On a night in early April, 2008, four radical law students find the President of the United States standing, apparently unguarded, outside the home of a high level bureaucrat in the nation’s capital. In an act of madness and bravado, they kidnap him and take him to the basement of their Georgetown brownstone where they hold the single most important trial of their lives.
The Contemporary Youth Arts Company presents the taut drama “The Trial of President George W. Bush” at the WVSU Capitol Center Theater, 123 Summers Street, Charleston, 8 pm, Thursday, April 10 with evening performances continuing April 11, 12, 17,18,19. The cast features Shane Belcher, Eli Cloonan, Nick Curnutte, Patrick Felton, Maria Fioravante, Courtney Forbes, Ben McCoy, Nik Tidquist, Kayla Walls, and Evan Wilson.
Tickets, available at the door, are $5.50 for students and seniors and $9.50 for adults.
The Contemporary Youth Arts Company of Charleston, WV, began 12 years ago as a place where artistic high school students, [mostly those who, due to schedule, talent or attitude were unable to work within the restrictions of local community theater,] would have a chance for hands-on experience on stage and in the creative process of bringing new performance pieces to the public. Little has changed, except for the constantly growing number of participants and performances annually. Working closely with Charleston-based playwright/director Dan Kehde, his wife, Penny and award winning composer Mark Scarpelli, teenagers and young adults have helped premiere over twenty new works from operas to dramas to comedies to touring social action plays while exploring, learning and participating in nearly all aspects of the process: as actors, assistant directors, lighting technicians, sound designers, stage managers, arrangers, choreographers, set designers and carpenters. An unfunded corporate subsidiary, [not a 501c3] CYAC relies solely on revenues generated by its productions, generally 6-8 main stage productions [running one-two weekends] plus performances of its four touring social actions plays: Love Is Not An Angry Thing; The Girls Room; Gone Tomorrow; Keeping Bobby Close.
In the past twelve months CYAC has produced
September-October 2006 Scarpelli & Kehde’s Musical Comedy “The Blob” [premiere]
November-December 2006 Scarpelli & Kehde’s seasonal classic “Mary” [tenth anniversary]
February-March 2007 “The Gettysburg Canon” a new drama by Dan Kehde [premiere]
March-April 2007 “A Service for Jeremy Wong” a drama by Dan Kehde [reprise]
April 2007 “Keeping Bobby Close” a new drama by Dan Kehde [premiere]
April-May 2007 Scarpelli and Kehde’s Infomusical “101 Ways” [reprise]
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