Triple Threat, three plays in repertoire at Theatre 5

Emerging Artists Theatre (EAT) presents its 2007 Triple Threat, the company�s second annual premiere of three full-length plays, in repertoire, by emerging playwrights. Triple Threat will play a four-week off-Broadway engagement at Theatre 5 from 5 Feb - 4 Mar 2007.

Paul Adams, artistic director of EAT, who is directing his first full-length play Real Danger, said �this is a great opportunity and exposure for our entire company of playwrights, directors, actors, designers, and technical team. I�m delighted that Emerging Artists Theatre is moving energetically to the next level of producing Off Broadway.�

• Elephant Girls
  Written by Carl Gonzalez
  Directed by Derek Jamison
  Cast: Sarah Aziz, Amy Bizjak, Glory Gallo and Lue McWilliams
  Schedule: Wed & Thu 7pm, Sat 5pm, Mat: Sun 2pm

  Synopsis: Takes place during a Kozy Kitchen party that the perfect housewife Claire decides to host for her sister (Elizabeth), her mother (Francis) and her friends (Suzie and Jasmin). After an unexpected guest (Robina Abdul�Claire�s daughter�s Afghani math tutor) stops by, Claire struggles to keep the party light and humorous. At first the group greets Robina with a mixture of awkwardness, forced politeness, curiosity and unconscious racism. As the humor, conversation and wine flow, they seem to work their way toward a genuine connection and understanding.

  It is only after a tragic accident occurs�and a subsequent attempt to cover it up�that the women learn each other�s true characters. They find themselves exploring the complexities of human behavior and the consequences of their own life choices. What happens to a little girl in the absence of love? What happens when strangers half a world away take up her cause? Inspired by National Geographic�s famous cover photo The Afghan Girl, Elephant Girls culminates in six women spiraling into a maelstrom of white-hot emotion that leaves their relationships forever changed.

  
  
• (mis)Understanding Mammy: The Hattie McDaniel Story
  Written by Joan Ross Sorkin
  Directed by David Glenn Armstrong
  Cast: Capathia Jenkins
  Schedule: Fri 7pm, Sun 5pm, Mat: Wed & Sat 2pm

  Synopsis: The Hattie McDaniel Story is a one-woman play with music that reveals a side of Hattie McDaniel that few people knew. Hattie achieved stardom by becoming the first African-American to win an Academy Award, but she paid a high price for fame. By playing a succession of maids and cooks, most notably Mammy in Gone With the Wind, she became the target of an unrelenting campaign against �Mammyism� led by Walter White of the NAACP, who thought her roles were shameful and degrading to their race. Despite her own efforts to bring dignity and humanity to her roles, within seven years of winning her Oscar, her film career was virtually destroyed.

  Set in 1952 at the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital in Woodlands Hills, California, the play begins as Hattie is dying of breast cancer. Hallucinating in her hospital room, Hattie believes Walter White has come to reconcile their differences, and she takes the opportunity to recount her life from her early days in Denver as a singer�dancer�actress in Vaudeville, to nightclub celebrity in Milwaukee, to ground-breaking Hollywood icon and finally to the downfall of her career, trying all the way to prove that she was in fact a credit to her race. As she traces her life from a happy, optimistic girl to a proud but embittered woman, the profound effects of the battle against racism in Hollywood in the 30s and 40s are suddenly clear. Throughout this rollercoaster ride, Hattie sings her songs, dances her dances and recites the lines that made her famous, illuminating a life so long misunderstood.

  
  
• Real Danger
  Written by Jeff Hollman
  Directed by Paul Adams (EAT Artistic Director)
  Cast: Eric Chase, Ryan Duncan and Carol Monda
  Schdeule: Mon & Tue 7pm, Fri 9pm & Sat 8pm

  Synopsis: Begins with a surprise reunion between two friends nine years after graduation from college. Edward, who is en route from New York to Canada for a back-country excursion in a canoe, initiates the reunion with his friend and soccer teammate Ferdy, who is living with Vickie in Cleveland, Ohio. Edward has made contact because he needs to apologize to Ferdy for an old wrong. As the play progresses, however, Edward learns about Vickie�s outstanding career as a professional photographer, a career that has taken her into dangerous places and relationships. He learns about how Ferdy and Vickie met and how they decided to become fugitives for fear that Vickie�s former lover would kill them if he could find them. For Edward, the reunion moves quickly away from his original purpose and becomes a series of shocking surprises that he could not have envisioned when he made the decision to seek out his old friend.