Naked Stage Streaks Through East Hampton

By Tiffany Razzano

Some of The Naked Stage Marathon performers in front of Guild Hall.

For five years, The Naked Stage has filled a niche in the community, offering free staged play readings of both new and established work to the East End community, from Guild Hall in East Hampton, to the Montauk Library.

Now, as the program's founder, Josh Perl, steadily moves toward his goal of creating a grassroots, thriving theater community in our area, The Naked Stage is preparing for its first marathon since its inception. "But this is much different," Perl said. "This is more spread out. It's not so structured."

Starting on Friday, April 24, and running through the evening of Sunday, April 26 at Guild Hall, this marathon will include The Naked Stage's first musical, a handful of workshops, an event at Rowdy Hall and other offerings - a pretty good start for a festival Perl anticipates growing with each year. "A mini festival is what I hope it grows into," he said. "I hope people see the value in this kind of thing. I don't know of many other places that do this."

Perl intentionally made this year's Naked Stage Marathon as diverse as possible in order "to show what theater has to offer when it's not just a performed, rehearsed play." He's especially excited about the musical that will be featured during the festival, The ViolinMaker, written by Stephen Dickman, who hails from the East End. This is something he hopes The Naked Stage will offer more of in the future.

Professional actress and teacher, Tanya Tavereau, organizes the children's theater classes at the Westhampton Performing Arts Center, will teach two theater classes. On Saturday, 5 to 9 year olds are welcome to come down from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. to partake in theater games and become accustomed to being on stage. She'll hold a similar class for those 14 and older on Sunday at the same time. Also on Saturday is a free comedy improv workshop hosted by actor Nick Fondulis.

And in an effort to get younger adults interested in theater, The Naked Stage will hold its first ever event at Rowdy Hall - "The Naked Stage Taboo" - headlined by Joseph Brondo. The show takes place on Saturday, April 25 at 10:30 p.m. The $15 cover gets you one free drink. "It's a little bit racier and we use strong language," Perl said. "It should be a really great event. It's about broadening our demographic. We want to get young people to consider theater as an entertaining option. So this event is a little looser and more risqué."

Other features of the festival are staged readings of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (April 24, 8 p.m.), The Illusion (April 25, 6 p.m.), Lysistrata (April 25, 8 p.m.), The Grapes of Wrath (April 26, 2 p.m.), and three short comedies (April 26, 7 p.m.) Also on April 26 is a benefit for The Springs Community Seedling Project, a collaboration between local restaurateurs, local farms and the after-school program Project MOST that will manage a greenhouse and garden that will serve as a learning laboratory and community food source at the school. After the reading of The Grapes of Wrath, bring your own bowl and $10 to benefit this program and enjoy a picnic. And new works from East End writers will be featured on April 25, including Dan Rattiner, who will read selections from his book In the Hamptons at 3 p.m. On Sunday, Dan's Papers Managing Editor Susan Galardi will read the role of Dr. Susan in the play Boy Meets Girl by Wendy Wasserstein, and as part of the large cast of Woody Allen's God. This program of three comedies begins at 7 p.m.

As usual, what is perhaps the most integral part of what The Naked Stage is all about, after each reading there will be an open discussion. "This is what brings locals together and is probably the reason people look forward to Naked Stage readings so much," Perl said.

"It fosters a sense of community," he said. "I like to think that when 50 or 60 strangers get together on a Tuesday night to see a show and then have a talkback that all of a sudden there's common ground."

For more information about The Naked Stage Marathon, go to thenakedstage.com or guildhall.org. Each event is priced individually, but $40 will get you a weekend pass to all shows. And if you can't make it down to the festival, don't worry, because The Naked Stage hosts events on a regular basis. In fact, it recently received a Suffolk County Office of Cultural Affairs Grant to work with the Montauk Library. Make sure you check the web site for more upcoming events.

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