Lesllie Powell: No rest for the weary

Port playwright Leslie Powell.

If you see Leslie Powell and she seems somewhat, um, unresponsive, don’t jump to the conclusion that she’s suffering from, you know, that well-known affliction of playwrights. Chances are that she’s not even lightly toasted, whatever a comfort that might be, no matter how loud a martini might be calling her name. No, she’s probably just taking a nap, whether her body agrees or not. The Port playwright hasn’t been sleeping well, hasn’t been sleeping through the night. She keeps waking up to deal with crises involving the new production of “The Way Life Should Be.” Whether they have actually happened or not. Stress. Everything that could go wrong, plus everything that has gone wrong. Like having two actors from the original production, people who know the work, pull out at the last minute. When she was 2,500 miles away, in Tucson, her winter hide-away. And the dreams — sleep-shattering nightmares about everything that could possibly go wrong. All these things banging around her brains. She’s thinking about hypnosis to help calm her down. She's not joking.  Stress: It’s a monster. You’d think the she would be used to it by now. After all, the Merrimac Street resident isn't exactly a rookie. She’s the one of the founders of North Shore Readers Theater Collaborative and Readers and Writers, INK. She’s a playwright who always seems to have something going on. Later this year, for example, she going to be attending a production of her play “Backfire,” about a young woman who seeks revenge on a man who bullied her in high school, at the Inspiration Festival in Toronto. Then she and her hubby, Ron Pullins, also a playwright — and owner of Focus Publishing in Newburyport — will be checking out “Ice Dancing” at the Last Frontier Conference’s New Play Lab in Valdez, Alaska.  But that’s different. Sitting in the audience, watching a play you wrote, the only real worry in the world is not being too deep in the wine line for intermission. That’s not exactly true, says Powell. She recalls Port playwright Gregory S. Moss fielding a question during a talkback session, someone asking what it’s like sitting in the audience watching someone do one of  your own plays. His response? “It’s like having your skin flayed off ... while you’re alive.”

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Powell play adopts new look

Things aren't the way they should be and they're not what they seem in "The Way Life Should Be," the "new" Leslie Powell play that has been kicking around stages, on the east coast, in the southwest, in one form or another for about seven years and, recently opened the fourth season of North Shore Readers Theater Collaborative, a Port play development series, in a dramatically stripped down form that came after a major rewrite just days before the latest opening. Something the actors must have been really happy about. Hey, everyone loves last-minute rewrites, right? It’s a story with a very long history — like the play itself. It's about a much-delayed, much- anticipated reunion, a get-together Elaine has played out in her head thousands of times over the years. She has not seen Grady since he was a little boy  — 19 inches to be exact — when she gave him up for adoption. He’s 27 years old now. She knows it was the "right" thing to do, but that decision has cast a shadow over the rest of her life, which has been shrouded in doubt and guilt for as long as she can remember, although the emotional ramifications have mostly simmered below the surface. He is the "ghost baby," who has been haunting her all his life. Wherever that played out. She has waited for the call for years, not expecting to get it, because in her heart she feels guilty, she feels like she is being — and maybe should be — punished because, after all, what kind of monster would willingly give away her child? No, no. Nobody ever said it. To her face. But she has felt the scorn of icy imagined stares through most of her adult life. No amount of comfort, reassurance from Jess, her lovie-dovie, long-time live-in will change that. Okey-dokey? 

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Powell takes second bite out of BTM

Last time we saw Leslie Powell, she was being slaughtered and devoured by some seriously evil entities in “God of the Vampires,” the gory, gross-out flick by former Amesbury resident Rob Fitz that recently aired on the former WNDS-TV. Well, that’s not exactly true. Honestly, we just couldn’t take it. The film made us nostalgic for the sweetness and light and, in comparison, innocence of “Kill Bill, Volume Two” or any of the any of the titles from the equally enchanting “Hostel” series. But it looks like the Merrimac Street playwright is feeling better, good enough to land a spot in this year’s Boston Theater Marathon, as is Steve Faria, but, to be fair, no vampires treated him like dinner so he doesn’t really have anything to complain about. Not that they have special rules for scribblers who are devoured by vampires. Mmmmm … scribblers. 

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Locals making short, bloody small screen debut

Oh, bloody hell, there they are again. Not in the lobby or in the shadows of a darkened theater, where you usually find them, but on the small screen, in a gory, gross-out horror flick. At least they will be next week. Granted, you don’t want to close your eyes during the feature presentation, even though you desperately want to close your bloody eyes, because, if you do, you could very well miss them. The actors, not your eyes. “I'm little more than a dot in a large, dark mob of hungry, hopping — yep, Chinese vampires hop — vampires with glowing red eyes," says the guy we usually call Port playwright Ron Pullins because we love alliteration. His wife and sometimes-writing partner, Leslie Powell, fares a little better, at least from a performance point of view. She plays a little old lady who is sweeping her doorstep and then, a couple of minutes later, all that remains of her is, um, entrails that are unceremoniously tossed out the door.  But at least she gets a speaking role, albeit brief.  She says "Hi, dear" to Frank, an assassin and the unfortunate fellow who tangles with the vampire, while she is sweeping the stairs. We get a second peek at her a little later in the film, in a montage, she flashes on the Powell and, um, her guts, "because sadly I've been eaten by the Vampire," she says. "Yes these guys eat you, blood isn't enough for them.") The film which will premier at 8 p.m. April 30 on what used to be WNDS. Remember the slogan? The winds of New England. Now it’s called MYTV. Used to be Channel 50, we're not sure what Comcast, that evil corporate giant, calls it. 

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Powell-ful production at New Works

She’s trying to be cool about it, not to rub it in, but it's hard to hold back the gloating: While we're, thankfully, between winter batterings, winds whipping, blowing the snow and our opportunity to truly enjoy a much-deserved long holiday weekend, Leslie Powell’s looking out her window at the Santa Catalina mountains, drenched in sunlight, as the mercury dances around the 70-degree mark. Ah, Tucson, Arizona, the Newburyport playwright Southwest escape destination, where she can spend some time with Sis and, of course, fellow scribblers from the Old Pueblo Playwrights, her literary home-away-from-home. Not that there's anything wrong with escaping New England’s winter treachery. (“I know, I know,” she says in a sotto voce that almost masks the smirk we expect is manifesting itself more than 2,000 miles away on the other end of the receiver, “but I still feel kinda guilty.” Yeah, right. Then it's off to southern California on a business trip, and back to chill Newburyport in time to take in the New Works Festival.


Yup, she’s in the line-up again. With some of the other usual local suspects, locally. Like Steve Faria, who nabbed the festival’s first-ever Peter Honegger Award for his short play “Egg Whites and Miracles,” and Deirdre Girard. And big picture, like James McLindon, the Northampton playwright who is making his third appearance in the anchor position and taking home the Pestolozzi Award for best full-length play.

Powell's latest is a little different from her previous stuff — much darker than, say, “Movie Mogul in his Mama’s Muumuu,” a hilarious collaboration with her husband, Ron Pullins, in which the main character writes breathless homo-erotic sports stories in his splendid, sartorial comfort. No, “Soldier Boy,” despite its name, which conjures up hazy memories of ’50s innocence, is much darker material: A returned, broken veteran picks up a woman in a bar, but it all goes very wrong, turning from a cheap-but-possibly-fun one-nighter to an attempted abduction, with the soldier threatening to kill her — or himself.

The material has its roots in news reports prompted by reports of the miserable medical and psychiatric treatment that have awaited veterans back home. “It just made me so angry,” says Powell, who founded Random Acts, the Newburyport play-in-a-day festival, with Hailey Klein, and the North Shore Readers Theatre Collaborative, which brings original plays to the stage in a readers' format, with Pullins and Actors Studio founder Marc Clopton.

This will be the third production of the piece, but its first local showing. Its first time out was during the 2008 Boston Theatre Marathon, where it was produced by the Metro Stage Company. Second time out was during the 2009 Gloucester Fall Shorts Festival, where it was directed by Holly Little. (New Works rules allow previous festival entries in the lineup.) Both were dramatically different productions, says the playwright: “I want to see it as many times as I can with different actors,” she says. “It's always different. It's like seeing it new and fresh because different actors and directors bring a different perspective." The current production, which will open day two of the festival, will be directed by Tim Diering, who closed out 2009 with two Michael Kimball plays: “Santa Come Home” at the Players Ring and “I Fall for You” at the Firehouse. Jesiah Hammond and Kate Bossi star. As for Diering, he’s keeping mum about what his plans are for the show — even keeping the playwright in the dark — saying only that “it will knock your socks off."


THE FACTS, THE FOLKS: The New Works Festival runs Jan. 22-23 and Jan. 29-30 at the Firehouse Center for the Performing Arts, 1 Market Square, Newburyport. The first weekend will open with “Dead and Buried,” the new full-length play by James McLindon. The following night will feature half of the 14-shorts accepted into the festival. The second weekend will open with a staged reading of “pudding,” a new full-length play by Michael Tooher, followed, the next day, by the remaining shorts. Show times are 8 p.m. Tickets are $12. A limited number of four-day passes are available for $35 each. For information, call 978-462-7336 or go online to firehouse.org.

Friday, Jan. 22: "Dead and Buried,” drama by James McLindon, starring Astrid Lorentzson, Ashley Risteen and Eliot Johnson. Directed by Sherry Bonder.

Saturday, Jan. 23: “Soldier Boy,” drama by Leslie Powell, starring Kate Bossi and Jesiah Hammond; directed by Tim Diering. “No Strings Attached,” comedy by Kara Sorenson, starring Jennifer Wilson, Phil Thompson, Eric Lamarche and Steve Sacchetti; directed by Lois Honegger. “Knowing,” comedy by Gregory Hischak, starring Pam Battin-Sacks and Danny Sklar; directed by Cynthia Arsenault. “If You Love,” drama by Marc Clopton, starring John Sheedy and Jesiah Hammond; directed by Anna Smulowitz. “Sleeping with the Cat 1963,” drama by Daniel Sklar, starring Maureen Daley and Mary Shapiro; directed by Alan Huisman. “Jock Itch,” comedy by George Sauer, starring Sandy Farrier and Brad Ritchie; directed by Jack Rushton; “Touching Elephants,” drama-comedy by Stephen Faria, starring Gloria Papert, Dennis Flynn and Victor Atkins; directed by Diana Kerry.

Friday, Jan. 29: “Pudding,” comedy by Michael Tooher, starring Jennifer Wilson and Terry Blanchard, with Mary Shapiro, Kathy Isabel, Terry Donohue, Sherry Bonder, Julie McConechie, Myron Moss and Sam Szabo; directed by Maureen Daley

Saturday, Jan. 30: "Egg Whites and Miracles,” comedy by Stephen Faria, starring Missy Chabot, Irene Sanders and Fontaine Dollas Dubus, directed by Kimm Wilkinson. “Free Will and Kat,” drama by Deirdre Girard, starring Kayt Tommasino and Teddy Speck; directed by Stephen Haley. “Last Dance,” comedy by Kerry Zagarella, starring Bruce Anderson, Tracy Bickel, Kari Nickou and Jack Rushton; directed by Suzanne Bryan. “A Simile,” comedy by Robert B. Boulrice; directed by David Frank. “A Crooked Chapatti,” comedy by Priya Tahiliani, directed by Kathy Isabel. “Amenities,” comedy by Gregory Hischak, starring Stephen Faria, Kari Nickou, Irene Sanders and Steve Turner; directed by Anne Easter Smith.