Program D

September 17-20

Delayed Blitz

by Grant Mitchell of Greenwich, CT

Produced by Summer Company

In real time and under the pressure of a countdown clock, aging football legend Coach John Hunter sits for his first major interview in years with young nonfiction writer Jamie Smith. What begins as a profile interview quickly becomes a psychological showdown. Hunter is proud, brittle, paranoid, brilliant, and deeply damaged; Smith is ambitious, prepared, and more dangerous than she looks. In the end, Delayed Blitz is a tense, shifting power struggle between a fading titan and a hungry chronicler — a meditation on legacy, ego, and the stories people tell themselves to survive.

Grant Mitchell is a Connecticut-based playwright focused on interpersonal tension and institutional pressures. He focuses on plays that move fast, reveal character through conflict, and force audiences to question the systems they take for granted.

CAST/CREW

Ryan Graves (Director)

John Lane (Producer)

Ovis Mangam (John Hunter)

Julia Love (Jamie Smith)

Are You Okay?

by Geofry Lawton of Coraopolis, PA

Produced by Red Masquers

DANNY arrives early to a CPR class. He provides the audience with context to understand why he and the other characters are there. Between meeting his fellow classmate and the instructor, DANNY shares his daughter’s story. Class begins and the unique relationship that the characters have with lifesaving techniques becomes apparent. As the students demonstrate the techniques they have learned, the mannequins are physically transformed into the individuals that they both care for. As class winds down, the trio discusses what the future may hold for them in an impromptu support group.

Geo Lawton is an emerging playwright based in Western Pennsylvania. A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, he found playwriting in his mid-thirties when he started writing scenes as a way to process his childhood trauma. Those scenes would later evolve into his first full-length play, Dying to See You. He draws inspiration from his experience as a father of a daughter with high medical and support needs, as well as his own experience being diagnosed as neurodivergent late in life. Ultimately, he views theatre as a tool for building empathy with others.

CAST/CREW

Aubrey Posluszny (Director)

John Lane (Producer)

Bob Hartley -- Gary

Aryan Verma -- Danny

Angela Vincent -- Brenda

Death Becomes a Writer

by J.B Heaps of New York, NY

produced by R-ACT Theatre Productions

A lost or stolen collection of shorts stories. A death bed promise. A literary scandal. Can it be explained? Maybe, not on this earthly plane.

J.B. Heaps was an Executive Producer at Showtime Sports where his programs about the sport of boxing won numerous awards including five National Sports Emmys. Now retired, he is happily ensconced in New York writing plays.

CAST/CREW

Larry Spinnenweber (Director)

Amy Joseph (Producer)

Tammy Van Evera (Stage Manager)

David Gettemy (Professor Frederick Seymour Hoffman) is thrilled to have been chosen by R-ACT Theater Productions to perform in their upcoming rendition of Death Becomes a Writer. In recent years, David has performed for Beacon on the Hil Productions in Beauty and the Beast and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Also, for Beacon, David performed in original productions of Cabaret, a compilation of well-known songs and stand-up routines and Dreamland Diner, an original story of a waitress with dreams of a better life set to the music of several pop hits. This fall, David will be part of another original production called Bethlehem the Musical. David was also an extra in the upcoming Apple TV+ streaming series Parallax.

Daniel Schrauder (Patrick Mahoney)

Seth Pittsburg (Interviewer)