Still-Life With Dog read

An enthusiastic, if a bit small, audience heard Bonnie Rozanski's Still-Life With Dog read on April 19th. A miscalculation (and ignoring of the calendar!) had us doing the reading on both the first night of Passover and after the spring football game, in which the OSU team plays itself to about 90,000 fans. Our reading was late enough so that it wasn't affected, but it did take an hour to drive the playwright, Bonnie Rozanski, and her husband, Rider University President Mordechai Rozanski, three blocks from the freeway to the hotel on campus.



Next up: Sandra Dempsey's Rosa's Lament on the 24th, again in the New Works Lab at Ohio State's Drake Performance and Event Center.

Here's Bonnie Rozanski, on the left, with her cast: Jessi Biggert (Sarah), Dwayne Blackaller (Donald), Doreen Salkiewicz (in front, Fanny), Sarah Worthington (Rachel), Alex Coccia (behind Sarah, Mark), and Virginia Logan (Georgette). Since Raymond Caldwell was unable to be there, Alan Woods wound up reading Marvin, and was unable to take photos of the reading itself.

We learned from Bonnie afterwards that the idea for the play came from her own life experiences growing up. She spoke very positively of the insights the reading gave her, particularly into the character of Donald. She also praised Doreen escpecially, saying Doreen's reading of a long monologue for Fanny that ends Act I was as good as it possibly could be.