilton, won Sarasota Players Theatre’s new play competition in 2010. His new short play, For Art’s Sake, will be presented on May 1 through 4 in Theatre Odyssey’s Ninth Annual Ten-Minute Play Festival at the Jane B. Cook Theatre at the FSU/Asolo Center for the Performing Arts in Sarasota.
Other faces familiar to Sarasota are involved in the New York producers’ reading. Blake Walton, whose recent one-man show, Leading Men, won the United Solo Best Premiere Award in New York City, is directing the reading. He has assembled a largely New York based cast and added two local actors last October. Anna Trinci, who recently flew the Manatee Players stage as Peter Pan, is reading the role of the romantic interest of young Philip Hamilton, and Tom Aposporos, who originally played the role of Gouverneur Morris in Undaunted, the elder Hamilton’s confidante and the young Hamilton’s equivalent godfather, will reprise that role in New York.
New York producer Wayne Adams (The Runner Stumbles, True West, And the Nightingale Sang…) and director Blake Walton are assembling potential producers and backers for the play’s production. The readings are March 23 and 24 at Shetler Studios in New York’s theater district.
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Tickets for Theatre Odyssey’s Ninth Annual Ten-Minute Play Festival are on sale now. The Executive Producers for the 2014 festival are: SCENE Magazine, Gerri Aaron, and Nigel Publishing. We thank them for their generous support.
