SLIGHTLY ASKEW PLAYERS
Perform Ring Larner Plays at Jacksonville Library Sunday, August 26th 3 – 4:00 p.m.
Naversen Room
This is a benefit program for the Friends of the Jacksonville, Oregon Library and will provide funding for the library’s Saturday hours. Donations will be greatly appreciated. Please use the California Street entrance. For more information, call the Jacksonville Library, 541-899-1665.
Slightly Askew Players emerged from total obscurity during the summer of 2011 when, quite by chance, they all showed up on the same day to perform Ring Lardner’s short play, The Tridget of Greva for the Senior Theater. After nine dizzying performances, they realized that they had a natural affinity for Lardner’s slightly skewed version of reality. They found another short play of his, Thompson’s Vacation, and adapted two of his stories for the stage. Thus began their mission to convert the world to a Lardner way of thinking. They are a small, modular, theatrical company, of a certain age, able to set up, perform, strike set, and quickly beat it out of town. The cast includes Buzz London, also stage manager and director; Michael Holstein (Thompson, Whitey, the Barber, and Louis Barhooter) ; Russ Mitchell (Dillon, Ghost, Dick Butler, and Desire Corby), and Rick Hazen playing (Haines, Daley, Hawkes, Laffler).
Buzz London received his MFA in Theatre in 1968, performing a variety of roles from the Greeks to Pinter. He has directed plays from Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” to “Peanuts” by Charles Schultz. He taught drama at Ashland High School from 1969-1972 before moving to Grants Pass where he was Artistic Director for two years with “Barnstormer’s Theatre”. Buzz played Starbuck in “The Rainmaker” at Barnstormer’s; John Proctor in “The Crucible” at RCC Theatre in 1982; Koko in “The Mikado for Rogue Opera; Professor Harold Hill in “The Music Man for the Rogue Music Theatre; and most recently Joe in “Working” at the RCC Theatre. He also taught drama at Eagle Point until retiring in 2005.
Michael Holstein is the dramatic adapter of Lardner’s prose for two of our plays. He is a semi-retired professor of English who has taught at the The University of Texas, Fordham, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, OIT, and SOU. He has also taught twice in Italy and will be teaching in Athens this fall. He writes and performs poetry and hand binds his books. He has played Bob Scratchit in “The Plight before Christmas” and Young Spud Farmer in “The Po’Tater Family Saga” for the SOSO Players. He teaches courses in Greek mythology and modern poetry and performance poetry for OLLI at SOU.
Russ is a part-time science instructor for RCC. He says, “theatre was “about all I did as an undergrad.” Favorite roles: Lion, “The Wizard of Oz”; Biderman, “Biderman and the Fire Bugs” (Directed by Dr. Dorothy
Stolp); John in “Cry Dawn in Dark Babylon” which toured Churches in Oregon. He is a veteran of Bobby Kidder’s RCC Briskworks productions. Russ was Old Man Morris in RCC’s production of “Hot l Baltimore”; Noah Count Esq. in “The Po’Tater Family Saga”; The Phantom in “Phantom of the Barbershop”; and Anthony Coelho in RCC’S 2012 production of “Working”. Russ lives in the Applegate mountains with his wife, Camille, one dog, many cats and 30 chickens.
Rick Hazen, born in 1948, was the ninth of sixteen children and was raised in the mangrove swamps of Twin Falls, Idaho. He’s traveled extensively, starting with his move to Southern California to attend junior high. He moved north to work among the trees and forest people, and he spent a year in Southeast Asia. He returned to Oregon to become a landscape and portrait artist, currently in residence in a street-side studio in the renovated Holly Theater. Rick has appeared in two documentaries and was an extra in the comic film, “My Name is Bruce.” Rick’s theater experience includes working in theatre arts with the Randall Theatre in Medford and with the Southern Oregon Senior Theatre. He plays stand-up bass with the Old-time Fiddlers of Southern Oregon. His one true love is life.