The Acrosstown Repertory Theater is proud to announce its production of Comfort Phone by Matt Goode and Do You See Me? by Beth-Anne Blue running March 11-27th at 619 S. Main Street. Both plays are world-premieres of locally written plays. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m.
Comfort Phone examines the effect of technology on our grieving process by pitting sanity against the supernatural. The story follows a bereaved counseling client who is receiving phone calls from her dead mother. Written in early 2014 and inspired by the death of the author’s mother in 2013, Comfort Phone is Matt Goode’s first play script to be produced. Goode says, “Even though I was well aware that she was gone, I would occasionally absent-mindedly pull out my phone to call her up.” This eventually led Goode to consider what it would be like to receive a call from a departed loved one, an experience he ultimately decided would be “more disconcerting than comforting.” Good hopes his story will inspire the audience to internally debate whether the main character is receiving calls from a ghost or if psychiatric intervention is in order.
Do You See Me? explores the interracial friendship of two women that begins with the death of one and finds the other at the center of the investigation of her friend’s death. The audience is invited along as authorities try to determine what happened to the victim amid secrets some are willing to take to their own graves. Playwright Beth-Anne Blue has been a writer for many years. She is also a psychologist. She has worked with the Hippodrome Theater as a psychological consultant for actors. Writing primarily for the screen, she wrote and produced the film When No One Is Watching which premiered at the Hippodrome Theatre in 2008. Do You See Me? is the first play Blue has written and she hopes it prompts socially relevant conversations about ethnicity, friendship and how families deal with mental health issues.
The double ticket of Comfort Phone and Do You See Me? runs Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm from Friday, March 11 through Sunday, March 27 at The Acrosstown Repertory Theatre, in the Baird Center at 619 South Main Street in Gainesville. There will be a $5 preview performance on Thursday, March 10 (cash-only at the door).
Purchase your tickets using a credit card or PayPal today: Tickets are $15 for the general public with a discount for seniors, students, veterans and active military and may be purchased below:
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