On July 25, Elyse will appear in Mea’s Unique Garage Sale, or What if Google Doesn’t Have the Answer? by Joël Henning Doty as part of Capital Stage’s Playwrights’ Revolution series.
Capital Stage presents its annual new works festival PLAYWRIGHTS’ REVOLUTION, a series of staged readings of new plays. As Sacramento’s leader of bold, thought-provoking theatre, Capital Stage created PLAYWRIGHTS’ REVOLUTION, to identify and develop new plays and playwrights. Each year, a handful of plays are carefully selected from hundreds of submissions. Directors and actors are selected, and audiences are invited to participate in post-reading discussions to contribute to the development of the world’s newest plays.
Mea holds a garage sale to fund her move to Texas with her online friend, Endgame. As she sets out and describes to the audience her various belongings, Mea’s experiences with anxiety, ADHD and Endgame are laid bare to await their fate. Mea’s Unique Garage Sale is a quiet yet powerful transaction between artist, audience and perceptions of mental health in our society today.
Joël Henning Doty Having spent most of her life in Evanston, IL and a ten-year stint in Clayton, MO, Joël and her husband, Jim, have recently settled in their old stomping grounds of Ann Arbor, MI. A member of the Dramatists Guild, Joël’s one act plays have been produced around the country. Her most produced play, Action and Reaction has been seen in Los Angeles, Boston, New York, St. Louis and Sydney, Australia, among other places. It was a finalist for the Heideman award at the 2011 Humana Festival. Favorite plays include her children’s play, Furry Tales, which has been published and performed by many children’s groups and The Education of Raymond Brown, which was a semifinalist in both the Next Generation Contest sponsored by Reverie Productions, New York and in the Neal LaBute festival, St. Louis. I Am My Own Militia (a precursor to Mea’s Unique Garage Sale) was produced at the St. Louis fringe festival in 2013 and won an audience attendance award. Her YA dystopian book, The Good Citizen, was published in 2017 and won the ATAI book award for YA fiction. Her screenplay, The Flower and The Weed, won the family script award from Lowlight Pictures, 2018. She attended the Sewanee Writers conference (Beth Henley) as a Tennessee Williams scholar, Southampton Playwriting Conference, (John Patrick Shanley), and was selected for the Kennedy Center Intensive Playwriting Workshop. (Gary Garrison, Paula Vogel, Kate Snodgrass, Marsha Norman). Her credentials include a BA from University of Michigan, MBA from Temple University, MA from Northeastern Illinois and advanced playwriting at Webster University. When not writing she enjoys volunteering with Make A Wish and helping her daughter at V.I.P. Hospital Productions, promoting and selling activity books that help kids and teens communicate with their doctors. She is thrilled to have the opportunity to get feedback on Mea’s Unique Garage Sale or What if Google Doesn’t Have the Answer? and thanks to the audience for participating in this important step in a play’s development!