THE TOWN
A Play by Walker Rutter-Bowman
Directed by Reñazco.
Estimated run time 60 minutes.
FRIDAY, JULY 24 – 7:30PM
SATURDAY, JULY 25 – 7:30PM
SUNDAY, JULY 26 – 7:30PM
The Town is an original play that takes place in a diner in a town called Heist. Across the street a crowd of men has gathered outside the bank, possibly wearing masks and carrying what look like guns—at least to some of the diner’s customers. The play unfolds as a series of conversations between the pairs of diners—the Girl and the Mayor, the Robber and the Town, the Mark and the Adjuster—while the proprietors of the town’s local cinemas, Film Hut and Cinema Palace, comment from the wings. In fact these cineastes are in the movie theater, while the other characters are on the screen… until events unfold to collapse this distinction.
In the course of the play, minds are read, thoughts implanted, friendships formed, valuables brandished, claims denied, parents mourned, seats reclined, senses restored, dreams realized, symbols invented, motorbikes inherited, banks robbed.
The Town references a long lineage of heist cinema, from Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958) to Heat (1995) to Ben Affleck’s 2010 movie of the same title. The characters of the play span generations of the town’s culture and history, and The Town occurs at a moment of colossal change, not just for the theater owners but for the town’s young citizens, including the Robber and Girl, who must find ways to be initiated into a culture—of robbery, or of art—in a state of often violent transition.
It’s a play about robbery—the taking and making of something beyond oneself—in a town where fresh idealism coexists with weary cynicism, and the love of cinema threatens to prove as corrosive as it is redemptive.
Cast:
The Girl . . . . . . . . . . . Alina Jacobs
The Mayor . . . . . . . . . Vita Taurke
The Robber . . . . . . . . Jonathan Hull
The Town . . . . . . . . . . Madeline Friedman
The Mark . . . . . . . . . . Asha Futterman
The Adjuster . . . . . . . . Ryan Tully
The Waitress . . . . . . . . Brittany Dennison
Film Hut . . . . . . . . . . . Blake Robbins
Cinema Palace . . . . . . Jonathan Woolen
This event is $10.