WAM Theatre opens their 15th Anniversary Season with a Fresh Takes Play Reading of Be Here Now by Deborah Zoe Laufer (Sirens, End Days, Rooted) and directed by Kelly Galvin (WAM’s Last Wife, Shakespeare & Company: Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew) on Sunday, March 10, 2024, at 2pm & 7pm at The Foundry (West Stockbridge, MA).
The play brings together cast of diverse local professional performers: nationally-touring singer-songwriter Tracy Grammer, Jeannine Trimboli, Kristin Yates and Ryan Winkles.
Be Here Now follows the story of deeply cynical and woefully underemployed Bari who is surrounded by painfully cheerful co-workers at a small-town packaging “Fulfillment Center.” When she meets Mike, a man who makes art out of garbage, it’s her turn to pull another out of darkness. In this quirky new comedy, called “clever” and “filled with laughter” by the Cincinnati Enquirer, Be Here Now asks– what we are willing to do for love, happiness, and to create meaning in our life?
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“I always jump at the chance to work with the passionate and engaged artistic community at WAM!” said director Kelly Galvin. “I’m really looking forward to bringing Be Here Now to audiences with its big, compassionate questions about what it really takes to live in the moment and connect to each other in these painful times.”
WAM’s 15th Anniversary Season promises to deliver four, dynamic, theatrical presentations of new stories by women that draw on past traditions to envision new futures. Be Here Now captures the philosophical complexity of moments of great personal change. The first play in a trilogy written by Deborah Zoe Laufer, set in a fictionalized version of her Upstate New York home, the playwright was inspired by a podcast she heard about Geschwind Syndrome, a rare seizure disorder which can bring on personality shifts and experiences of profound joy. Through Bari’s journey, we experience how radical perspective shifts really can change the world.
The reading features a talented cast of diverse local professional performers: acclaimed, nationally-touring singer-songwriter Tracy Grammer, recently turned actor, will play the deeply cynical protagonist, Bari. Jeannine Trimboli, who was last seen in Creative Action Unlimited MA’Space directed by Jae Gayle at the Meader Little Theater at Russell Sage College in Troy, will play Patty Cooper, Bari’s loud, controlling but good-hearted co-worker. Kristin Yates (currently touring in Shakespeare & Company’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream) will play Luanne Cooper, Patty’s witty and romantic daughter, and another co-worker. Ryan Winkles (WAM’s The Old Mezzo, ROE) will take on the role of Mike, an overlooked MacArthur Genuis artist who makes homes out of garbage.