Creative Team
Written by Kara Emily Krantz
Kara Emily Krantz is a poet, photographer, and playwright from Sturbridge, Massachusetts. With a Masters in Counseling, a decade as a teacher, and sixteen years in community theater as an actress, director, and playwright, she is drawn to the broken pieces – the places of our deepest suffering, beauty, meaning, whimsy, and joy. You, Me, and Ennui is her third of four full-length plays: she self-produced her first comedy, All Bark, No Bite, in 2015 (now published with Rebel Belle Publishing), penned All For the Love of You in 2016, and her thesis project, inValidated will be presented at the end of June as she graduates with her MFA in Writing for Stage & Screen from New Hampshire Institute of Art, where she trained under Buzz McLaughlin (her mentor for this piece). She also recently placed as a winner in the StoryPros International Screenplay Award for her first screenplay, Grace Note.
Directed by Diana Canterbury
Diana Canterbury studied acting and directing at Boston University and completed her MFA in Directing at the University of Connecticut, where she taught acting and Intro to Theater to 600 students a semester. During her 50 years as a theater practitioner, she trained hundreds of students at Washington University in St. Louis and as the founding member of an intensive theater arts program at Worcester Academy in Massachusetts. She feels very fortunate to have had the opportunity to direct more than a hundred productions at secondary schools and colleges, including plays by such greats as Shakespeare, Chekhov, Moliere, Miller, Albee, Williams, Shepard, and Norman. She recently emerged from retirement to direct “Other Desert Cities” and ”Dancing at Lughnasa” at a theater in Barre, Massachusetts, where she resides with her husband in a quaintly dilapidated farmhouse more than three times her age. She is very excited to participate in the W Festival and honored to have the opportunity to direct one of her favorite new plays, “You, Me, and Ennui” by Kara Emily Krantz.
Event Sponsor
Space for this event was sponsored in part by Sokoloff Arts
Synopsis
When 28-year-old Samantha wakes up with a hangover on 75-year-old Theodore’s couch, the only logical way to navigate the situation is to pose as his new caretaker. Through the process of discovering why she is in his house, Sam and Teddy form a quirky yet wonderful bond. Sometimes people stumble into your life… and help heal you.
Cast
Ben Bartolone (David)
A graduate of Circle In The Square’s Professional Workshop, favorites include The Seagull, Romeo & Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The American Clock, and Smokey Joe’s Cafe. Ben completed an MFA in Writing For Stage And Screen with New Hampshire Institute of Art, and in the last year, he founded The Bluestone Project, on a mission to present new plays written & directed by people that represent our actual nation.
Samantha Debicki (Samantha)
Samantha Debicki is a company member of off-Broadway’s TBTB and performed in their productions of Power Plays and Still More of Our Parts at Theatre Row. Other NY credits include Hysterical! (named one of “11 Shows to See at the New York International Fringe Festival 2016” by Variety), Shadows with the Obie Award-winning Hoi Polloi at JACK, and A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People (New Black Fest, NYIFF). Onscreen, Sam recently appeared in the film The Music Box (world premiere Nov. 2017 at San Francisco IndieFest’s genre festival). She is a producer for Urbanworld Film Festival and recently co-wrote her first screenplay, which was shortlisted for the Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2018. Sam will also act in the film, scheduled to shoot this summer.
Yvette Ganier (Sassafrass)
Yvette Ganier is happy to be a part of “You, Me, and Ennui.” Some of Yvette’s credits include: Broadway – The Miracle Worker, King Hedley II; London – Jitney: Off-Broadway/NY – The Block, Pitbulls, Breath Boom, Jitney, For Colored Girls; Regional: Park Square Theatre, Cleveland Playhouse, The Wilma, The Goodman, Steppenwolf, Mark Taper Forum, Baltimore CenterStage. Currently, Yvette is starring in NBC’s newest drama, New Amsterdam, beginning in the Fall of 2018 as Nurse Linda.
Joel Rooks (Theodore)
BROADWAY: Fish In The Dark, The Royal Family, Say Goodnight Gracie, Taller Than A Dwarf, The Tenth Man, The Sisters Rosensweig, Frankie and Johnny in The Clair de Lune. OFF-BROADWAY: The Law of Return, Iron, Comic Potential, Jewtopia, Rocket to the Moon, Under The Bed, The Secret Order, The Louis Slotin Sonata, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Richard II, School for Scandal, More Stately Mansions. REGIONAL: Many plays-many placesFILM: My Bakery in Brooklyn, Outliving Emily, It Runs In The Family, Snatched, The Sightseer, Why George?, On The Run, American Blue Note, LBS, The Gig, His and Hers.TV: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Deadbeat, Copshop, Law & Order, L&O SVU, L&O Criminal Intent, Ed, The Beat. Ensemble Studio Theater member.