I am delighted to share the email below with everyone. It comes from two young ladies, recent college graduates, Tangela Harris and Sherryland Neal of Atlanta, who chose to kick off their new theater company with an evening of short works by AAPEX writers Ben Marshall, Benard Cummings and Fernando Manon.

The event took place last night, Friday, January 18 and was free to the public.

Below is Tangela's report on the evening.

Jaz

The following is an email:

Hello All!

Ok, so here is the 411 you have all probably been waiting on...

"A 10 Minute Night!" was a blast! We held the performance in a room at a recreation center and kept it very simple. We told the audience a little about each play and how we chose each play. We explained to them that as starters of producing and working together in this manner, we wanted to get an idea of what audience and theatre goers like to see. Well needless to say, we got a lot of great reviews!!!!!!!!

I was extremely pleased by the feedback and they are looking forward to more plays to see.
To start with "My Brother, Are you too Heavy?"/Benard Cummings, they loved the the relationship between the two characters, they felt the situation was real and some could relate to something similar as african americans. They also stated the play raised questions and pushed somewhat of political, economical, and cultural issues. As a director, I picked the play for the same reasons and it has a lot of substance. The actors really dug into this play and had a lot of questions in regards to character choices. I told the audience a little about your one act play "Here Am I, Send me" and they cant wait to see it!

For "You're Gettin' Me Hot"/ Fernandon Manon, the audience response was that it was fun, enjoyable, and funny, the sarcasm had a few questioning (probably themselves). The male actor had a lot of questions about Ray but he was able to dig into the kind of person Ray is and sort of relate it to some people of today. Please send me more plays to read if you have any to share.

Lastly, for "A Wrong Funeral" /Ben Marshall, all I can say is the audience cried! It actually was a few people that could literally relate, they said it felt real to them. I asked them the one question in which you brought to my attention, which was who did they think was the victim, which you said actors can be confused between Janice and the Mother. The audience response was they felt both were but Janice was one at one time but not now, she was able to overcome her struggles in which mother was still in denial or still blaming Janice for her bad choices. This one play Sheryland and I when first sitting down to read the plays caught our eye first. And it proved its self to the stage. We did a reading of a play from one of the actors which was an excerpt from a full length play she is in the middle of writing, the audience loved that one too.

I greatly appreciate your submissions and support, please dont hesitate to send other plays. We are looking forward to moving forward in our adventure as director/stage manager (Sheryland and I) so we will need all of the plays we can get. Thanks again, Jaz for the support, and network of playwrights, and AAPEX. If you all have any questions dont hesitate to ask. If you would like a copy of the program please send me an address or I can email it to you (send me what what your choice is).

Tangela Harris
tangibleacts@yahoo.com