Local actors to present a virtual reading

Local actors to present a virtual reading
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Merri Biechler

                        

The Massillon Museum will present a play readingof“Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver” by Merri Biechler on Friday, July 31 at 7 p.m. The reading will be live streamed from MassMu’s Gessner Hall on the museum’s Facebook and YouTube channels. It will be free and available to everyone.

Brayden Frascone will direct the performance. The cast is Margo Tillstrom as the daughter, Mae; Eric Myers as Dad; and Patti Carmola as Mom.

The play is the story of Mae Benjamin, who moves back home to Oklahoma to care for her terminally ill father. She imagines moments of reconciliation and grace, but as her father’s health declines, his obsession with the Sci-Fi Network and creating a machine to deliver him to another dimension intensifies. Using the machine, Mae summons her mother for guidance and with humor and compassion strives to reach her final goal: to give her father a good death.

“Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver,” a full-length play by Merri Biechler, earned the Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award. It was a finalist for the Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition at the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta, and for the Princess Grace Award in Playwriting. The playwright has worked on numerous grant-funded projects.

The virtual event is part of the 2020 NEA Big Read, which focuses on themes related to aging in the graphic novel,“Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?” byNew Yorker magazine cartoonist Roz Chast.

NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. In addition to the NEA grant, funding is provided by Massillon/North Canton Elks #2029 and Rotary Club of Massillon.

Greif Paper Mill on Warmington Road in Massillon is sponsoring the“Cut Up/Cut Out” exhibition; Danbury Senior Living in Massillon is underwriting the keynote address. The Massillon Museum receives operating support from the Ohio Arts Council and ArtsinStark to augment its primary local funding and marketing support from Visit Canton.

The Massillon Public Library co-sponsors the Big Read with MassMu. Local organizations and individuals collaborating with the Massillon Museum include Community Hospice, Stark Parks, Walsh University, Stark County District Library, United Way of Greater Stark County, Soroptimist International of Canton/Stark County, Strauss Furniture, OSU-ATI Wooster and Canton Palace Theatre.

The Massillon Museum has reopened, and a visit is always free. Regular hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 2-5 p.m.

For more information about the NEA Big Read, call the Massillon Museum at 330-833-4061 or visit www.massillonmuseum.org or www.NEABigRead.org.


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