How to Go
What: Regional premiere of “Fix Me Jesus,” a new comedy by Helen Sneed
When: Friday, March 13, through Sunday, March 22. Friday and Saturday performances are at 8 p.m. and Sunday matinees are at 2 p.m.
Where: Dayton Playhouse, 1301 E. Siebenthaler Ave., Dayton
Tickets: $18 for adults, $16 for seniors and students. Tickets may be purchased at www.daytonplayhouse.com and through the box office at (937) 424-8477. Note that box office is staffed by a volunteer Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:30 – 4:30 p.m., although messages may be left at any time and calls will be returned.
ALSO: Playwright Helen Sneed will be in Dayton for the show’s opening weekend and will do a Talk-Back on Saturday evening, March 14, after the show.
“Fix Me, Jesus” is a brilliant emotional roller coaster ride…There’s humor, love, laughter, and high fashion…not to be missed.” —BroadwayWorld.com
One of the highlights of each summer’s Futurefest at the Dayton Playhouse is always the humorous and perceptive feedback about the new plays provided by adjudicator Helen Sneed. During her impressive theatrical career, Sneed has read and evaluated thousands of scripts.
“You learn to filet a play like a fish,” says Sneed, who lived in New York for years but has returned to her home state of Texas and currently resides in Austin. “You look at what’s there and shouldn’t be, and what should be there but isn’t. A lot of people can do the former, it takes more experience for the latter.”
Now Sneed has been invited to return to the Playhouse in a different role: as a playwright herself. She’s the author of “Fix Me, Jesus,” a dark comedy that will have its regional premiere Friday, March 13, through Sunday, March 22. Sneed will be on hand to conduct a Talk-Back with the audience after the Saturday evening performance on March 14.
The play, first produced Off-Broadway in 2013, takes place in a Neiman Marcus dressing room in Dallas. The heroine is Annabelle, a rising star in the Texas Democratic Party, who finds herself trapped in the Reagan 1980s. Through the looking glass, she’s visited by some of the significant people in her life who’ve influenced her political career, love affair, finances and family relations.
Brian Sharp directs
Brian Sharp, chairman of the Dayton Playhouse board, is directing “Fix Me, Jesus,” and says his organization is excited to be premiering the show in its first fully-staged production in a larger theater. He calls it a “dramedy,” a drama with comedic moments.
He says the script is beautifully written with well-rounded characters, and contains a message of recovery.
“It’s about finding yourself, being your own person, not becoming a victim, and overcoming what life throws at you,” Sharp says. “There’s a political undertone to the show and it speaks to politics, the drama of family, and the direction that children take at the hands of their parents.”
Sharp has cast Rachel Wilson in the leading role of Anabelle. Pam McGinnis will play Annabelle’s grandmother — a staunch conservative Texas matriarch determined to maintain her family’s social and political power. Cassandra Engber is Annabelle’s vulnerable mother; Sophia Shannon is young Annabelle; and Shawn Hooks portrays psychiatrist Dr. Maxwell Feld. The Neiman-Marcus sales clerk who has been waiting on Annabelle for years is played by Tina McPhearson.
“Annabelle is trying to find an outfit for her cousin’s wedding and as she reflects in the mirror, she’s reflecting on her life,” explains Sharp. While she’s trying on clothes, her memories come to life.
Sharp believes he’s especially qualified to direct a play that takes place in a department store fitting room since he spent 34 years as a department store retailer.
“What’s interesting is that when I was in management at Rike’s, Chris Newman was in visual display there. Now he’s the set designer of our play. No one knows the drama of department store fitting rooms better than Chris and I!”
About the playwright
“I think people should go to a play and take what they want from it,” says Sneed, who hopes her comedy will also lead audiences to examine some serious themes: American values, racism, our political system. She believes audiences find a play more fulfilling when they respond to it on both an intellectual and visceral level.
“I’m ambitious, I’d like to have both,” she says. “When I got to the theater I always hope to be entertained, to laugh, to feel and think.”
Political territory is familiar to Sneed who was born into a politically-active Texas family and says she was involved in politics since birth. She finds the subject endlessly fascinating and in her early career, worked extensively in presidential and state elections as a political strategist and campaign organizer for Democratic candidates.
But she also fell in love with theater at an early age. “I grew up in the country outside Austin and my grandmother in Dallas took us to big, touring musicals at the State Fair, she remembers. “In my parents living room, five pieces of plastics changed my life — records of “South Pacific,” “Oklahoma,” “My Fair Lady,” the ballet of “Sleeping Beauty” and Rhapsody in Blue.” I played them endlessly, over and over again and drove my parents crazy.”
Sneed describes herself as a young ham who loved to act. Her first play, written at age 9, won a 4-H blue ribbon. And in the 1970’s, she and a friend wrote a musical, “Sally Blane, World’s Greatest Girl Detective.”
But when she eventually headed to New York after earning a theater degree at Tulane University, she found herself involved in the business end of theater — helping develop other people’s plays.
Sneed served as director of professional rights at Dramatists Play Service and was senior vice president of Music Theatre International. She was also executive director of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre and producer of its annual international festival of new musicals, and director of Special Projects for Walt Disney Theatricals. Her current company, Helen Sneed Creative, consults with organizations about everything from brand enhancement and fund raising to intellectual property exploitation.
And in her spare time, Sneed has advocated for the rights of the mentally ill, mentoring women with severe psychiatric illness for their return to the workplace.
But through all those busy and highly successful career years, Sneed was deferring her own dream of writing plays. Some years ago she wrote a first draft of “Fix Me, Jesus” that ended up sitting in a drawer. A few years ago, she determined to get it out, rewrite it and send it around for feedback.
“Inherently theater is a risk and that’s one of the reasons I love it so much,” says Sneed. “I love to hear stories about people in late middle-age who strike out for what they want most. I realized it was now or never.”
Now she’s delighted to see “Fix Me, Jesus” moving forward, and especially happy to have it staged in a community theater that, she says, has given her the opportunity to learn so much about her own field. She says Dayton was ahead of its time in producing new play festivals and has set an example for other theaters around the country.
“I learned early on that the bedrock of American theater is regional theater,” she says. “Audiences are smart and what I love about FutureFest is that the audience comments are always insightful and intelligent.
“To me a play is a blueprint and the essence of drama is what occurs between the people on stage and the people in seats. Whatever that exchange is — whether it’s emotion or outrage or laughter or passion — that exchange is the essence of theater. That’s when theater actually occurs.”
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