OPEN

Written by Crystal Skillman

Directed by Jessi D. Hill

Performed by Megan Hill

 

​

A workshop performance

​

October 10th, 2016  |  7pm

Theaterlab

​

​

One woman uses the power of a magic act to save her lover from total collapse. The Magician grasps for control bringing forth pinnacle stories from thin air. This magic act of love and enchantment may be our last card against a world filled with intolerance and hate.

​

 

CRYSTAL SKILLMAN is an award winning Brooklyn based playwright and screenwriter. KING KIRBY, co-written with Fred Van Lente, GEEK! and CUT, published/under review by Samuel French, have all earned Critics Picks from the New York Times which noted, “A playwright of growing downtown renown, Ms. Skillman seems to be acquiring something suspiciously Midtown: polish.” ANOTHER KIND OF LOVE, her drama about a family of punk rock singers set in Seattle, played in 2015 at the Chopin Theater in Chicago.  Awards include: 2015 Clifford Odets Ensemble Play Commission (Pulp Vérité, directed by Shaun Peknic at NYU’s Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute); 2010 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Full-Length Script (The Vigil or The Guided Cradle). Crystal is represented by Amy Wagner and Ron Gwiazda at Abrams Artists Agency in NY, and James Beresford with Shepard Management in the UK. www.crystalskillman.com

 

JESSI D. HILL is a theatre director based in New York City where she has directed new work at New York Theatre Workshop, The Public Theater/Joe’s Pub, The Playwrights’ Center, Primary Stages, Labyrinth, The Women’s Project, 59E59, The New Group, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Culture Project, The Acting Company, The Barrow Group, PS122, Baruch Performing Arts Center, New Dramatists, The Lark, The Playwrights Realm, New Georges, The Wild Project, and others.  She has been a director in professional training programs at Yale School of Drama, Fordham University, Long Island University, Powerhouse/NY Stage & Film, NYU/Tisch, Strasberg, CAP21, The Atlantic School, Playwrights Horizons Theatre School, Hunter College and others. Her work has been seen internationally in Edinburgh, London, New Zealand, Berlin and Hamburg. She is currently Associate Artistic Director terraNOVA Collective and a former Artistic Director of Stage Left Theatre Company in Chicago.  MFA: Yale. Member SDC. Current projects: www.jessidhill.com

 

MEGAN HILL is a New York based actor and writer. Recent and favorite credits include: The Jazzercise Play (which she also wrote) being produced by DODO this spring; Lead Artist for Target Margin Gertrude Stein Labs; Trade Practices (HERE Arts); Ermyntrude and Esmerelda (Ars Nova, ANT Fest); The Subtle Body (Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center); Clybourne Park (Pittsburgh Public Theater); The House of Von Macrame (The Management/Bushwick Starr); The Bird and the Two Ton Weight (EST/Unfiltered Fest); Hand to God (Original Cast, World Premiere, EST); Cut (The Management); Robert Wilson’s The Watermill Quintet (Implied Violence/ The Guggenheim Museum); Lonesome Winter (which she also co-wrote with Joshua Conkel); The Sluts of Sutton Drive (EST/Unfiltered Fest); Fissures at the Humana Festival (Actor’s Theatre of Louisville). Megan is also a company member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and Morgan Gould & Friends. Megan holds a BFA in Acting and Original Works from Cornish College of the Arts and an MFA from ART/MXAT IATT at Harvard University. Check out her web series ME+U at www.meplusu.tv