Michael Markham

Monday May 23rd, 2011.

I was lucky enough to be a part of wonderful evening of theater at the Baruch Performing Arts Center.

Northpoint: Voices from a Kentucky Prison, was a benefit reading of plays written by inmates from The Northpoint Training Center (a medium security prison) in Bergin, Kentucky.

I read two plays written by Rob Daughenbaugh and Denny Holder.

The evening raised money to support the continuation of a 10-minute playwriting program funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) at Northpoint. The progam began in the summer of 2010, by Curt L. Tofteland, Shakespeare Behind Bars Producing Director, partnering with producer/playwright Robby Henson, Robby’s sister Holly Henson, (Artistic Director, Pioneer Playhouse), and playwright Elizabeth Orndorff.

The evening was produced in partnership by Theaterlab and AMC Creative.

I was blessed to be a part of reading a new play by David Ian Lee, The Curing Room. Based on a true event involving 7 Russian soldiers locked in an abandoned Monastery in 1944 Poland. It’s a chilling piece of Drama. We read on Wednesday the 11th at the Manhattan Theater Source and Monday the 16th at the Torn Page Salon.

On Sunday May 1st, I read for the second time at Director Adriana Baer’s Monthly Shakespeare Intensive. In March I read the role of Saturninus in Titus Andronicus. This month we worked on Twelfth Night. I read the part of Malvolio. It was a boisterous evening capped off with original songs by Ben Williams in the role of Feste

The cast was as follows:

For more information about Adriana Visit her site HERE and at Central Coaching.

For Ben Williams visit his site HERE.

Read the new play Love in the Checkout Aisle by Jeffrey James Keyes at New York Madness last night.  The play was about love and the connections you make when you work at Target and the intercom button changes your life.  Overall, it was an exciting night of new theater in a very hot room.  This week’s theme was “target”, devised and coordinated by this months guest artistic producing playwright Crystal Skillman.  The 12 playwrights took that theme in vastly different directions from throwing rocks in the woods, to writing screen plays, to the cheap plastic crap that fills dorm rooms across these United Sates.  I was so happy to be working director Adriana Baer again.  Congrats to all on all the good work.