The Virginia Playwright & Screenwriters Initiative
at
the Hamner Theater
presents
The Valley of Argos
by
Brent Cirves
Saturday, July 24 at 3:00 p.m.
Director / Dramaturg- Boomie Pedersen & Carol Pedersen
Technical Director – J. Taylor
CAST:
Vic (1st Lieutenant) and Albert (Chief of Police) – John Holdren
Helen (President) – Kerry Moran
Gunnar (Colonel) and Partisan – Brian O'Connor
Jason, 2nd Lieutenant – Jared Ivory
Jason (General) – Rick Steeves
Narrator and Soldier – Phyllis Reed (Gardner)
THE VALLEY OF ARGOS is set in the last organized nation-state on earth, in a future that bears a strong resemblance to the present and the past. The Leader of this state is faced with a terrible decision:agreeing to many more years of war and bloodshed, or killing the General responsible for it, who happens to be her husband. Her daughter has already died at the front; her son is coming home from the war with deep psychological wounds. What will the Leader do? Break with the past and let her husband live? Replay the events of the ancient story of AGAMEMNON – is history circular or linear? See what the denizens of a new Argos discover, yet again.
Brent Cirves is a published writer and has had a number of plays produced, most recently his adaptation of THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, written with Mike Johnson, and EXILES FROM THE SUN, a family drama.USHER appeared at the Washington D.C. Fringe Festival last summer where it won the prize for "Best Musical Play." USHER and EXILES both went on to the New York International Fringe Festival,appearing in repertory at the Connelly Theatre in Manhattan. Cirves is the first author to have had two full-length plays produced in the same summer at the NYC Fringe. He is also the chairman of the Fine Arts Department at Woodberry Forest School where he teaches and directs three shows per year. Brent would like to thank the wonderful Hamner Theater–Boomie Pedersen and Peter Coy,director Carol Pedersen, and the many new friends he has made there–for this excellent opportunity. He would also like to thank his wife Laura and daughters Alex and Nola for their love and support.
The Virginia Playwrights and Screenwriters Initiative (VPSI) is a part of the Hamner Theater's continuing mission to foster newworks. VPSI provides a venue for the writer to workshop, rewrite and rehearse a new script with a company of experienced actors, a director and a dramaturg. The writer participates in a process of readings, rehearsal and discussion with cast, director and dramaturg, culminating in a public staged reading. Following the reading, there is a discussion open to all.
VPSI is made possible in part by grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the BAMA Fund.
The Hamner Theater is a non-profit project of the Rockfish Valley Community Center.
Read more about the VPSI Summer Conference