THE SPECK OF DUST IN
BUGSY'S EYE
A Short Play by Joel Stone, starring William Parry and Maureen
Silliman.
WHEN: 4 DAYS ONLY Sept 4 - Sept 7 watch for free
This Labor Day Weekend, why risk losing your shirt in
Atlantic City, or Vegas ... when you can play a friendly game of
blackjack thanks to NJ Rep?
In a small, downtown Las Vegas casino, a
blackjack dealer is joined by his favorite player in the middle of the
night. Over a game of single deck blackjack, she reveals a tale about her
girlhood encounter with the notorious gangster Bugsy Siegel and how it changed
her life.
A Brief History of the Play
In 1982, when I was living in Los Angeles, I was researching a potential film
project about the life of legendary gangster Benjamin (Bugsy)
Siegel, known as the 'Father of Las Vegas'. (Warren Beatty beat me
to the punch with his 1991 film "Bugsy"!) One time in Vegas,
while playing blackjack, I ran into an elderly woman who told me she'd met
Bugsy Siegel in the mid-1940's when she was quite young. That inspired me
to write "The Speck of Dust in Bugsy's Eye." The play was
originally presented at NJ Rep in November, 1999.
MAUREEN SILLIMAN (Doris)
appeared at NJ Rep in Angels
& Ministers of Grace. Broadway: Shenandoah, I Remember Mama, Is There
Life After High School? Off- Broadway: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Reckless, Blue Window
(West Coast - LA Drama Critics Award), Marathon
Dancing. National Tours: The
Gingerbread Lady, Marigolds (with Shelley Winters), Fiddler on The Roof.
Regional: Two River (The Belle
of Amherst, The Glass Menagerie, Beauty Queen of Lenane, Uncle Vanya),
Papermill (Rags)
Pittsburgh Public (Falsettos),
Huntington (Company),
Southern Rep (The Goat),
Gulfshore Playhouse (My Fair
Lady, Vanya & Sonya...), Coconut Grove Playhouse (The Rothschilds, No Way to Treat a Lady)
La Jolla (Zhivago).
Film/TV: Law & Order,
Feds, Childhood's End, Blue Window (PBS), over 100 commercials
& two years on Guiding
Light. Next season, The
Forest at NJ Rep.
WILLIAM PARRY (Edgar) has
been a big fan of NJ Rep for many years! On Broadway, his credits
include: Groundhog Day;
James Lapine & Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday
in the Park with George, and
Passion - both filmed for PBS; Agamemnon
at Lincoln Center; Gypsy
with Bernadette Peters; Camelot
(understudy to Richard Burton and Richard Harris); and the original Jesus Christ Superstar.
Off-Broadway: original productions of Sondheim’s Assassins and Road Show; Dessa Rose at Lincoln Center; and Cymbeline and Dispatches at the Public.
National Tours: A Few Good Men,
Memphis, and Titanic
(Captain E.J. Smith). He’s appeared in some 50 regional productions and has
numerous TV and film credits. Radio: two enjoyable seasons on Garrison
Keillor’s A Prairie Home
Companion. Upcoming: Next season’s Knoxville at the Asolo Theater—music and
lyrics by Ahrens and Flaherty, with book and direction by Frank Galati.
We wish to express our
gratitude to the Performers’ Unions:
ACTORS’ EQUITY ASSOCIATION
AMERICAN GUILD OF MUSICAL ARTISTS
AMERICAN GUILD OF VARIETY ARTISTS
SAG-AFTRA
Through Theatre Authority, Inc. for their cooperation in
permitting the Artists to appear on this program.
