EMAV Review: 'Tight End' reveals dreams blocked and tackled

McKenna Castro as 'Ash' with Miles Nelson as 'Sam.'

★★★½☆ - Satisfying

It’s impossible not to get caught up in the influence of small town high school football in Majestic Repertory Theatre Company’s satisfying three and a half-star, regional premiere presentation of TIGHT END, By Rachel Bykowski, which runs through March 24th.

For student Ash (don’t call her Ashley) Miller (strongly played by McKenna Castro), the daughter of a late legendary quarterback for Westmont High, her life focuses on trying out for and making the Westmont football team. Football is in her blood. Her dream is to catch the winning touchdown pass for the Westmont High Titans’ Homecoming game. In order to make the team, Ash will have to prove she is one of the guys even if that means sacrificing her body for the love of the game.

Her self-belief and determination eventually win over her Mom, Darla (Cristina Florea), her Coach (Adam Martinez), and her quarterback, Sam Jones (Miles Nelson). The heartfelt, passionate performances of this acting ensemble carry the audience along an emotional roller-coaster as they each share personal memories while working to protect and guide Ash on her daring quest.

Director Troy Heard does a wonderful job balancing the intimacy and the pressure of his cast’s interaction throughout. His production team has created a well-defined, compressed setting in such close proximity to the audience that they are toe-to-toe with actors breaking the fourth wall to speak with them directly. The team includes scenic and sound design by The Design Ninjas; costume design by Mary Wantland; and lighting design by Gina Manago.

Adam Martinez as 'Coach.'

Playwright Rachel Bykowski, a Chicago native, writes “To explore the many facets of womanhood and raise awareness to social issues. I find myself analyzing male/female power dynamics, male privilege, and gender roles. The question, “What does it mean to be a woman,” haunts my characters. My womanhood, anger, and playwriting are tangled together in these knots of words I call my plays.”

Her full-length plays have been featured with The National New Play Network (NNPN) in a workshop at the Kennedy Center for the MFA Playwrights’ Festival in 2016. She was a top 20 finalist for CulturalDC’s Source Theatre Festival in 2017, received Honorable Mention for the Jane Chambers 2017 Student Playwriting Award, and was the runner-up for the 2018 Todd McNerney Playwriting Award. Tight End had its World Premiere in 2017 at the 20% Theatre Company in Chicago and was chosen as one of the Best Shows in Chicago that year.

The number of girls playing tackle football is still low compared to boys — of the 225,000 athletes in Pop Warner youth football programs, for example, just 1,100 are girls. According to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, of the 5.5 million Americans who report playing tackle football, 596,000 — or 10.9 percent — are female.

It is notable that more girls want to play even as annual survey by the National Association of State High School Federations reported that participation in high school football went down 3.5 percent over the past five years.

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EMAV Review: 'The African Company' at NCT was funny, furious and uniquely American ★★★★

Maurice-Aimé Green as 'James Hewlett'

Images by Josh Hawkins, UNLV Creative Services

★★★★☆ - Delicious

Did you know that there was an African Theatre Company in 1821 America?

During Nevada Conservatory Theatre’s (NCT) delicious 4-Star production of "THE AFRICAN COMPANY PRESENTS RICHARD III”, we learn that 6 years before New York abolished slavery and 40 years before the beginning of the Civil War, this theatre company existed. William Henry Brown, a free black American, organized a production of Shakespeare’s Richard III.

What do the words of a dead White poet mean to a group of Black actors? Everything, actually. After all, these are artists forced to spend their days disguised as maids and waiters. Hiding their gifts along with their feelings, until the sun sets and the time comes to discover themselves in Shakespeare's poetry. His writing demanding that everyone find their own way through his words, haters be damned. A backstage story like no other -- funny, furious and uniquely American.

Breanna McCallum as 'Sarah'

Shakespeare is the chosen cultural battleground in this inventive retelling of a little known, yet pivotal event in the history of America’s first black theatre company. Knowing they are always under prejudicial pressures from white society, and facing their own internal shakeups, the African Company battles for time, space, audiences and togetherness. The Company presents classic plays at a theatre in downtown Manhattan for both black and white audiences. But they are challenged when they dare to put on Shakespeare’s Richard III at the same time as the powerful and popular Park Theatre. Carlyle Brown’s humorous and touching play, based on real-life events, dares to ask the question: does Shakespeare belong to everyone?

Brandon Dawson as 'The Constable Man' and Cameron Stuart Bass as ' William H. Brown'

Their competition, Stephen Price, an uptown, Broadway-type impresario, is producing Richard III at the same time that the African Company's production and has promised a famous English actor overflowing audiences if he plays Richard in Price's theatre. Fearing the competition of the African Company's production, which is garnering large white audiences, Price manipulates the law and closes down the theatre. The Company rebounds and finds a space right next door to Price's theatre. At the rise of curtain of the next performance, Price causes the arrest of some of the actors in a trumped-up riot charge. The play ends with the Company, surviving, its integrity intact, and about to launch an equally progressive new chapter in the American theatre: They'll soon be producing the first black play written by black Americans of their day.

Maurice-Aimé Green as 'James Hewlett' and Riyadh as 'Papa Shakespeare'

The very capable cast included Cameron Stuart Bass as William H. Brown; Maurice-Aimé Green as James Hewlett; Brandon Dawson as The Constable-Man; Nate Marble as Stephen Price; Breanna McCallum as Sarah; Riyadh as Papa Shakespeare; and Lauren Washington as Ann Johnson.

Lauren Washington as 'Ann Johnson'

Director Melissa Maxwell did an admirable job keeping the action moving and getting the ensemble comfortable and confident in their transitions between the play-within-a-play. The designers created an intimate and authentic proscenium stage, with an exposed backstage above the curtain line and an ample apron in front of the proscenium arch.

The production and design team includes scenic designer Trevor Dotson, lighting designer Andrew Killion, co-sound designers Megan Thompson and Lina Lim, costume designer Hailey Eakle, technical director Ryan Pope, dramaturg Dr. Lezlie Cross, and production stage manager M. Sohaa Smith.

Carlyle Brown is a writer/performer and artistic director of Carlyle Brown & Company, based in Minneapolis. He is a Core Writer of the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, and an alumnus of New Dramatists in New York. He has served on the board of directors of The Playwrights' Center and Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for the nonprofit professional theatre and is a member of the board of the Jerome Foundation. He is the 2006 recipient of The Black Theatre Network's Winona Lee Fletcher Award for outstanding achievement and artistic excellence, a 2008 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2010 recipient of the Otto Rene' Castillo Award for Political Theatre, and 2010 United States Artists Friends Fellowship.

The next production at NCT is Federico García Lorca's Blood Wedding, directed by Allegra Libonati and running March 8th through March 17th.

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EMAV Review: 15th Annual Dam Short Film Festival was an impressive event

Pictured: 'Tricks'

The 15th annual Dam Short Film Festival was the Boulder City institution’s first without co-founder Lee Lanier, but the leadership team of John LaBonney and Tsvetelina Stefanova pulled off an impressive event without him, drawing in record attendance and proving that DSFF remains the most enjoyable and exciting festival in the Las Vegas area. I made it to nearly all of the programs during the four-day festival, and many were nearly sold out, especially the two Nevada programs and the always popular comedy block. Even the late-night Underground program, featuring movies too risqué for the daytime Boulder City general audience, had a long line of people waiting to be admitted before doors opened.