Talking With... -- Part 1:

As a continuing part of the feature articles on certain companies. Today's show is Talking With... presented by In The Basement Productions.

This show has a large cast of wonderful women who each do a monologue as part of the show. A show which, incidentally, is written by Jane Martin. For years Martin has been a mystery. In fact, no one has ever known if she's actually a woman, or a nom de plume of a fellah. ITBP Artistic Director Kristin Richardson weighed in with this thought: "we noticed that in the character description for the monologue 'Marks', the description says something about 'a woman in her 40's, but attractive.' Now, if Jane Martin really were a woman, she would have said 'a woman in her 40's, attractive.' A woman would not use 'BUT' -- we know that being in one's 40's does not exclude one from being percieved as attractive. Shame on Jane Martin!"

Now, that veiled accusation of masculinity aside, the women's monologues of this play show a wide variety of well-developed female characters. Mo Perry plays with a snake on stage. Kathy Kupiecki plays an actress that is sick of rejection. Kara Greshwalk plays an expectant mother, about to give birth to an abnormal baby. There are many others as well.

So, the show reportedly openned really well last night, and luckily the company found a snake just in the nick of time. Yes, there is a live snake in the show. And I know that's true because my friend Annie Scott, who attended the show last night was still visibly disturbed by that fact 2 hours later.

As I've mentioned before I really like this company. They do good stuff.