FOREVER YOURS, OLIVE THOMAS – free screening
Studio Theater In Exile will be presenting a screening of a filmed live performance of John Arco’s one-woman play, Forever Yours, Olive Thomas, on Saturday, January 6 at 3:00 pm, at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center, 480 North Bedford Road, Chappaqua, NY.
Olive Thomas was a beautiful artists’ model, Ziegfeld Girl and silent film star whose tragic mysterious death in 1920 at the age of 25 was the very first Hollywood scandal. Her mischievous ghost has reportedly been haunting the New Amsterdam Theatre in NYC for the past 103 years. On the 100th anniversary of her death, September 10, 2020, Olive’s ghost invites us to the stage of the New Amsterdam late at night when the theatre is dark to relate the many adventures and misadventures she had in her short tumultuous life.
Playwright John Arco spent over two years researching and writing the play and describes the process as a “labor of love”. Dakota Martin stars as Olive Thomas and the production was directed by Mara Mills.
Admission is free.
There will be refreshments and a brief Q&A/discussion session after the screening.
This event is co-sponsored by the Chappaqua Library and the Town of New Castle.
For addition information, please e-mail wordmanja@aol.com.
About Studio Theater in Exile
Studio Theater in Exile is a collective which morphed out of the Newman Theater and Theater in Odd Spaces. Formed in 2018, Studio Theater in Exile shares and builds upon the mission of these previous organizations, and now supersedes them as an official entity. The Newman Theatre, in Pleasantville, NY, ran from 1993 to 2005 and its mission was to “Bring the Arts and Community Together”. Besides mounting established plays, the Newman was known for encouraging and creating original work, including Promised Land, about the Holocaust which began at the Newman and toured from SUNY Purchase to Budapest, Hungary, Memoirs of a Mad Masseuse written by Westchester Playwright Staci Swedeen, and Shedding Light, an Abeles award winner that toured the tribe-state area. After the Newman Theater closed, the executive team ran Theater in Odd Places from 2005-2018 wanting to continue the mission and focus collaborating with others and produce new works presented in unusual venues. And thus Studio Theater in Exile was born. Mara Mills and Jeremy Gratt, cofounders with Marsha Newman of the Newman Theater and partners in Theater in Odd Spaces are the founders of Studio Theater in Exile. Karina Ramsey joined the administrative team in August 2018. Evan Bishop and Katori Walker joined us this year, both as creators and members of the collective.
mission: Studio Theater in Exile collaborates with playwrights and performers to create and develop original work. Studio Theater in Exile is a company without a space that collaborates with its environment. It is an outgrowth of the belief that theater takes place anywhere and can be performed anywhere – in the streets, galleries, libraries, museums, black boxes, backyards, and even on a stage. We have been working with performers and playwrights to develop work that can be performed in any venue. Co-founders, Mara Mills and Jeremy Gratt have worked together, since 1991, to present original work, based on the art in an exhibition, a social justice issue, history, or the spark of an idea. Karina Ramsey joined Studio Theater in Exile in 2018.