I’ll be appearing in the Chain Theatre’s Winter One Act Festival in a short play called Wipeout, written by and featuring Jeryl Brunner. We met several years ago while doing some improv training in the city. Jeryl reached out to me to play two roles: a skiing enthusiast and a grade school teacher. It’s part of a full-length play she has been working on. It’s always nice to get a request out of the blue like this and Jeryl’s enthusiasm is contagious!

This project also gives me the good fortune of reconnecting with a friend from college Sara Thigpen, who is directing. This is the first thing we’ve worked on together since our days at UNC-Greensboro. It’s been so nice to reconnect while working on this.

With Amy Ziff from the indie rock band Betty rounds out the cast and plays three roles. I saw their show, Betty Rules, back when I first came to the city. It ran at the now defunct Zipper Theatre, which was located just one block north of where we’re doing this festival. Amy and I have similar senes of humor so we’ve been cracking each other up like misbehaving school kids.

This play is being presented by Jesse Eisenberg, who directed an earlier section of this play, Anna Strout, and Barbara Toy. And the festival is produced by my old friends from the Chain with whom I did a production of Hurlyburly when their space was located in Long Island City. It’s a big festival with 25 programs and over 90 plays altogether. The festival runs through March 2.

It’s been delightful to have several strands of my life draw together while working on this.

Program No. 2: We Were Girls Together by Jacklyn Collier, Wipeout by Jeryl Brunner, The Interlude by Jeff Checkley, and The Same Place by Rory Lance.

Tickets: Sunday, Feb. 9 at 2 p.m.,  Friday, Feb. 21 at 6:30 p.m., and Friday, Feb. 28 at 8 p.m. Use the code WIPE25 to get 25% off your tickets.

The Chain Theatre, 312 West 36th Street, 3rd floor MainStage, NYC