Wednesday, February 4, 2015

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)


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