CURRENT EVENTS at THE FILLING STATION

RISE AND COME AWAKE—I AM YOUR FIRST CUP OF COFFEE”.   

PLAYWRIGHTING PROFESSOR RETURNS TO NEW MEXICO TO SEE HIS PLAY PRODUCED!

The Filling Station & Mother Road Theatre Company
continue the
EMPTY SPACE SERIES
with Mark Hisler, Brian Haney and Catharine Pilafas
in
JACK OF DOVER
by Derek Davidson
directed by Mike Ostroski.

When:  January 18, 19, 20, 21 and 25, 26, 27, 28 at 8PM

Where:  The Filling Station, 1024 4^th St. SW, ABQ (corner of 4^th & Pacific)

Tickets:  $10 - online @ brownpapertickets.com  

Reservations and Info: 505-243-0596 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              505-243-0596              

***Playwright Derek Davidson will be conducting a workshop at The Filling Station on Saturday, January 28th from 2-5pm. See the attached below for complete workshop information.***

JACK OF DOVER, which is a quote from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, won best play at the American College Theater Festival and was performed at the Kennedy Center. 

Jeff, editor at a large publishing house, is meeting with his uncle Jack in the city for coffee.  Jack, a sort of Studs Terkel of New York, has made a lifelong career of collecting peoples' stories and converting them to verse.  Now Jeff wants to publish his Uncle's magnum opus, but Jack has other ideas.  Over the course of their sometimes heated conversation, the diner air grows thick with the aroma of steak and coffee, literary quotations and pop-riffs, avuncular tirades and meditations on what it means to be an artist in our postmodern world.  The play was inspired by the short work by Joseph Mitchell, "Joe Gould's Secret," which was made into a film by Stanley Tucci several years later. 

Playwright Derek Davidson lived in Albuquerque for five years, during which time he did shows with ACLOA, the ABQ Little Theatre, and mostly THE VORTEX.  He directed his first play at the Vortex, his adaptation of Gay's BEGGARS OPERA, which remains one of his favorite accomplishments.  Mr. Davidson was voted by the Albuquerque Journal as one of Albuquerque's "Rising Stars”.  While in ABQ he worked with Nancy Gage, Grubb Graebner, David Jones, John "Buck" Hardman, Shelley Epstein, Kathy and Ken Wimmer, among other great people. “Honestly, my NM days remain the sweetest time of my life.   I love the area profoundly.”  Now a professor of Playwrighting, Mr. Davidson returns to Albuquerque to see his play, JACK OF DOVER produced at The Filling Station.

About the Playwright:

 Derek Davidson teaches Playwriting, Theatre History, and Script Analysis at Appalachian State University.  Before ASU, Derek taught Dramaturgy at Carnegie Mellon University, and had worked at The Barter Theatre in Virginia as a Resident Company Member and Coordinator for the Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights.  Directing credits include As You Like It, Mother Courage and her Children, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?  Derek’s plays The Road Where It Curves Away and Holmes have been performed at Barter and in theatres in Ohio.  His film This is Not the South has shown at festivals and conferences throughout the southeast.  Derek is delirious about his play being performed in Albuquerque: a jillion years ago he had made his directing debut there with his adaptation of The Beggar’s Opera at the Vortex Theatre; this will be the first time one of his own plays is performed in the Duke City.  Derek would also like to mention that writing about himself in the third person feels a little ooky.    

 About the Actors:

 Mark Hisler is excited to return to the Filling Station for his first Empty Space play.  Mark is a Mother Road regular and co-directed (with Vic Browder) the critically acclaimed The Memory of Water last December.  Mark has appeared in Mother Road productions of Love Song and The Love Song of Robert J. Oppenheimer.  Other credits include Oklahoma! at the African American Performing Arts Center and Glengarry Glen Ross at the Vortex.  Thanks to Michael and playwright Derek Davidson for this opportunity.

 Brian Haney has been acting, directing, writing and teaching in Albuquerque for 16 years. Brian is the Creative Director with Theatre-in-the-Making, where he teaches ensemble acting, playwrighting, Shakespeare and applied drama. For the last 4 years he has continued to develop the Spectrum Project, an innovative program that helps people with autism spectrum disorder create original works of dramatic art. Brian has taught classes at the Albuquerque Little Theatre and Albuquerque Academy. His stage work includes The Comedy of Errors, Moby Dick, Three Sisters, Glengarry Glen Ross and The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

 Catharine Pilafas has her Bachelor's degree in Acting and minor in Dance from the University of Northern Colorado. Her theatrical highlights include: New York debut as Isabel Marquez in the off-Broadway production of Conviction, Danielle Benson in the world premiere of Your Dilly Dilly Heart, Sister Virginia in Eclipsed, Gayle in Almost, Maine, Margaret in Much Ado About Nothing, Inez in No Exit, and Cha-Cha Di Gregorio in Grease. Moving to New Mexico a year ago to break into the film scene, you may have seen her on In Plain Sight, Anne Hathaway in Billy Shakespeare (2012 release), and New Mexico Lottery and Buffalo Thunder Casino commercials. When not on onstage or filming, Catharine works for the Menaul School, practices yoga, trains for triathlons, plays with her puggle, Tobey, or tries to beat her loving husband, Adam, in a game of racquetball. She would like to thank members of the community who continue to supports the arts and Mother Road Theatre Company, the Filling Station, and Mike Ostroski for producing the local premiere of Jack of Dover.

About the Director:

Mike Ostroski is thrilled to be directing Derek Davidson’s beautiful one act play, Jack of Dover, for Mother Road’s Empty Space series.  As a theatre actor, Mike has performed in over 75 productions, most recently in Albuquerque, New Mexico for Duke City Repertory Theatre’s inaugural season as Jacob in Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol and Baptista in The Taming of the Shrew.  From 1999 to 2010, he had the great good fortune to work continually as a member of The Barter Theater’s Equity Resident Acting Company performing roles such as Percy Blakeney (The Scarlet Pimpernel), Benedick (Much Ado About Nothing), Chief Bromden (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Jamie Wellerstein (The Last Five Years), Ty Saybrook (Richard Alfieri’s Revolutions – World Premiere), and Lennie in The Barter’s National Tour of Mice and Men.  Additionally a director, stage combat choreographer, playwright, and composer, his  musical, I Can Be Anything: The Musical Legend of the Simple Machines, opened The Barter Player’s 2009 season and his co-adaptation of Tom Sawyer toured the Southeast during the spring of 2010.   Mike has attended The University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) for musical theatre, Miami University (Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, earning a degree in Creative Writing), and abroad at both Cambridge University and London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.  In January of 2011, Mike relocated to New Mexico to pursue film work both as an actor and producer as well as his own writing projects.  Since moving to Albuquerque, Mike was awarded Best Male Actor in the 2011 Albuquerque 48 Hour Film Project as well as shooting the feature films Death and Taxes, The Deception, and Setback and the short films, The Rapture, Surreal Estate, and When It Ends.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

DRAMATIC IMPULSE

A WORKSHOP FOR

WRITERS WHO ACT AND ACTORS WHO WRITE

With

DEREK DAVIDSON

Professor of Playwrighting and Script Analysis

Author of JACK OF DOVER

now playing at The Filling Station

WHAT IS DRAMATIC IMPULSE?

David Mamet calls it an “urge;” I call it an impulse. But whatever you want to call it, you have it.  We all do, and we all use it, all the time, in every situation. This workshop explores the dramatic impulse, unearthing its potential to transform any story into an act of drama, whether as a monologue, dialogue, performance piece, or any work for stage or screen. The second half of the workshop will focus on secrets of structure, encounters with strangers, and the knock-out power of a good beginning.

WHEN:   Saturday, January 28^th 2-5pm

WHERE: The Filling Station 1024 4^th St. SW

HOW:     $20

Call: 917-449-9519   

E-mail: fillingstationabq@gmail.com

Derek Davidson teaches Playwriting, Theatre History, and Script Analysis at Appalachian State University.  Before ASU, Derek taught Dramaturgy at Carnegie Mellon University, and had worked at The Barter Theatre in Virginia as a Resident Company Member and Coordinator for the Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights.  Directing credits include As You Like It, Mother Courage and her Children, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?  Derek’s plays The Road Where It Curves Away and Holmes have been performed at Barter and in theatres in Ohio.  His film This is Not the South has shown at festivals and conferences throughout the southeast.  _____________________________________________________________________________

Visit our resident companies' websites to learn about their winter and spring offerings:

http://www.dukecityrep.com/

http://www.motherroad.org/