(MIDDLETOWN, NJ) -- The Middletown Arts Center will present the third edition of The MAC ONE-ACTS Play-Reading Festival on Saturday, June 4 at 7:00pm. The festival features original, one-act works by New Jersey playwrights read theatrically by local actors. The highly successful festival began as a virtual event in 2020 and was then presented on the MAC’s tented patio last spring.
The MAC-ONE ACTS 2022 Selections include Flip Your Lid by Tracie Morrison (Newark); Leaving Earth by Alexis Kozak (Ocean Township); The Last Winter by Danielle Umbs (Monmouth Beach); Pizza The Cat by Eric Craft (Newark); Shoptalk by Tylie Shider (Union); and Pain Management by Andrew Heinze (Atlantic Highlands)
Attendance for the festival is free with a $5 suggested donation. Registrations must be made online or by calling the Box Office at 732.706.4100. Some of the pieces contain adult content and language, so parental discretion is advised.
The Middletown Arts Center is located at 36 Church Street in Middletown, New Jersey (next to the Middletown train station). Free parking is available onsite with additional free parking available in the train station metered lot on weekday evenings after 6:00pm and weekends.
Tracie Evette Morrison resides in Newark, New Jersey. She earned her BA in English from Rutgers University, Douglass College and her MA in Counseling from Montclair State University. Tracie served 16 years as a School Counselor. She is currently in her first year as a high school Assistant Principal. Her inaugural stage play, The Prayer Dancer, was performed at the George Street Playhouse in 2004 and later published in 2015. In March 2022, Dunbar Repertory Company’s “Sweet Potato Pie Sessions” presented a Stage Reading of Tracie’s newest full length play, Preach, Preacher. Her new book: PRAY-ER: Talk, Listen, Obey Starting & Strengthening Conversations with God was released November 2021. For almost twenty years Tracie has provoked others to build their own capacity through her teaching, counseling and writing.
Alexis Kozak studied Theatre Arts and English at Rutgers University. He spent his early twenties in Los Angeles, chasing the dream. Sometime after that, he got an MFA in Playwriting from Boston University and now teaches theatre at Middletown High School South, where he often writes the fall play. He has published The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, the only current dramatic adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s eponymous short story. He also has a scene book for high school actors called The Greatest of All Time, carried by Eldridge Publishing. Last summer, his play Two Leopards Climbing a Fire Escape was read at the MAC and performed at NJ Rep. He loves theatre, soccer, reading and his family…in no particular order.
Danielle Umbs is a junior in high school from Monmouth Beach, NJ. In addition to playwriting, she is passionate about acting, singing, art and music composition. Her favorite on-stage credits include the likes of Gertrude in Seussical and Ladybug in James and the Giant Peach. Danielle is a 2021-22 Two River Theater Howard Aronson Metro Scholar. She plans on attending college in order pursue a BFA in acting.
Eric Craft has written two full-length plays and a full-length musical, The Blank Page, for which he wrote the book and lyrics and self-produced out of college. His play, And Every Creeping Thing, is currently the subject of his residency with the New Jersey Play Lab. He has multiple one-act plays and monologues which he developed and directed while teaching at The Allegra School of Music and Arts in Hillsborough, New Jersey, including his plays, Finding the Root and The Struggle Bus. Other one-acts include The Edge of Infinity, which received a staged reading with the Chaotic Good Collective, and Whoa There, Grandma, which was a featured finalist of The Summit Playhouse’s Summer 2020 bake-off. He holds a B.A. in Theatre Studies from Montclair State University.
TyLie Shider is the inaugural playwright in residence at ArtYard, a 2022-23 McKnight Fellow in Playwriting at the Playwrights’ Center (PWC). He is a recipient of Premiere Stages’ Liberty Live commission, two consecutive Jerome Fellowships (PWC), and an “I Am Soul” playwright in residence at the National Black Theatre (NBT). Upcoming projects include the fall 2022 NJ premiere of Certain Aspects of Conflict in the Negro Family at Premiere Stages, The Gospel Woman (NBT), Whittier (PWC), and his filmmaking debut Sign O’ the Times. Screenwriting credits include: Truant. He holds a BA in Journalism from Delaware State University and an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU. A proud member of the Dramatist Guild, he is currently a Professor of Playwriting at Augsburg University, and a staff writer for Minnesota Playlist.
Andrew Heinze’s credits include the full-length plays: Shylock The First (“Top 6” Winner, Dayton Playhouse FutureFest 2021; excerpted in The Best Men’s Stage Monologues, 2020; The Best Men’s Stage Monologues, 2022; The Best Women’s Stage Monologues, 2022); Great Roles For Old Actresses (excerpted in Best Women’s Monologues of 2019 and The Best Women’s Monologues from New Plays, 2019); The Invention of the Living Room (Winner, Texas NonProfit Theatres’ 2014 POPS! New Play Competition; Finalist, First Runner-Up, 2012 Blue Ink Playwriting Award); Moses, the Author (2014 New York International Fringe Festival & Fringe Encore Selection); Hamilton – a tragedy about Alexander Hamilton and his son (Semi-Finalist, 2012 O’Neill, National Playwrights Conference; Finalist, 2012 T. Schreiber Studio New Works Project); and Deleting Dad (Winner, Texas NonProfit Theatres’ 2016 POPS! New Play Competition). Andrew’s award-winning one-act plays include the comedies The FQ (about obscenity and cable TV), published in Smith & Kraus’s The Best Ten-Minute Plays, 2011, and The Bar Mitzvah of Jesus Goldfarb (Winner, “Judges’ Choice” and “Audience Choice,” Best Play, New York City 15-Minute Play Festival; Finalist, 2018 National Award for Short Playwriting, Finalist, Samuel French 2019 Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival); and the award-winning drama Masha: Conditions in the Holy Land (Jury Prize Winner for Best Script – 748 scripts submitted – Fusion Theatre Company 2012 Short Play Festival; Finalist, Samuel French 2013 Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival). Andrew is Resident Dramaturg of the American Renaissance Theater Company (NYC) and a member of both the Dramatists Guild of America and PEN.
The Middletown Arts Center (MAC) is an award-winning, state-of-the-art facility in Middletown, NJ that offers performances, exhibitions, classes and camps centering on the arts. It is conveniently located across from the Middletown train station and its newly expanded MAC Annex is minutes away at the Middletown Reformed Church’s Education Building. The MAC is operated by a non-profit 501(c)(3), the Middletown Township Cultural and Arts Council, which is dedicated to bringing quality arts programming and events to Middletown and surrounding communities.
