TOMS RIVER ANTHOLOGY
a world-premiere play by Alexis Kozak
WHEN: Friday, June 12, Saturday, June 13, and Sunday, June 14, at 8:00 PM
WHERE: Count Basie Theatre’s new Performing Arts Academy building, at 111 Monmouth Street, Red Bank
TICKETS: free, but reservations are strongly recommended.
For more information or to reserve tickets, log onto www.blackboxnj.org, call 732.207.5573, or email lxskozak@hotmail.com.
Consisting of five scenes, each set in a Toms River cemetery and centered around a different pair of characters (newlyweds, cancer cluster-affected ex-friends, a gay couple, a brother and sister, and a divorcing husband and wife), the play creates an interwoven patchwork that is a meditation on death in New Jersey and toys with the question of why we pass through Toms River, but why Toms River won’t just goddamn die?!
The play
takes its title from the iconic American classic Spoon River Anthology,
a book of interrelated poems by Edgar Lee Masters. “I spent a lot of time
in Toms River as a kid at my aunt’s house, which I loved. At the same
time, I heard people around me trashing the town. So, I grew up with,
literally, a love-hate relationship with the place,” says playwright
Kozak. “I’m trying to do it justice—show both sides—and play with
some existential dilemmas as well.”
“Our
measure of success is the recognition that the stories, lives, and voices of
our state and region are worthy of giving our attention to onstage, are as
important as the Greek tragedies or Shakespeare’s kings and queens. Maybe
more so, because they are ours. They are us,” says fellow playwright and
Black Box board member Mary Kelly.
Kozak,
who holds an MFA in Playwriting from Boston University, says that the longer he
writes, the more “place” becomes more important in shaping his characters and
story. “The more I write, the more I tend to be drawn to stories about
New Jersey. I have a one-act play set in the space between Staten Island
and Perth Amboy. I’m also working on a “dream play” that is a fractured
history of Asbury Park. I sort of have this whole play cycle in my mind
about New Jersey that I want to call The Land of Blue Eye Shadow.”
With the
goal of honoring local stories, Black Box intends to make the play accessible
to everyone by presenting the play free of charge. “The most important
thing to us is sharing the communal experience of knowing New Jersey lives are
worthy of putting onstage,” Kozak says.
Black
Box—a multi-cultural arts incubator whose mission is to help local artists gain
greater exposure for their work and that has produced primarily in Asbury
Park—has found a partner in Count Basie Theatre’s Performing Arts Academy,
located adjacent to the historic theatre, in the recently purchased Wawa
building, the former location of Phoenix Productions, on the corner of Monmouth
Street and Pearl Street. “Yvonne Scudiery, who is the driving force
behind the Performing Arts Academy, asked if I might have ideas for programming
for the space. I asked her if she would be interested in presenting new
plays, she said yes, and we were off to the races,” says Kozak. This is
an opportunity for Black Box to branch out into more communities and take
advantage of its tri-city location. “We would love to have a presence in
Asbury Park, Red Bank, and in Long Branch,” says Mary Kelly.
Kozak,
who teaches performance and technical theatre at Middletown High School South,
recently won a Basie Award for his adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short
story “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz.” “I am excited to be able to use
some of my graduates and current and ex-colleagues,” he says. The play
features Anthony Forte, Kelly Lozo, Scott Visco, JMe Marcinczyk, Steven
Koumoulis, Paul Caliendo, Greg Plakoudas, Allie Brand, Renee Panagos-Felice,
and Evan Krachman.
