the Local Lab staged reading of
YOU ENJOY MYSELF
written by
TOPHER PAYNE
directed by
BETTY HART
***
Friday, April 22, 2022 | 7 pm MT
Dairy Arts Center | Boulder, CO
IN-PERSON
TICKETS
Available to Season 11 Members in January, 2022
Available to non-members in February, 2022
Hey, you should join the conversation!
There will be a 20-minute talkback facilitated by Local Lab Co-Director Betty Hart directly following the reading.
SYNOPSIS
Judith and Eileen met and eagerly fell in love- first with a band called Phish, and then with each other. But that was thirty years ago, before their lives took notably divergent paths. An Instagram post from a stranger leads the two of them crashing back into each other, along with four young wayward souls who passionately want to be passionate about something. Over the course of one curious night at a remote Vermont farmhouse, they’ll each explore the nature of devotion- to music, to literature, to other people- and learn the art of “including your own hey.”
CREATIVE TEAM
TOPHER PAYNE
Playwright
Topher Payne has written than 20 works for the stage, including Evelyn in Purgatory, The Only Light in Reno, Angry Fags, and Morningside. He has somewhat improbably scripted five films for The Hallmark Channel, and is the author of a series of alternate endings to problematic children’s literature, most notably The Tree Who Set Healthy Boundaries and The Rainbow Fish Keeps His Scales. Topher was a 2016 Lambda Literary Award nominee for his play Perfect Arrangement, which premiered Off-Broadway in 2015. He was the 2018 inductee into the Georgia Theatre Hall of Fame. Topher makes his home in Atlanta with a very nice fella, two cats, and an opinionated three-legged dog.
BETTY HART
Director
Betty has acted in Local Lab and has facilitated audience conversations and salons for Local Theater Company. In 2020, Betty directed Josh Kroenig’s Vroom Vroom for Local Lab, which audiences never saw due to the theatre wide shut down. In 2021, Betty directed Polaroid Stories for Metropolitan State University, the one person play An Iliad and a virtual offering of To the Moon by Beth Kander for Creede Repertory Theatre (CRT), and an original devised theatrical film for the University of Northern Colorado called 2020 Speaks. Upcoming projects include directing By the way, Meet Vera Stark for the Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, Once on this Island for Town Hall Arts Center and Blackademics for Vintage Theatre. In November of 2020, Betty gave a Ted Talk on compassion culture instead of cancel culture. You can view the talk here: go.ted.com/bettyhart
LOCAL THEATER COMPANY TEAM
Founding Artistic Director - Pesha Rudnick
Producer - Misha S. Zimmerman
Associate Artistic Director & Marketing Manager & Local Lab 11 Co-Director - Nick Chase
Development & Business Affairs - Alison Palmer
Local Lab 11 Co-Director - Betty Hart
Marketing Associate - Kevin Douglas
Resident Dramaturg - Jordan Lichtenheld
Land Acknowledgement
Every community owes its existence and vitality to generations from around the world that contributed their hopes, dreams and energy to making the history that led to this moment. Some of the people from the history of this spot were brought here against their will, some were drawn to leave their distant homes in hope of a better life and some have lived on this land for more generations than can be counted. Truth and acknowledgment are critical to building mutual respect and connection across all barriers of heritage and difference. We begin this effort to acknowledge what has been buried by honoring the truth.
Local Theater Company acknowledges, with deep respect, that we are located on the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Ute, Cheyenne and Arapaho Nations and Peoples. We pay respect to their elders both past and present. We ask that you consider the many legacies of violence, displacement, migration and settlement that bring us here today.
Appearing through an Agreement between Local Theater Company and Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
