The Drawing Board’s monthly script reading series will feature “Sagittarius” and “The Symposium Bar and Grill,” two short plays by Eugene A. Melino. The reading will take place at 7:00pm on Monday, August 26, 2024, at Houghton Hall (22 E. 30th Street, 2nd Fl., New York City).
Founded in 2010, The Drawing Board (TDB) is a collective of theatre and film artists who help develop new works for the stage and screen by offering table reads, workshops, and staged readings. TDB has grown into a community of over 150 members – producers, directors, playwrights, screenwriters, designers, actors, and literary enthusiasts.
Sagittarius
It’s December 13, 1975, Miriam’s and her grandmother’s birthday. And it’s Miriam’s eighteenth. The family celebrates with dual birthday cakes. Both women are also Sagittarians, a sign known for truth telling. Miriam’s mom Phyllis wants her daughter to become an independent woman like Mary Richards, the unmarried heroine of the “Mary Tyler Moore Show.” Phyllis herself had just turned nineteen when she married Augie, her high school sweetheart. But these days she more than fantasizes about leading the Mary Richards lifestyle of the single woman. Augie, Miriam’s beloved dad, is a pinkie-ringed patriarch with a soft heart, maybe too soft. In the ensuing festivities, Miriam and her grandmother live up to their shared sign. By the time the party’s over, secrets are revealed, love is betrayed and birthday cakes suffer.
The Cast of Sagittarius
A.J. Molder as Miriam, the Daughter
On her 18th birthday, Miriam is saying goodbye to childhood and declaring her independence in a way that turns her family’s world upside down. A post sexual-revolution baby boomer who hangs out with a bohemian crowd, she wants to escape the parochial world of her parents. And she knows a truth that will set her free.
A.J.Molder‘s Shakespearean roles include Malcolm in “Macbeth” and Flaminius in “Timon of Athens.” Other theatre roles include Chris in “The Underlying Chris,” Peggy in “As It Is In Heaven,” and many others. She also played the lead in Thanks to Her, a film by Sam McCoy. AJ recently graduated from NYU with a BFA in acting and a BA in psychology. She attended NYU’s Stella Adler Studio, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and many other actor training programs.
Jill Durso as Phyllis, the Mom
A woman caught between the Fabulous Fifties and Sexual Revolution, she once believed only marriage and children were her path to independence. But not anymore. A big fan of Mary Richards, the independent single heroine of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, she has bigger and better plans for her daughter, Miriam. And she also has big plans for herself.
Jill Durso is an Emmy award winning actor and producer. Her film acting credits include leading roles in Jeff Lipsky’s feature “The Last” and in Jason Michael Brescia’s “(Romance) in the Digital Age.” She has also co-starred in many television series such as “Bull” (CBS), “Blue Bloods” (CBS), “FBI: Most Wanted” (CBS) and Law & Order: SVU” (NBC). Her theatre credits include the Off-Broadway production of “Einstein” by the playwright Jay Prasad. Jill also produces her own work, including an internationally distributed short film, “Here You Go.”
Melissa Canaday as Isabella, the Grandmother
As she always told Miriam, her granddaughter, she “came up the hard way.” She was born in 1907 and grew up in a tenement on Mott Street in Little Italy. Her mother literally gave birth to her on a kitchen table. She was raised Catholic, but like many women in her world, not dogmatic. She loves Augie, her son, and has always found a kindred spirit in her granddaughter, Miriam. But she has no delusions about either of them.
Melissa Canaday‘s film roles include the Nurse in “Float” and Lucy “Green Apples and Wannabes.” She has also played Hemo Mom in multiple episodes of the television series “Stop the Bleeding!” In addition, she was Associate Producer with Royal Family Productions’ US Premiere of “Dedalus Lounge” at Interart Theater Annex in NYC.
Jamie Effros as Augie, the Dad
Augie fell in love with Phyllis in high school. She was a sophomore and he was a senior. She was beautiful and Jewish. He was Catholic and less than dashing. To win her over, he promised her the moon, sun and stars. It took him four years but she finally agreed to marry him. What he delivered on was two kids and a nice attached house in Throgs Neck. Still, he thought he did okay by her. Then the 70s came.
An actor/writer/director, Jamie Effros co-wrote and starred in the 2022 feature, “Give or Take” (now on-demand). He wrote and directed the award-winning original pilot, “ON,” as well as several short films, including “Big George,” now in worldwide festivals. His proof-of-concept for the psychological thriller feature “Capture” is currently in development. He has appeared on “Raising Kanan,” “SVU,” and “Gotham,” and has voiced commercials and documentary television for nearly 20 years. INSTA: @NoneTrickPony, @GiveorTakemovie, @BigGeorgeFilm, @CaptureThriller.
The Symposium Bar & Grill
It’s the winter of 2013. Obama has started his second term, proving racism in America is dead, right? A Black millennial walks into an Irish bar with a dream and a scheme to resurrect the disco once owned by Sam Pierce, one of the bar’s long-time patrons. He quickly learns that Sam is dead, but the white baby boomer denizens of the bar persuade him to stay for a drink and tell them all about his dream. Presiding like an emcee over the whole scene is the dead man himself.
In the shenanigans that follow, the play asks, is the American dream rooted in American racism? They do, after all, share the same history.
The Cast of The Symposium
Tarantino Smith as Terrance Ryan, the Young Entrepreneur
An aspiring entrepreneur, Terrance Ryan is a young man with a dream, an American Dream. And he knows just the guy to help him make it happen: Sam Pierce, the legendary entrepreneur of the old school. Lucky for Terry, Sam hangs out at the Symposium Bar and Grill, an equally old school Irish Pub right there in the Throgs Neck neighborhood where Terry grew up, and still lives.
Tarantino Smith‘s acting credits range from Shakespeare (Benvolio in “Romeo and Juliet,” Pompey/Eros in “Antony and Cleopatra,” Orsino in “Twelfth Night”) to roles in film, television and voiceover.
Edward James Hyland as Sam Pierce
In the mid-1970s, at the beginning of the disco era, Sam opened the legendary Quadraphonic Lounge in The Bronx. It was hustle dance contests, DJs spinning Donna Summer & Gloria Gaynor, guys in platform shoes and the ladies in Halston dresses. Then disco became the new oldies, the 70s faded in nostalgia, and the money dried up. But Sam’s spirit and dream live on.
Edward Hyland‘s Broadway credits include “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” (Original Broadway Company), Machinal, the 1928 classic by American playwright and journalist Sophie Treadwell; Arcadia by Tom Stoppoard; the revival of Arthur Miller’s “The Man Who Had All the Luck” and many other productions. Off-Broadway and regionally, he has performed in “Julius Caesar,” “Troilus & Cressida” (Shakespeare in the Park), “Electra,” “Othello” and many other classics. He also appeared in the 2015 feature film “Bridge of Spies” (directed by Steven Spielberg). His television credits include “Bull,” “Mr. Robot,” “Boardwalk Empire” and other series.
Michael Bachmann as Jimmy Ryan, Bartender and Owner of The Symposium
Jimmy Ryan grew up in The Symposium, the old school Irish pub his father founded in Throgs Neck back in the 60s, when that section of the Bronx was predominantly Irish and Italian. It was Jimmy’s first job and his last once he took over the business when his father died. Jimmy never left the neighborhood, but the neighborhood left him. By the time Obama has become president, new waves of people of color and immigrants have bought the modest attached homes and started new businesses. These days, Jimmy finds himself cloistered in The Symposium with his last remaining barfly.
Michael Bachmann works in comedy as a writer as well as a performer. As an Executive Producer, Mike has launched successful television shows for Fox, BET and Nickelodeon and winning web productions for Yahoo!, MSN and Google. As a writer, Mike has worked in scripted television, talk shows and feature films. And finally, as a performer Mike has worked consistently in films, television, commercials and as a host and stand up comedian.
Adam Auslander as Bobby, The Symposium’s Resident Barfly
A wisecracking barfly, Bobby makes The Symposium his hideout. From what? From changes in himself and in the neighborhood that has been his world since he was a kid. And he ain’t leavin’ either The Symposium or Throgs Neck.
A former Ringling Bros clown, Adam Auslander has stilt walked in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and balanced a large cross on his chin as Jesus on the Conan O’Brien show. Aside for the clowning around, Adam is also an accomplished actor whose credits include helping Vincent D’Onfrio and Kathryn Erbe find a killer on “Law and Order Criminal Intent,” joining Robert DeNiro in the bathroom “Being Flynn,” and doing group therapy with John Travolta in “Old Dogs.” And he is an award winning filmmaker whose productions include “The Thin Blue Sign” and the sizzle reel for the award winning screenplay “Finding Distance.”
The Place
Both plays take place in Throgs Neck, the Bronx beyond the subway. It lies between Pelham Bay Park, the last stop on the number 6 train, and the Throgs Neck Bridge, where the peregrine falcons nest. Rows of attached private houses line its quiet streets.
In the mid-1970s, when Sagittarius is set, the area was a predominantly Italian and Irish working class enclave. In the racially segregated New York of those years, no person of color dared walk alone at night in Throgs Neck. By the 2010s, new waves of people had come in: Pakistanis, Mexicans, Guatemalans and Asians. And in this once white enclave, African Americans had bought their first homes. Throgs Neck had become the hometown to the new wave’s children while still being home to a remnant of the first wave.
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