Two plays written by 2nd Act Players’ founder John N. Frank will be performed by two other theater groups online this June and July. The plays were originally performed by the 2nd Act Players in 2017 and 2018. A theater group called Play Readings with Friends will read Frank’s New Year’s Eve at Grandma’s House […]
Scenes from past plays performed by the 2nd Act Players are now viewable through links on two sites run by the League of Chicago Theatres and by a group called Arts for Illinois. The 2nd Act Players began posting clips from past shows in late March after having to cancel it’s upcoming May show because […]
Hannah Goodman, who wowed audiences during the 2nd Act Players’ 2017 performances of Moving Boxes, has been accepted for a summer study program at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. The 133-year-old conservatory numbers among its alumni Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, Robert Redford. Lauren Bacall, Danny DeVito, Kirk Douglas and scores of […]
Another 2nd Act Players’ world premiere, the two-act family drama Moving Boxes, has drawn the curtain for the final time and so we want to thank everyone involved in the production. Finding a cast for a play like this is always an adventure. A director never knows who he or she may end up working […]
Moving Boxes is the fifth play I’ve written in the last five years. Someone had the temerity to tell me last year, “you can’t keep writing a new play every year.” Well, I could and I did, so there.
Julia begins the play as an isolated teen wondering where she fits in to her dysfunctional family. But as the show progresses, she comes to better know her grandmother, Faye, and starts to get some answers to the questions we all ask about where do we come from and where do we belong.
Will Faye adjust to leaving her beloved New York so soon after the tragedy of 9/11? Will her son Frankie be able to reconcile with the mother who drove him away? And will granddaughter Julia discover what family really means?
Julie Mitre plays Faye, the family matriarch in Moving Boxes who is on stage almost every scene of the two-act play. It’s a major acting challenge, but one Julie, who has been in two other 2nd Act Players production, is more than up for. A unique woman, Faye also represents everyone who finds themselves aging […]