Self Defense, or death of some salesman

at convergence-continuum
by Carson Kreitzer
directed by Geoffrey Hoffman
July 5 - July 27
Cross the threshold into a whirlwind of passions.

Seven men have been found dead along I-95 in Florida. A prostitute is arrested and charged with their murders. The police say she's a serial killer. She claims seven separate acts of self-defense. Inspired by the true story of Aileen Wuornos, Self Defense, or death of some salesmen is a whirlwind of passions. The play is fast and furious, shocking and funny, and at its center, a portrait of a very complicated human being. She is complex, charismatic, dangerous, damaged, full of love and anger; above all else, she is alive.

"...Hoffman as Jolene is a scowling, confrontational, perpetually pacing piece of work — a complicated composite of unrefined bravado, blind anger, survival instincts gone awry and denial..." (News Herald)
"...famously played in the movie by Charlize Theron...Hoffman is poignant, offensive and funny..." (Scene)

2013 NEO MFA Playwrights Festival

SEE WHAT THE NEXT GENERATION OF PLAYWRIGHTS ARE UP TO!
4 new one-act plays!
2 world-premiere one-act plays each evening!
Co-produced by convergence-continuum, Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts and Cleveland State University

Thu-Sat, Feb 14, 15, 16 @ 8pm
*BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD
by Rachel Baird --- directed by Geoffrey Hoffman
Featuring: Tyson Rand, Laurel Hoffman, Zac Hudac
*PUPPET PARTY
by Claire Robinson May --- directed by Clyde Simon
Featuring: Liz Conway, Clint Elston, Tom Kondilas, Sarah Kunchik

Grace

June 29 to July 21, 2012 --- Thur-Sat @ 8:00pm
By Craig Wright --- Directed by Geoffrey Hoffman
A darkly comic, eerily tragic, wholly timely play about how religious ideas make sense (and sometimes nonsense) of life, love, relationships and business deals. Cross the threshold into a time-and-space-bending, darkly comic look at faith and religion.

Steve and Sara have relocated to Sunrise, Florida to pursue an unbelievably wonderful business deal, but as the deal slowly unravels and Steve finds himself afflicted with an itch that just won't stop, Sara finds herself increasingly drawn to their next-door neighbor, Sam, a badly-scarred victim of a recent car accident who wants nothing to do with her or her Bible-quoting husband. In the end, with a little help from an old German exterminator who's still angry about the Allied bombing of Hamburg in World War II, all three characters are confronted by a world that's both better and worse than any religion can justify. Doolee.com

The Internationalist (an Ohio Premier)

November 25 – December 17, 2011 --- Thur-Sat @ 8pm
By Anne Washburn --- Directed by Clyde Simon
at The Liminis, in Tremont
Cross the threshold into a foreign landscape.

Lowell, an American on a business trip, is met at the airport by a beautiful colleague. They spend the night together and he thinks he's in one of those great American movies where you go to a foreign land and there's romance and adventure and the experience changes you. The next day at the office he discovers that he's not in one of those movies, he's in one of those foreign films where nothing is as it seems, where there is no moral, and most importantly: no subtitles.

“Welcome to Anne Washburn, an original new voice! The Internationalist is a new kind of play for the 21st century. Fresh, provocative, riveting, and more entertaining and satisfying than many long-running hits.” – Back Stage

Brainpeople (an Ohio Premier)

October 15 - November 13 --- Thur-Sat @ 8pm
by Jose Rivera --- directed by Clyde Simon
at The Liminis (in Tremont)
Cross the threshold and take your place at a beastly dinner.

The time: the present. The place: a faded penthouse in a violent, militaristic Los Angeles. A rich and beautiful young woman has invited two carefully selected strangers (one for her lovely eyes, the other for her lovely hands) to a very special dinner commemorating the death of her parents. She has offered the two strangers $20,000 each to attend (and complete) the bizarre annual feast. The result is an engrossing journey into the traumatized inner realms of the three very different, solitary women that is alternately surreal, humorous, startling and magical.

"Rivera has created an intriguing and evocative drama with the social and pyschological terrors that have leapt from the grottoes of the women's minds" - San Francisco Chronicle.
"This real-time drama...offers great insight into how basic human nature can go bizarrely astray when the world is falling apart." - San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Hunter Gatherers (an Ohio Premier)

July 16 - August 14, 2010 --- Thur-Sat @ 8pm
by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb--- directed by Clyde Simon
at The Liminis in Tremont
Cross the threshold into a primal universe.

"Outrageously libidinous knockabout farce meets penetrating social satire in Peter Nachtrieb's hilariously revelatory comedy" —San Francisco Chronicle.

Pam and Richard are hosting their best friends, Wendy and Tom, for their annual dinner get-together. An animal sacrifice kicks off the evening, followed by a little more sex, violence, deception, revelations, wrestling and dancing than in previous years. A darkly comic evening where the line between civilized and primal man is blurred, and where not everyone will survive long enough to enjoy the brownies for dessert.

Big Love

July 24 – Aug 22 -- Thur-Sat at 8pm
by Charles Mee -- directed by Clyde Simon
at The Liminis

Fifty brides flee their fifty grooms and seek refuge in a villa on the coast of Italy in this modern re-making of one of the western world's oldest plays, The Danaids by Aeschylus. And, in this villa on the Italian coast, the fifty grooms catch up with the brides, and mayhem ensues: the grooms arriving by helicopter in their flight suits, women throwing themselves over and over again to the ground, pop songs and romantic dances, and, finally, unable to escape their forced marriages, 49 of the brides murder 49 of the grooms-and one bride falls in love. About the same odds as today.

REVIEWS:
The Plain Dealer by Tony Brown
"... Thyona (actress Lauren Smith, left), Olympia (Laurel Johnson) and Lydia (Liz Conway) are just three Greek girls looking for a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T -- and a little fun -- in "Big Love"..."
Scene Magazine by Christine Howey
"When it comes topissed-off married chicks, there is more fury in the blushing, hatchet-wielding ladies of Big Love than in a whole season of Bridezillas... the passive, princess-y Olympia (Laurel Johnson) etches a distinctive character..."
Roy Berko
"...Laurel Johnson looks like she just escaped from a Barbie doll wrapping and plays the air headed Olympia with perfect ease..."

"Quake" at convergence-continuum

May 29 to June 27 --- Thur-Sat at 8pm
by Melanie Marnich --- directed by Arthur Grothe
at The Liminis

Lucy is on a cross-country mission, looking for the love of her life. Her journey takes her across the American landscape, through hilarious and eccentric relationships in which time and emotion pass in a warped instant. When her quest becomes intertwined with that of a quirky female serial killer (an astrophysicist gone bad), the landscape changes once again, as they cross state lines and faultlines, exploring the geography of the human heart.

REVIEWS:
The Plain Dealer - by Tony Brown
"...Laurel Johnson has long qualified as a force of nature. As That Woman, Johnson has a moue for every moment, a jiggle for every gigolo and a sucker-punch for every sucker."
Rave and Pan - by Christine Howie
"...Perhaps the most magnetic performance is turned in by Laurel Johnson as That Woman, strutting with sleek and polished confidence through Lucy’s dream sequences as the role model from hell."

"Freakshow" at convergence-continuum

July 25 – August 23, 2008 --- Thur-Sat: 8pm
by Carson Kreitzer --- directed by Geoffrey Hoffman
at convergence-continuum
Cross the threshold into the human sideshow.

At the turn of the last century, a traveling Freakshow grinds to a halt. Things are changing. The anger of being stared at, trapped and caged, is at war with the freaks’ reassurance of knowing their place in the universe. But the growing defiance of the freaks is no act. Will the Dog Faced Woman break her bonds from the show and shatter their fragile edifice of sustaining interdependence; can the jaded and profoundly broken Ringmaster find redemption through his love for the beautiful Woman With No Arms and No Legs; will Aquaboy, the human salamander, find love with a obsessed outsider; and the Pinhead find solace in Jesus, or burn the place down? In this poetic, gritty world, there may be a way out.

Company member Geoffrey Hoffman, who helmed ‘07’s Demon Baby, directs Carson Kreitzer’s funny, strange and provocative look at humanity through a funhouse mirror.

REVIEWS:
Rave and Pan - by Christine Howey
"...This is an often humorous play, directed with skill by Geoffrey Hoffman, that is highlighted by two absolutely mesmerizing performances that must be seen by anyone who gives a damn about live theater."
"...As played by the riveting Laurel Johnson, Amalia is an enormously powerful presence given that she cannot move or gesture...the dominating presence of Johnson’s Amalia, center stage for most of the play and attended to by a doting Judith, keeps us focused on the awful yet oh-so-human tragedy of being different."
The Plain Dealer - by Tony Brown
"...She might not have arms or legs, but Amalia (played with a calm ferocity and much personal discomfort with her limbs tucked away by the tantalizing Laurel Johnson) holds us spellbound."

"In the Garden" at convergence-continuum

May 30 – June 28, 2008
by Norman Allen --- directed by Clyde Simon
at convergence-continuum
Cross the threshold into a realm where the sexual and spiritual entwine.

The lives of four urban sophisticates are rocked by their encounters with Gabe, a beautiful young man who is everything but what he seems: precocious young scholar, hot pan-sexual boy-toy, selfless weird homeless kid, or what? With unworldly charisma, Gabe constructs a web of sensuality, sexual identity, seduction and theology grounded in the lessons of the New Testament. A professor of philosophy, his fashionista wife, and their slick young friends must rise to the young man’s erotic and spiritual challenge, questioning their lives as they question his very identity. With high comedy and thought-provoking drama, In the Garden blends sexual conventions, high fashion, Nietzsche, and Christ in a hyper-theatrical rollercoaster ride.

REVIEWS:
The Cleveland Plain Dealer - by Tony Brown
"...Laurel Johnson's glowing, Magdalene-esque fiancee..."
Scene Magazine - by Christine Howey
"...Laurel Johnson makes Lizzie a blessedly likable and grounded presence."