Thursday, September 21, 2017
Staff report
YOUNGSTOWN
“An Evening of One Acts,” which will include the premiere of “Remains,” an original play by Youngstown resident Richard Machuga, will open Friday in the Moyer Room of the Youngstown Playhouse.
The show, which also includes Edward Albee’s classic “The Zoo Story,” launches the Griffith-Adler Actors Series for the 2017-18 season at the Playhouse.
The double bill will play two weekends. Performances will take place at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and also Sept. 29 and 30. There also will be a 2:30 p.m. matinee Sunday.
The cast of both two-man plays consists of Nick Mulichak and James McClellan.
Mulichak is vice president of the board of directors at the newly named Hopewell Theater, and McClellan is the operations manager of the Playhouse.
“Remains” involves a visit between two lifelong friends, one of whom is trying to convince the other to be the executor of his estate. It results in comic riffs on funerals, burials and the afterlife.
Shifting to drama, “The Zoo Story,” written by famed playwright Albee in 1959, tells the story of two strangers whose meeting at a New York City park bench changes both men’s lives forever.
David Vosburgh, former Playhouse artistic director, will return to the theater for the first time in 17 years to direct “Remains.”
Johnny Pecano, technical coordinator of the Playhouse, is directing “The Zoo Story.”
Pecano has a history of directing Albee’s works, including “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?”
James Reed serves as lighting and sound designer.
After 30 years as a scenic designer, acting teacher and Broadway and opera singer, Vosburgh came to Youngstown in 1995 for a five-year engagement as artistic director of the Playhouse.
At the same time, he became an instructor at Youngstown State University in theater subjects and, in 2000, stage director of the Dana School of Music operas for 16 years.
In 2004, he co-founded Opera Western Reserve and continues to serve as production director for its annual fall operas at Stambaugh Auditorium.
Machuga’s love for the Youngstown Playhouse began at an early age. He started as a child actor and then worked for the theater as a part-time janitor at age 16.
He has stage-managed multiple productions and had the position of vice president of the board of directors.
He serves as a magistrate in the Mahoning County Probate Court. His passions of theater and law converge in his first stage production, “Remains.”