Tuesday, July 31 @ 7:30pm | FREE ADMISSION
Rough Out
A new play
Written by James DeMarse
From the author:
Rough Out was written in a state of despair after a young girl whom I knew very well died from an overdose of heroin, probably fentanyl laced. I asked the question: How could this happen? How could a twenty-year-old girl give up on her life? And the other troubling question was: Could I have done anything to save her? The play is a response to those questions.
Rough Out opened up a wound in order to heal it. I found that doing it gave me a better understanding of creating something instead of destroying it especially a human being. The older I get the more distance I feel from the young but they need me to be there – my son, my daughter, my granddaughter. How a sculpture in wood can transform the life of this girl, Cherry, is a mystery but it is the metaphor in my play that I chose, if not to answer the questions posed, at least point the way. After the performance I hope the audience can walk out of the theater feeling that saving another human being is worth it even if we lose ourselves sometimes by doing it.
James DeMarse has had Equity showcase productions in New YorkKnock ‘Em Dead, at the Image Theater; and Breaking Through the Clutter at the 42nd Street Workshop; also has had Equity productions of one act plays: Urban Disorders (three one acts) performed at the Company of Characters Theatre in Los Angeles; Easy Street at The Quaigh Theatre in New York; and A Dress Unknown at the West Bank, also in New York. He has had rehearsed staged readings of three full length plays: Black Duck Bay, Dying For You, and Orange Bees at the Workshop Theater. Also, another full length, Violent Child, was given a staged reading at EST. My play, George Washington’s Farewell to his Mother was given a reading at the Actors Studio PD Unit with Lois Smith. Existing Privilege was chosen for the Elia Kazan Festival at the Actors Studio and given a slot at the Berkshire Playwrights Lab. He was co-artistic director of the Forty-second Street Workshop for several years. He is a member of the ACTOR’S STUDIO and the ENSEMBLE STUDIO THEATER and the DRAMATIST GUILD of America, INC.
James DeMarse (actor) Broadway: Dividing the Estate at the Booth. Off Broadway: Orphans Home Cycle at Signature, Dividing the Estate at Primary Stages, The Trip to Bountiful at Signature, Y2K & Bits and Pieces at MTC, Cantorial at the LAMBS, Cahoots at the South Street Theatre, Subject to Fits, Happiness Cage at the PUBLIC, War of the Roses, Twelfth Night, Peer Gynt at the Delacorte. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf directed by Arthur Penn, Last Moon directed by Estelle Parsons, Machinal directed by Arthur Storch – at the Actors Studio, Diminished Capacity by Tom Dulac at The New Group, Slouching Toward the Millennium by Murray Schisgal at the 42nd Street Workshop. Regional: Breaking Legs at the Pasadena Playhouse, Serenading Louie at Cincinnati Playhouse, Shooting Craps at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre. Film: Side by Each with Blythe Danner, The Baxter, Soldier’s Heart, Fresh Cut Grass. TV: “Rescue Me,” Episodes of ‘Law & Order,” “Law & Order: CI,” “Law & Order: SVU.”