First Time Reading of Jeff Wanshel's "Modern Entrepreneur"

Friday, December 8, 7:30 pm at The Hudson Stage Company

by Judy Silberstein, photo by Edi Giguere

(December 6, 2006) A new work by Jeff Wanshel, the playwright, college teacher and Larchmont resident, will be read for the first time on Friday, December 8 at the Hudson Stage, the Westchester professional theatre devoted to developing and producing new plays. The performance will be a reading of two new thematically related one-acts, Suspended and Modern Entrepreneur.

“The company, under the producing triumvirate of Denise Bessette, Dan Foster, and Olivia Sklar, bills the evening as “two provocative one-acts about manipulative relationships,” which strikes me as about right,” said Mr. Wanshel.

He is known for his wild farces, but Mr. Wanshel characterizes his latest works as “quite unique” but not comedic. “The plays are anything but politically correct and edge out into murky moral water,” he said. They deal with themes that, in the writer’s estimation, are not suitable for children. “Leave the kids at home,” he advised.

In Suspended, when three "tourists" meet in the shadows of the pinnacle monasteries at Meteora, Greece, all is not as it seems. There are themes of America vs. Europe, men vs. women, marriage vs. sex slavery.

Modern Entrepreneur concerns a parking valet in LA who borrows money from a drug dealer to start a nude car wash.

Padraic Lillis, affiliated with Manhattan’s LAByrinth company, will direct. The cast includes Richard Council, Christopher Edwards, Val Jaeger, Sayra Player, and John Wojda.

Mr. Wanshel, 59, is an Obie-Award-winning writer whose work has appeared at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, Lincoln Center and The American Place in New York City, on PBS and the BBC, and at the National Playwrights Conference. Two plays, Diamond Cut Diamond and Ophelia, were recently published by Playscripts, Inc. Also, the fledgling Westchester Review has just published his short story String Man in their premiere issue.

Following the December 8 reading, there will be a talkback with the author where audience feedback will be encouraged. “You’ll have a chance to let me know what you think,” said Mr. Wanshel. “Do not bring tomatoes. Do not bring bricks. Bring an open mind,” he suggested.

The reading will take place on Friday, Dec. 8th, at 7:30pm, at the Woodward Hall Theater, PACE University, 235 Elm Road, in Briarcliff Manor. See www.HudsonStage.com for directions. Suggested admission is $10. The plays run around ninety to a hundred minutes plus a ten or fifteen minute intermission.

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