<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"><head><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml><o:OfficeDocumentSettings><o:AllowPNG/><o:PixelsPerInch>96</o:PixelsPerInch></o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--></head><body><div class="yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;"><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><div><p class="ydp29e06faeMsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b>A Compelling
Illumination of ‘Different’</b></p>
<p class="ydp29e06faeMsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center">By Tom Wachunas </p>
<p class="ydp29e06faeMsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"> </p>
<p class="ydp29e06faeMsoNormal"><b>‘This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must
follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.’ – </b>from
Shakespeare’s <i>Hamlet</i>, Act 1, scene 3</p>
<p class="ydp29e06faeMsoNormal"><b>“A much-needed, beautiful testament to the power of the
human spirit and the power of being oneself.”<span>
</span></b>- Craig Joseph</p>
<p class="ydp29e06faeMsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"> </p>
<p class="ydp29e06faeMsoNormal"><span> </span>PERFORMANCE: <i>THE
ABSOLUTE BRIGHTNESS OF LEONARD PELKEY</i>, written by James Lecesne, Directed
by Abraham M. Adams, Starring Craig Joseph</p>
<p class="ydp29e06faeMsoNormal">A <i>Seat of the Pants </i>production, at Malone University
Founders Hall, 425 25th Street NW, Canton, OH <span> </span></p>
<p class="ydp29e06faeMsoNormal">Sunday, August 8th at 2PM (in person) / Saturday, August
14th at 8PM (in person) / Friday, August 20th at 8PM (in person or all day
online)</p>
<p class="ydp29e06faeMsoNormal">Tickets $20 - info at <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><a href="http://www.seatofthepants.org/productions" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" class="enhancr_card_8760389813">www.seatofthepants.org/productions</a>.
</p><div><br></div><div id="ydp5cd6663denhancr_card_8760389813" class="ydp5cd6663dyahoo-link-enhancr-card ydp5cd6663dyahoo-link-enhancr-not-allow-cover ydp5cd6663dymail-preserve-class ydp5cd6663dymail-preserve-style" style="max-width:400px;font-family:YahooSans, "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" data-url="http://www.seatofthepants.org/productions" data-type="YENHANCER" data-size="MEDIUM" contenteditable="false"><a href="http://www.seatofthepants.org/productions" style="text-decoration:none !important;color:#000 !important" class="ydp5cd6663dyahoo-enhancr-cardlink" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><table border="0" class="ydp5cd6663dcard-wrapper ydp5cd6663dyahoo-ignore-table" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="max-width:400px"><tbody><tr><td width="400"><table border="0" class="ydp5cd6663dcard ydp5cd6663dyahoo-ignore-table" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" style="max-width:400px;border-width:1px;border-style:solid;border-color:rgb(224, 228, 233);border-radius:2px"><tbody><tr><td><table border="0" class="ydp5cd6663dcard-info ydp5cd6663dyahoo-ignore-table" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background:#fff;position:relative;z-index:2;width:100%;max-width:400px;border-radius:0 0 2px 2px;border-top:1px solid rgb(224, 228, 233)"><tbody><tr><td style="background-color:#ffffff;padding:16px 0 16px 12px;vertical-align:top;border-radius:0 0 0 2px"></td><td style="vertical-align:middle;padding:12px 24px 16px 12px;width:99%;font-family:YahooSans, "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;border-radius:0 0 2px 0"><h2 class="ydp5cd6663dcard-title" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px 0px 6px; font-family: YahooSans, "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(38, 40, 42); max-width: 314px;">Productions — Seat of the Pants Productions</h2><p class="ydp5cd6663dcard-description" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; color: rgb(151, 155, 167);"></p></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>
<p class="ydp29e06faeMsoNormal"><span> </span>This play is a marvelous
one-man show and an otherwise brilliant tour de force of storytelling. Written
by James Lecesne and here deftly directed by Abraham M. Adams, it stars Craig
Joseph, who plays every character – eight in all – beginning with Chuck
DeSantis, a frayed-at-the edges police detective with a fondness for quoting
Shakespeare, as in, “The evil that men do lives after them...” We might quickly
think we’re in for a rough ride when in his opening lines, he glibly declares,
“… The dark side is my beat.” </p>
<p class="ydp29e06faeMsoNormal"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>For the
next 70 minutes, we watch and listen as he re-lives a case from 10 years ago, probing
what happened to Leonard Pelkey, a fourteen-year-old boy who had gone missing
in his Jersey Shore small town. The detective interviewed a bevy of local citizens.
They included Leonard’s guardian, feisty “aunt” Ellen, who owned a local beauty
salon and who refused to call the boy “gay,” preferring instead, “just
different”; Ellen’s jittery daughter, Phoebe; chain-smoking Marion, who
tearfully recalled at one point how Leonard <span> </span>“…saw us not the way we were, but how we hoped
to be…”; Buddy, the British director of a local drama and dance school who
treasured Leonard’s uncanny theatrical talents; Otto, the German immigrant who
owned a clock repair shop where Leonard took refuge from the bullies who
relentlessly attacked him; and Gloria, the church-going, bespectacled widow of
a mobster, and who spotted one of Leonard’s signature <span> </span>rainbow platform sneakers floating like an
omen in the lake outside her home. Good news, this Leonard’s shoe, thought the
detective. And bad news. Leonard wasn’t attached.</p>
<p class="ydp29e06faeMsoNormal"><span> </span>Yes, there’s evil
and darkness and tragedy here. But that’s not the end of this ride. Evidenced
by all the character’s very animated testimonies, most of the townsfolk judged
Leonard’s differentness to be somehow intolerable. “Too much,” they said. Yet
in honestly recalling what he did and said, and how he did it and said it,
hardened hearts were softened. It’s a bittersweet hindsight, to be sure. Only
when Leonard was gone from their midst did they see him, in all his
objectionable “flamboyance” and quirkiness, as a bringer of light, indeed love.
His undaunted trueness to himself gave them pause to examine their own lives in
that same light. </p>
<p class="ydp29e06faeMsoNormal"><span> </span><span> </span>All of these characters come to credible life
thanks to Craig Joseph’s remarkable performance acumen. From the timbre of his
various accents (New Joisey, Britain, Germany) to the detailed nuances of body
language, his expressivity is riveting, at once fiery, poignant and not without
a generous dose of edgy humor. He turns the playwright’s words into specific,
tangible people with attitudes - funny, happy, frightened, angry, mournful - <span> </span>switching from one to the next with
astonishing speed and precision. And all of it is beautifully enhanced by
lighting and sound elements designed by Micah Harvey and Megan Slabach
respectively. </p>
<p class="ydp29e06faeMsoNormal"><span> </span>This is beyond fine
acting. It’s absolute magic.</p></div><br></div></div></body></html>