Sarah and James are a husband-and-wife producing team who met on the set of a play in 2005, at the same studio that will be presenting their P.L.A.Y Noir opening on June 8th at The Actor’s Workout Studio in North Hollywood’s Arts District. Married in October of last year, they have since built a company of their own, Punk Monkey Productions, affectionately named after their dog whose attitude and appearance dubbed the name.
The couple didn’t always look to produce plays and deem acting their first love, but when the director of a 2008 play, Sex, Love, and Time Travel fell ill, James stepped into to take his place. He found his new position surprisingly fulfilling, and decided to direct two of the five plays in the series. Sarah also came on board to direct one of the plays, and both were intrigued by just how fond of directing they became.
This experience opened doors to various opportunities, and Sarah soon looked to direct another play, Private Eyes; one she had wanted to be a part of for some time. With 13 people in the cast, this was a much larger endeavor than the earlier productions. In the past, the pair had worked on The Maiden’s Prayer (2010), but the acting duo really upped their efforts in 2011 when they began working on P.L.A.Y. Noir.
The idea came from a play called The Zone Ranger written by two Harvard Westlake students, Mak Taylor and Ben Goldstein, while James worked at the high school’s Young Playwrights festival. The genre was noir, which intrigued James and Sarah, who began taking submissions from friends and colleagues to comprise their own noir festival, alongside James’ improv group, “Hey Neighbor”.
P.L.A.Y. Noir is a series of five very short plays ranging from comedy to drama and even modern renditions of the noir genre. Featured plays include Shoofly, Silencing Silas, The Zone Ranger, Your Name on a Cloud, and Antithesis.
Shoofly is the only play that takes its noir straight up, in a sexy, twisting tale of greed and revenge. The play opens with Jack, a disgraced cop who is hired to track down the mystery woman who stole a cool billion from a major drug cartel. A triple-crossing tale of desire and deceit, Shoofly fits right in with P.L.A.Y. Noir.
Written by Ann Convery, Shoofly is Ann’s first play, but not her first written work. She has published two non-fiction books with Avon and Harper Collins, and is currently finishing another short fiction collection as well as an interactive book on her marketing system, due at the end of this year.
“I was thrilled to be chosen by James and Sarah for P.L.A.Y. Noir,” she said. “James and Sarah have set the bar really high.”
