Pearl and the Fire Angels: A Red Shuttleworth Play

Pearl and the Fire Angels

a play by

Red Shuttleworth

Red Shuttleworth's Pearl and the Fire Angels was written during the summer of 1999 when he was Playwright-in-Residence at the Utah Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City, Utah.  Many thanks to Fred Adams, the late Doug Cook, Scott Phillips, Jerry L. Crawford, George Judy, and the staff at the festival who provided support and encouragement.  Special thanks go to Ethan Phillips who, on his own, flew to Cedar City, Utah, to provide counsel on Pearl and the Fire Angels and the two other full length plays Red wrote that summer while in-residence at the festival.

Pearl and the Fire Angels (cast of four women and five men) received its first reading at the Utah Shakespearean Festival at on July 31, 1999.  Set in an illegal, expensive brothel in Las Vegas, Pearl and the Fire Angels was feared to be so scandalous, so outrageous in language and action (Rated NC-17), that the reading was not advertised to the general public.  It was read at midnight to a packed bring-your-own-drinks audience from the community of working actors and other theatre practitioners.

The cast for the reading of Pearl and the Fire Angels featured:

              Toni Loppnow............................Pearl Starr

              Jennifer Minter...........................Sarah Jane

              John Oswald...............................Champ

              Laura Tompkins.........................Colleen

              Karen Wegner.............................Ruby

              George Judy................................Senator Gatewood

              Jerry L. Crawford........................Joey-the-Blue

              Matt Ramsey................................Billy Mack

              Paul Hope.....................................Boy

Jennifer Minter, Matt Ramsey, Toni Loppnow, and Jerry L. Crawford

Ethan Phillips, Albert Einstein, and Red Shuttleworth

(Utah Shakespearean Festival, Cedar City, Utah, Summer 1999)