The Author of 12 Angry Men Gives Us a Story of What We Present to the Outside World and What Happens Behind Closed Doors
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Baltimore, MD – Just Off Broadway presents the East Coast Premiere of Dear Friends, a drama from the Emmy award winning film and television author who gave us 12 Angry Men, Reginald Rose. Dear Friends is currently in rehearsal and runs ONE WEEKEND from May 18-21, 2017.
Like the more popular 12 Angry Men, a teleplay for CBS Studio One in 1955, Dear Friends began as a 90-minute teleplay for CBS Playhouse aired in 1967 and, aside from a single matinee performance from theatre club at a small college on the banks of Lake Eerie, it hasn’t been seen on stage since. With the popularity of the 12 Angry Men, Dear Friends is a real-life, slice of life drama that has been hidden in the shadows for the last five decades until Jason Crawford Samios-Uy, Co-founder of Just Off Broadway, stumbled upon it while searching for a 2017 spring production. The author’s name was recognizable but the title wasn’t but by reading the first few sentences of the synopsis, it was clear this was an appropriate, near perfect piece for Just Off Broadway.
Four married couples have been friends for several years and one of the couples, Lois & Michael, decide to call it quits. The other couples, Charlotte & Lenny, Gigi & Vivian, and Douglas & Sal want desperately to help these two see the error of their ways and realize divorce is not what they really want and concoct an intervention, unbeknownst to Lois & Michael. As the evening wears on, problems in all of the marriages and in the friendships themselves start to bubble to the surface. Are these dear friends trying to help Lois & Michael get back together because they truly believe it’s what’s best for them or… are Lois & Michael examples of the raw truth that could shatter the seemingly blissful lives of the others and they want to stop it for their own sakes?
Since it was written and produced 50 years ago, Just Off Broadway Co-Founder and first-time Director Patrick Jay Golden and Jason Crawford Samios-Uy have re-imagined this piece, updating it and bringing it into the 21st century. Diverse and non-traditional casting help to modernize this piece and make it more relatable to today’s audiences. However, the story itself stays in tack as they are timeless issues and situations any married couple through the ages could experience which makes this piece still relevant today.
Dear Friends features Brad Angst, Tracy Dye, Joyanne Gohl, Penny Nichols, Sarah O’Hara, India Palmer, Tom Piccin, Jason Crawford Samios-Uy, and Emmanuel Vickers and is Directed by Patrick Jay Golden. This production will play ONE WEEKEND, May 18-21 at Just Off Broadway @ JELC located at Jerusalem Evangelical Lutheran Church, 4605 Baltimore, MD 21206.
You may purchase tickets online at HERE.
Reserve tickets by email: justoffbroadwaymd@gmail.com. Please use Subject Line TICKETS and include the following in the body of the email:
- Full Name
- Number of Tickets
- Date of Performance
- Contact phone number
Dear Friends is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York.
